Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. Bob Dylan was a musical genius and one of the greatest songwriters of all time. He didn't follow leaders. He chased that thin, wild mercury sound. He never looked back. Even as the times changed, and as the times changed, Bob Dylan changed. He tried on and discarded identities like they were mass. He transformed. He transfigured in somewhere along the way, the Bob Dylan that
you thought you knew died. This is his story once again. This is Dr Ed Sailor here at my home in Middletown, New York, reporting on the patient Robert Zimmerman, a k a. Bob Dylan. It is August seventh, ninety six, day ten. As it were, Bob is finally going home today backwood Stock. I don't foresee any longstanding physical problems resulting from his crash, but I have requested that he seeks some help for
what seems to be some mental distress. I shall continue to check in on Bob, but right now I'm happy he's in good health, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Change. That's what we've been talking about all this time. That's all we've ever talked about. Trees grow tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up, and flowers die. New people are born every day. Life doesn't stop. Sometimes things can change in an instant, a gunshot to the head, a
man losing control of a motorbike. But sometimes things can take years to change, even when there is no change that itself can bring about. Change, a lack of change in the world can change a person. It can make them bitter and disillusioned, it can ruin them. Transfiguration is change. As I've grown older, I've realized that as I've moved through these lives, I've taken a bit of each of them. They have informed me in some way. But you're never
through with this. Change never stops the times they are changing, and all the rest of those so called voice of a generation words from so many generations ago. There's always another day, another sunrise, more ideas, more conversation, more blood on the tracks. Chapter ten, Bob Dylan's Restless Farewell. I have a confession to make. I've been I've been lying to you. I said some things that just aren't true, but I had my reasons. Little Richard, Dad, last week,
I'm so aggrieved. He was my shining star, the guiding light, back when I was only a little boy. His was the original spirit that moved me to do everything I would do. So what am I supposed to do? Now? Trees grow, tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up, and flowers die. One of the first songs I ever wrote was about little Richard. Go and look for it and you'll find it. It was in high school with a buddy of mine. We recorded it in my old house at my mother's piano.
That was so long ago, so long I wasn't even born yet. Now Little Richard is no longer here. It's like a part of my life has gone to transfiguration has change. Death is everywhere in this world right now. It lingers around the corner. It waits silently. I can feel it wherever I go. But you know, like I keep saying, death isn't always the end. There's always another day. Sometimes it's the start. Transfiguration can take many different forms.
Sometimes something can happen and later you process it, you incorporated into a new life. If you don't understand that by now, then you haven't been listening closely enough. The way I feel about little Richard reminds me how I felt the nineteen sixty three when someone else passed. I remember running up the stairs of our old apartment building on Avenue B. I was shouting, shouting at the top of my lungs. Is it true? Is it true? Deep down I knew it was true, of course, I just
didn't want to believe it never stops. I crashed into our apartment and saw Susie, my girlfriend at the time, sitting on our old rickety couch, with her sister Carla. Carla lived with us, and usually we didn't get along, but that day it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I yelled at them to put the TV on. Carla clicked the old black and white box on nothing some crummy soap opera. What's wrong, she asked, But before I could answer, the
soap opera fell silent, and old Cronkite's voice appeared. He didn't even have a camera on him, just his voice in the blackness of the screen. He said words that I'll never forget. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade. The first reports say the president had been seriously wounded. I froze up. We all did. The world outside seemed to stop too. For the first time in its history, New York City just ground to
a halt. Moments later, Cronkite was back on the screen, showing us images, such awful images, the gunshot to the head. I've seen them a thousand times since, from different angles, different portrayals, with different opinions imprinted on them. But these days, when I look back, whenever I think about what happened that day, I see that little black and white TV screen.
It's the image that resonates most. I can see it now, the shot going into his head, plume of red on the other side, flesh and bone on the back of the car, the way his wife crawled after it. Sometimes things can change in an instant. God, it was so shocking. If I had known what I was going to see that day, I would have walked out of there straight away. But then again, maybe not. I've never shied away from change, you know that, And for good or bad, this was change.
