Beyond Mr Tambourine Man: 80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
This classification of Dylan as a political troubadour is borne out as recently as last yearâs Murder Most Foul, his rumination on the Kennedy assassination and what he sees as its ripple effect on America up to the present day. This epic narrative may be driven by Dylanâs apocalyptic account of the JFK killing but the state of the nation almost 60 years later in the Trump era is its bubbling subtext. America, its history and sprawling geography, has been central to Dylan as poet and songmaker.
In a sense he came full circle with Murder Most Foul. He had already addressed Americaâs president of hope and promise in I Shall be Free in 1963 on The Freewheelinâ Bob Dylan and in an interview, looking back on events in Dallas in November of that year, called it the moment when things went âhaywireâ. His timing with Murder Most Foul - in the middle of a global pandemic, a chaotic and dangerous presidency and racial turbulence in his homeland - was yet another