Tombstone Blues

"Tombstone Blues"
Song by Bob Dylan
from the album Highway 61 Revisited
Released August 30, 1965
Recorded July 29, 1965
Studio Columbia Studios, New York
Genre Garage rock[1]
Length 5:56
Label Columbia
Songwriter(s) Bob Dylan
Producer(s) Bob Johnston
Highway 61 Revisited track listing
9 tracks
Side one
  1. "Like a Rolling Stone"
  2. "Tombstone Blues"
  3. "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
  4. "From a Buick 6"
  5. "Ballad of a Thin Man"
Side two
  1. "Queen Jane Approximately"
  2. "Highway 61 Revisited"
  3. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
  4. "Desolation Row"

"Tombstone Blues" is the second track of Bob Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Musically it is influenced by the blues, while the lyrics are typical of Dylan's surreal style of the period, with such lines as "the sun's not yellow, it's chicken".

A live recording of the song, made for MTV in November 1994, was released on MTV Unplugged in 1995.

The song was performed by Marcus Carl Franklin and Richie Havens in I'm Not There, the film based on Dylan's life. The soundtrack version is performed solely by Havens. Two lines from the song, spoken by the "Commander in Chief" – "Death to all those who would whimper and cry" and "The sun's not yellow; it's chicken" – are spoken by a digitally manipulated Lyndon B. Johnson in another scene in the film.

Sheryl Crow performed the song on her live album Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live from Central Park alongside Eric Clapton, Chrissie Hynde, Keith Richards, Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan, and the Dixie Chicks.

Stephen King quotes from the song at the end of his first published novel Carrie. He uses the lines:

"Now I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you dear lady from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge".

And again quotes from the song with the line:

"you will not die, it's not poison"

in chapter eleven of the novel Gerald's Game.

Lyrics

The lyrics fit the surreal style of the era, while being scathing of society and authority. The song contains several direct and indirect allusions to biblical characters as well as historical references.[2] For instance to John the Baptist, to which Dylan dedicates four lines:

"John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”".[3]

References

  1. ↑ Highway 61 Revisited review at AllMusic by Stephen Thomas Erlewine. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
  2. ↑ "Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues Lyrics". SongMeanings. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  3. ↑ "Tombstone Blues | The Official Bob Dylan Site". bobdylan.com. Retrieved April 3, 2017.
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