I stuck to that TV for days. I didn't leave the apartment. Carla kept crying, Susie kept crying. I kept crying. It felt like any sense of hope we'd had, any sense of freedom, any sense of change was gone, gone in an instant. Fear seemed to rise out of it. All. Everything about it was endless speculation, the questions, the morning funeral, the whole country tree. No, the whole world was cast into purgatory. Trees grow tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up,
and flowers die. It affected me, of course, how could it not. I felt the sense that I had to react to it. So I wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote on that old couch. I wrote with the black and white TV flickering in front of me. It became my candle light. I tried to get my feelings down about it, but I couldn't. I just I couldn't make it right. I couldn't process it. All I could see was the blood, the flesh, Jackie, the gunshot to the head. It wasn't like real life. It was like
a movie. It was melodramatic, tasteless, grotesque, A man losing control. After two days of trying to write and fail, I threw the pen down and cried as they replayed the whole bloody scene again on the TV. I didn't know where to go. It was like the world we knew had died and we were moving into something completely new. Life doesn't stop. I couldn't make sense of it. It's now fifty seven years later. I'm thinking about that day all over again as I walk up the stairs of
Sound City Studio and Van Nuys. A new year is upon us, but it's under threat from a virus, or so they say. But I'm not thinking about that today. No, I'm concentrating on my music, one song in particular. I walked into the large performance room and sit in front of a microphone. Let battle commence, I muttered to myself. Change never stops. A call from the control booth asks if I'm ready. The whole band it is in front of me. There's tension in the air, but that's good
when you're making a record. They asked me again from the booth if I'm ready for a take. I closed my eyes in reply, Just give me a minute. With my eyes closed, I can see it again, the black and white TV, old Cronkite, the car Jackie, the blood rivers dry up. That voice from the control booth asks again if I'm ready or if I need to take five. I'm okay, I'm ready to go, I tell him. I opened my eyes and look at the lyric page in front of me. It starts with A dark day in Dallas, November.
The band starts, and instantly I feel like I'm singing for that other person, that little boy who had almost forgotten, sitting on that old sofa under the flicker of the TV in New York, trying to write down what he just witnessed right through with this. Seventeen minutes later, as the final notes of the song ring out, I feel like it's finally over, like I've processed it all. The song was Murder Most Foul. It would be my first number one single as a solo artist, my first number
one ever at seventy nine years of age. I guess change is always possible, regardless of age or time. That's what we've been talking about all this time. Looking back now, it's hard to say what the world would be like without that murder. That day with JFK changed everything. But like I said, when there is no change, that's when things can get ugly, and things were about to get ugly. I only lied to protect myself to make a change. Otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you now. Do you
understand I'm pissed? You've seen the news. It's sickened me to tell you the truth. When I saw it, I don't know. It was beyond ugly. I pray that justice is swift. I've been singing about this stuff for so long now, the stuff in the news years, I've been singing about it, and it never changes. When there's no change, ugly things happen. How can I explain this to you? I guess to really understand what I'm trying to get at, we have to go back, but not to look at
our past. We have to go back to our past to understand our future generations ago. What's past is prologue. You can thank Bill Shakespeare for that. If we keep making the same mistakes, well hell, we're all doomed and we might be. You know, any minute now. The world could explode because we never learned. Look. On February eight, William Zantzinger walks into the seventeen story Emerson Hotel in downtown Baltimore. Yeah, I got his name right this time.
Zantzinger is the son of a Maryland state politician. He himself is a pretty successful guy too. He's a tobacco farmer by trade, but he's also one of those socialite types He moves with a cold, brutal confidence, a kind only the young and successful possess. He's dressed smartly for a ball, and despite being young, he is already rich. Heren's enough money to do whatever the hell he wants in life. Trees grow tall, His fingertips are yellowed and
nicotine stained. His finger nails are full of dirt, completely out of place with his pristine suit. You can tell, despite his money, he doesn't quite fit in here. He walks through the large brass doors under the huge hotel canopy with a smile plastered all over his face. He checks his coat at the lobby, but he holds onto his cane. He twirls it around his fingers as he surveys the hotel's interior. By the time he leaves the
hotel that day, he will have killed someone. Fifty seven years later in Minneapolis, in my home state of Minnesota, it's the evening of May. Officer Derek Chauvin's radio crackles to life. He answers it and heads to the intersection of Chicago Avenue in East Street. Chauvin is an officer who has been with the department for over eighteen years. He carries with him eighteen complaints from the Minnesota Police Department's internal affairs, there is no change. By the time
he ends his shift, he will have killed someone. Back in nineteen sixty three, at the Emerson Hotel, Spinster's Ball is well underway. The famous Howard Lannon orchestra plays as Zantzinger drinks. Pretty soon he's pretty drunk. He's having the time of his life, hollering, laughing, throwing jokes around the usual. When a waitress comes to deliver him yet more whiskey, he taps her lightly on the back with his cane, grinning as he does. I guess it's his way of
saying thanks. Que. Later, he moves to the dance floor, spinning his wife around, and as the music ramps up, the sweat pours off a zance singer faster faster as he goes. His wife tries to slow him down. I'm freda stare, he shouts. New people are born every day now. I don't know because I wasn't there, but I'm willing to bed. He wasn't moving like Freda Stare. After spinning around, he drops to the floor. Hard. Life doesn't stop. A
bell hop runs over to help him up. But zan singer shoves him then hits him hard with his cane. After that, he jumps up and strolls to the side of the dance floor, looks over to the bar and decides to have another drink. Back in Minneapolis, May PM officer Derek Chauvin and his partner Too Thou arrive in their square vodka outside a grocery store called Cup Foods. They're informed by other police officers at the scene that a man has just purchased cigarettes, but a store employee
believes he used a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. Chauvin is now the senior ranking official and he instantly takes control. He sees a fellow officer struggling to get the suspect into the police car, while someone behind them films the whole scene on their cell phone. Sometimes things can change in an instant. It's footage the entire world will end up scene. Chauvin joins the struggle. After a few minutes, the suspect is on the deck surrounded by blue shirts.
