Bob Dylan
John Wesley Harding

Signs.

Bobby Zimmermann died in a motorcycle accident in 1964.

Robert Allen Zimmermann always knew how to interpret signs and bend them to his needs. So, when he found himself in Rome (in the midst of his controversial conversion to Christianity), he came across the book by Keith and Ken Zimmermann about the life of Ralph Barger where Bobby's death was mentioned (“Ride Free. Live Free. Wild Biker Stories” by Ralph Barger, Keith Zimmerman, and Kent Zimmerman. Published in Italy by Dalai Editore), he read those names and immediately understood that it was a sign.

It was time to talk about that other motorcycle accident, the one that happened to Bob Dylan on July 29, 1966.

It was time to talk about the Transfiguration.

Robert knew it was a difficult concept, but he hoped that someone could understand. Soon, though, Robert realized, seeing the perplexed and vague expressions and listening to the – as usual silly and out of place – questions of the journalists he tried to explain these things to, that it was useless and, after a while, he stopped trying to tell the story. Of course: it's not like he told things in such a linear way.

But, in the end, we all know what happened.

On the morning of July 29, 1966, Bob Dylan died.

What you don't know is that it wasn't an accident: that morning, Bob Dylan was murdered.

Sara, who was following him by car, immediately realized what was happening: Robert had decided. She looked him in the eyes and they agreed.

Then they hurriedly contacted a certain Dr. Thaler, a friend of mutual friends, and locked themselves in his house to decide what to do. It took them 18 months to resolve the situation.

Robert had long had enough of Bob. He had become cumbersome. But even more unbearable were his fans.

Idiots.

No one had understood anything. Journalists, record labels, fans, they wanted the rebellious folksinger, the prophet with the guitar, the new Woody Guthrie, the minstrel of Duluth.

Duluth! But Bob was born in New York, in Greenwich Village in 1962 (ok, I know! Someone will say Minneapolis a couple of years earlier, but for me, that was just a namesake) and Robert had been in Duluth for less than seven years, but then he grew up in Hibbing. He didn't even remember what Duluth looked like.

It wasn't easy to create Bob Dylan. Robert had made various attempts: Eltson Gunn, Robert Allyn, Robert Dylan (just to mention the known ones) and, in the end, Bob came out really well. And now they wanted to cage him, sew a role onto him, make him an easily consumable product already with an expiration date on the label. It's all Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez’s fault (let's say it once and for all: it was mainly to impress them that he also took on the protest singer role, he was never so stupid as to consider the role – ridiculous! – of the new “Woody Guthrie”!). Then Joan's overwhelming presence pushed things in a certain direction. But he was a poet! He talked about something else and needed space and freedom, other music, and other words.

But people didn't understand, they didn't want to understand. They hated the electric trilogy and didn't even know why.

However, Bob continued to be a myth, a star. Everyone wanted a piece of Bob, everyone claimed the right to get involved in his life. They hounded him, followed him, spied on him.

Just saying, a few days before he had found them on his roof. A couple of those idiots had climbed onto his roof and were walking on it. Sara and the children were scared.

And Bob couldn’t stand this situation anymore, it had become unmanageable. He argued with everyone: journalists, record labels, musicians, the public. And then, the drugs. Robert, after all, just wanted a somewhat quieter life, but Bob wouldn't allow it.

So, when Bob fell off that motorcycle, Robert realized that his chance had come. But you don’t rid yourself of Bob Dylan that easily. He had to be replaced.

Here, the story of Bobby Zimmermann and the Transfiguration would emerge. But, damn it, it's really complicated, you end up in Metaphysics and Theology. I mean, I read what Robert says, tried to understand him, but – I confess – I understood little.

I am more interested in the issue of the second chance. Because that's what it's about: having a second chance. Dying and being reborn, reviving from one's ashes. With Dylan everything becomes Myth.

It took 18 months to be reborn. A long silence, a long gestation. The music press invented everything. Today we know, thanks to the publication of the “Basement Tapes”, how they built the new Dylan. But back then, they didn’t know. Just silence. A long, deafening silence. And in the end, “John Wesley Harding” emerged.

John, the son of a preacher, who had already killed 5 people by the age of 15, who spent 17 years in jail and, when he got out, became a lawman (but remained a murderer and a troublemaker) and was reached by the bullet with his name on it in a bar, while drinking with a prostitute. He was 43. He ran free across the Prairie.

Like Bobby, the biker, who came off his bike in '64, he too sought freedom by running. And he would have wanted a second chance.

And there would be little else to say about this album if it weren’t (after all it was Dylan) that the press and public went wild over it. And then with the cover hiding the faces of the Beatles, and who were those two Bengalis and that gardener in the photo? Why in b&w? And “what is this? Country!”. Country the music of the most conservative part of the Americans. No, it's Root (!). And where is the folk-rock? Jimi will show you next year where the rock is on this album! And Robertson saying that during those 18 months Bobby hadn't played any of those songs (when had he composed them?), and why only, just, those two musicians there? And – hear, hear – his name was John Wesley Hardin, Hardin! Without the “g”. What's with the “g”? God! John Wesley Hardin, JWH Jehowah….

And Robert smiled slyly, his King James Bible on his lap, around him '67 turning into '68. The world spun madly, and he was far away. He was among those who had started the fire and now, that the flames raged, he turned the other way.

Yet, after so many years of listening to this album, after wearing out the vinyl, for me “John Wesley Harding” is still shrouded in mystery.

For example, religion. Dylan has always been a "religious" author, a prophet imbued with Judaism, but here there is a deep Christianity. The Christianity of the King James Bible, the one where you read "breasts" and "menstruous woman", the one of public preachers, the one of Sunday sermons. A Christianity from Deep America, the Christianity of Bobby Zimmermann.

But the thing that shocks me every time, every single time, that I listen to it is the VOICE. That voice. That voice is not his, it is different. They say “he sang like that in the beginning”, they cite the “Karen Wallace Tape or S.t. Paul tape” (even the “John Bucklen Tapes” from '58), but I repeat to you: it is not his voice.

It is Bobby’s.

Robert stares at the journalist and explains that Bob is gone, that if he could, he would still shake his hand and try to be his friend, now, but it is no longer possible. But the journalist is more surprised by the fact that he is not insulting or mocking him, than by what he is hearing.

He is wrong.

He should listen more closely. He is Robert Zimmerman. He is the man who killed Bob Dylan.

(The interview that very loosely inspired this review is by Mikal Gilmore, titled “Rolling Stone Interviews Bob Dylan”, published in Rolling Stone Magazine USA)