Bob Dylan has just dropped ‘Murder Most Foul,’ his first original song in 8 years

Bob Dylan surprised a locked-down world with a new song a few minutes after the stroke of midnight on Friday morning. The new epic, “Murder Most Foul,” is the first original song that he’s put out since 2012.

The 17-minute opus — the longest song Dylan has ever recorded — is ostensibly about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and borrows its title from another bard. In Act 1 of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a ghost remarks to the protagonist: “Murder most foul, as in the best it is / But this most foul, strange and unnatural.”

Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” arrives at a most strange and unnatural time in American history, as the coronavirus has brought life as we knew it to a sudden halt. It speaks to the present moment by addressing a tragedy that stopped the nation in its tracks on Nov. 22, 1963.

The song is a hazy mood piece in which the singer’s raspy whisper is accompanied by piano, violin, and barely-there drums. It takes its sweet time as he puts forth an elegiac, apocalyptic vision. The lyrics reference people and events in pop culture during the tumultuous years that followed Kennedy’s death.

He’s singing about then, but could be singing about now. “What’s new pussycat, what’d I say?” he asks, nodding to Tom Jones and Ray Charles. “I said the soul of a nation been torn away / And that it’s beginning to go into slow decay / And that it’s 36 hours past Judgment Day.”

“Murder Most Foul” is not newly written. In a note on his web site, 78-year-old Dylan thanked fans “for your support and loyalty across the years” and said “this is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting.”

When might “a while back” have been? It’s hard to say. Six decades into his career, Dylan remains a mystery man.

It’s a good guess that it dates from sessions for 2012’s Tempest, Dylan’s last set of original songs. That album’s title song also referenced Shakespeare and was also an extraordinarily long saga based on a historical event — in that case, the sinking of the Titanic.

“Murder Most Foul” is far superior. If Dylan did wait this this long to let the song loose, it would be in keeping with his sometimes perverse decision making. The brilliant “Blind Willie McTell” was left off 1983‘s Infidels, another example of withholding stellar material.

His fans can be thankful Dylan chose to put out “Murder Most Foul” now because it gives hibernating listeners something to obsess over in the weeks to come.

The song is dark and foreboding, but also fun to puzzle through as it grows more mystical and allusive, rattling off rhymes invoking singers and performers dear to Dylan’s heart. Etta James, Charlie Parker, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Nat King Cole, and Wolfman Jack all get shout-outs.

For Dylan nerds like me, there are subtleties to suss out. “Play it for Carl Wilson, too / Looking far, far away down Gower Avenue,” is a nod to the late, great, Warren Zevon’s “Desperados Under The Eaves,” for which Beach Boy Carl Wilson sang backup vocals.

I patted myself on the back for figuring that one out. You couldn’t stump me, Bob!