He's faced down, struggling. He's clearly in distress, but they keep him down. He pulls his head up and shouts, I can't breathe that's what we've been talking about all the time. He says that another sixteen times in the next five minutes. In Baltimore, Zantzinger strides up to the bar and pounds on it, looking to be served. Standing across from him as a waitress just finishing up another order a whiskey, he says loudly. The waitress asks him to wait a moment. Zant Singer's eyes narrow and his
lips curl up. Excuse me, he barks. Words then tumble from his mouth, ones that I wouldn't care to repeat now. Words that can scorn and shame a person, words that can ridicule and damage anyone. Things can change in an instant. But that's not enough for him. He leans over and raises his cane above his head. He brings it down hard, and it lands on the skin and bone of the waitress. When he connects with force. He draws the cane back and does it again and again and again. A man
losing control. The waitress collapses once again. Zantzinger is sweating in Minneapolis outside cup Foods. Officer Chauvin has his knee over the suspect's neck. Another officer radios for a code to assistance for a non medical emergency, but when they see blood coming from the suspect's mouth, they upgrade it to a Code three. By the time the ambulance reaches the scene, the suspect is unresponsive. In Baltimore, Zantzinger isn't done. When his wife tries to calm him down, she ends
up on the floor. He screams and shouts as the orchestra Howard Lennon plays on the waitresses in the back room, her face flooded with tears. An ambulance is on its way, but it won't be able to help her. She will die. Just hours later. In Minneapolis, the susp act with the supposedly fake twenty dollar bill is pronounced dead in a hospital soon after he arrives there in an ambulance. His name was George Floyd. Her name was Hattie Carroll. What do they both have in common? The color of their skin?
How long have I been singing about this ship? Bitter, disillusioned? How long has this been going on? For? Will this ever change? And never through with this? A large part of my work has revolved around this stuff and for what for there to be no change? And people wonder why I gave up my finger pointing songs. This is what happens when change doesn't occur. We'll be right back after this word were word, I have to confess. It's finally time for you to know what happened that day,
how all of this began, Why all this began? This is the truth. Truth. It's a funny thing these days. You can take the truth and make it fluid. Mark Twain once said, a lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots. And sure, I've lied, I've lied to you before, but what are you gonna do? That's life. I talk out both sides of my mouth, and what you here depends on which side you're standing. Things can change in an instant.
The only truth in the world is that there isn't any don't blame me for that. But I never changed the truth completely, never made it void of form, never distorted it beyond all recognition. I bent it, invented it. It still had truth at the core. I used truth. I used truth for change, and I used the truth to change. Change never stops. So listen up. This is the truth. Remember when I first started talking to you. The thing that brought this all on. That's all we've
ever talked about. The crash I had on my bike. I told you about how I ended up at Dr Saylor's house, right. I was riding on my motorbike and I ended up flat on the pavement in Woodstock, Remember the crash that almost killed me. Transfiguration is changed. I told you I left my manager's house. I'd gone there to get my bike and take it home. Sarah, my wife at the time, she was with me. That's all true. I left on the bike and she followed me home
in the are. When she found me minutes later, I was all beaten up on the road, left half dead by a crash, my neck in a state, my legs crooked, my head having taken a whack. New people are born every day. It was the sun that did it. That and the oil on the road and the breaks of the bike. They all put me on the pavement that day. But then again, maybe not. Let me tell you what really happened. Let me tell you what really happened on that day in Woodstock, the day that Bob Dylan died.
And hey, don't just take my word for it, take the word of everyone you've met during our time together. Let me explain. Actually, let Lucky Wilbury explain. He's seen it all happen, he knows the score. Tell him, Lucky. The Willberry people are not liar, so I'll be straight with you. Like I said, I'd gone to Albert's house to get my motorbike and a j S five hundred that previously belonged to Rambling Jack Elliott. That's wrong. There was a triumph. I don't think it was. Are you
questioning me? I'm a help. We know, ad Bice. Okay, okay, sorry, it was a triumph to one hundred. Yes, a triumph T one hundred. Thanks. I got onto the bike that day with Sarah just behind me in the car. I gave her a nod, and then I set off as fast as I could man the road. I remember what it was like to be free. It was like drinking and fine glass of whiskey. It was pure joy. It felt like anything could happen in that moment. I remind myself of that these days. It helps me remember how
you can feel. I shot down the hill, the wind billowing around me. I was like an arrow cutting through it. It felt like the spirit of the Lord was with me, looking back now. It was the very same feeling I had in that hotel room in Tucson when Jesus had appeared in front of me. Faster and faster I went. It felt like the first time I met Woody got Frey. It was a thrill. I've been toring and working for so long at that time, I had almost forgotten what
it was like to be free. The thrill of actually having a feeling you've been searching for so long, having that watch over you was exhilarating. I suddenly thought to myself, this is what I've been missing. This freedom. Freedom, Yes, freedom, There's no freedom like the freedom of riding the beast.
I felt so lost, though I knew that after this ride, this single little ride, I'd be back to it, back to the tours, back to the sessions, back to the less goddamn questions, back to the grind bless of the goddamn please. I felt like this was the only slice of freedom might get for a long time. Then it suddenly hit me, out of nowhere, I realized I could change. It suddenly occurred to me what transfiguration could offer me. This is your way out, I thought, this is your escape.
There was no oils. Slip oil slicks can't tumble a triumph anyway. I wasn't drunk, and it wasn't the black springs. There was no sun in my eyes either. It was just me, me making a decision to get out, to end it all. Two transfigure. The universe gave me an opportunity on that road, and I took it. Anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Christ was raised from the dead. He cannot die again. Death no longer
has mastery over him dead. I saw the road stretching out ahead, and I pushed down hard on the accelerator, and then I steered hard to the right. I knew if I made it feel like it was real, then it would be real. There's always another day. The bike's getted. Dropping to the side, I heard metal crunch against the asphalt. Spark flashed past my eyes, and smoke rose up from the tires. There was this awful screeching sound. Then it happened, another sunrise. I was thrown off up into the air.
I went, the bike spinning out in front of me down the road. I felt like I hung there for a second, and then I dropped. I could feel my stomach churn. It danced like a cart wheel. As I hit the ground with a thud, leaves fall, rivers dry up. I landed on my side and I felt pain course through me, but on my face there was a smile. To be honest, the fall wasn't bad. Sure it was painful, but not too bad. I lay there on the road looking up at the sky. It looked so vast, I
felt so small. I felt part of something bigger, bigger than myself, bigger than just one man. Change never stops. Then there was silence. I felt at peace for the first time in years. Look, I was burnt out. If I had continued like that, If I had continued as that Bob Dylan, so called Voice of a Generation, mh the one everyone knew, I would have died. And I don't mean I would have died and then been reborn,
I mean dead in the cold, hard ground routing. Instead, I became something new and kept applying that every step of the way, life isn't about finding yourself, It's about inventing yourself. That woodstock asphalt witnessed the end of a life, but the beginning of a new one. And that is the truth. Well that's my story. And I'm sticking to it for now anyway. Officer Christie Bubble stands on Second Avenue in Long Branch, New Jersey. The rain pommels against
the road as she walks. The water drips off her hat, causing a mini waterfall right before her eyes. The sky above her is gray. Even though it's daytime, it feels like the dead of night. Officer Bubble is alone and can already feel the familiar mixed feeling of fear and adrenaline rising in her body. It always feels like this when she's working alone in this job. You never know what it's about to happen or who you're about to
come across. She moves slowly, walking around the deserted residential neighborhood, scanning the streets as she does. Her eyes fall on an alley between two houses. The Atlantic Ocean looms in the background. She sees a hooded figure. She knows it's him. It's the man operator had received a call about only twenty minutes ago, the man that had been walking around this neighborhood acting suspiciously. He fits the description. Older male,
possibly homeless, stressed in a hooded coat. He stands with his back to her unconcerned by the rain, she advances slowly. In one hand she carries her flashlight while the other lingers just off her hip. Through the rain and gray light. She calls out, sir, and there's no reply in her hand moves closer to her hip as she calls again, sir. The hooded man's back is turned to her and he's not moving. Her flashlight darts to both of his hands, and she asked the man to turn around. Slowly, she
grits her teeth. And this is the bit she hates the most, the bit where you don't know what it is it's going to happen. Despite being twenty two years old and a relatively new officer, she's seen this moment what seems to be a thousand times before. She begins to once again ask the man to turn around, when suddenly starts to slowly turn. Her hand now touches the butt of her gun, and the rain is soaking her through, but she still remains stoic in her approach. The figure
turns around and she finally relaxes under arrest. Yes, the rain nearly drowning out his words. No, She tells him it's fine. She just has a few questions and the man is silent. She tells them they received a report of a man looking into some houses, moving suspiciously. She asked the man his name, shining her torch on his face. She always asked her names straight away, helps get people on her side as quickly as possible to build a relationship. For the first time, the man's eyes meet her eyes
and she can see them clearly through the rain. Blue, tired but full of wisdom, he wipes the rain off his face. I'm Bob Dylan. Five minutes later, the man calling him off. Bob Dylan sits in the back of Officer bubbles squad car. Her training is kicked in and she is questioning him from the front seat. She asked if Bob Dylan is his real name or if he has another. In her mind races maybe he's playing a character.
Maybe he thinks he's actually Bob Dylan. Her train of thought is interrupted by the man in the back seat. There's a lot of other names, lots of things have been called, too many to mention and many to remember, and all honesty. Officer Bubble sticks with Bob. She asked him why he was wandering around rain. He tells Bubble that today is a day off from his tour and that he wanted to use that day to walk through a different neighborhood. It's become a hobby of his, escaping
the grind of the road and experiencing normal life. Bubble now convinced he's not a threat to anyone, and again remembering her training, No, she has to get the man back to the house or facility that he came from. Are you staying anywhere, Bob? She askes? House, hospital, hotel, and the man stares out the window. A hotel, a hotel by the ocean. Bubble drives while the man in the back seat directs her. He talks and talks and talks. He mentioned songs, people and houses. He talks of homes
he has in London, California, in New York. Bubble asks if he has a house in this neighborhood. Shakes his head. I saw a house of the for sale sign, he says, I don't know, I just wanted to check it out. Bubble feels a sudden sadness for the man in the back of the car. He soaked, he's exhausted, he looks like he's lived a thousand lies. But it's still searching for something. He reminds her of her grandfather. It's just here,
he says, pointing to a large hotel. As Bubble drives into the Spring Lake Hotel parking lot, fully expecting this to not be the place the man is staying, she radios for assistance. She requests a six eighteen a check on all the local hospitals and facilities to see if any patient is missing. She pulls her car around to the front of the building, and as she does catches sight of four huge tour buses parked to the left
of the entrance. She stops the car in silence. The man in the back seat ruffles his stringy, curly mop of hair, and she realizes what has happened. She takes a beat before picking up her radio again. Cancel last requests, she says. Bob Dylan steps out of the cop car. His manager, looking sick with worry, is already arguing with
the police officer. Bob Dylan, however, is uninterested. He strolls to the edge of the sidewalk, noticing that the rain is stopped and the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, and for the first time that day, he feels it on his face. It's a feeling he's felt somewhere else, a feeling he's felt as someone else. A sense of freedom, a sense of getting out of a place that confined him,
that strangled him. He closes his eyes and then remembers it's the same feeling he had all those years ago after that crash, the same feeling he had when he left the house of Dr. Ed Taylor in Middletown, New York. The same sense of freedom. That feeling he had as he walked down the path leaving the doctor's house after spending what felt like years recovering there. That same feeling was back here as he stood outside this hotel. Bob Dylan pushes his head up towards the sun and once
again feels reborn. Bids farewell and does not give a damn behind him. He's left multiple lives, many souls, and so much blood on the Tracks. Blood on the Tracks produced by Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. It's hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan. Also executive used by Brady sath Zeth Lundie is lead editor and producer. This episode was written by Ben Burrow, story and copy editing by Pat Healey, Mixing and sound designed
by Colin Fleming. Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This episode featured Chris Anzeloni is Bob Dylan. Sources for this episode are available at double Elvis dot com on the Blood in the Tracks series page, follow Double Elvis on Instagram at double Elvis and on Twitch at s Graceland Talks, and you can talk to me per Usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land Pod, rock and Roll, or Dead