Wikipedia article
'"John Wesley Harding"' is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that appears as the opening track on his 1967 album of the same name.
Writing and recording
Dylan told Jann Wenner in a 1969 'Rolling Stone' interview that the song "started out to be a long ballad. I was gonna write a ballad on ... like maybe one of those old cowboy ... you know, a real long ballad. But in the middle of the second verse, I got tired. I had a tune, and I didn't want to waste the tune; it was a nice little melody, so I just wrote a quick third verse, and I recorded that."[Wenner, Jann. "Interview with Jann S. Wenner," 'Rolling Stone', November 29, 1969, in ] Biographer Clinton Heylin states that Dylan has had a well-documented interest in outlaw cowboys, including Jesse James and Billy the Kid, and in the past Dylan has said that his favorite folk song was "John Hardy", whose real-life title character in 1893 murdered another man over a game of craps. John Wesley Hardin was another late-19th century outlaw.[ Dylan has stated that he chose John Wesley Hardin for his protagonist over other badmen because his name "[fit] in the tempo" of the song.][ Dylan added the g to the end of Hardin's name by mistake.]
The song was recorded in two takes on November 6, 1967, in Studio A of Columbia Music Row Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Both of these were considered for the album, but the second take was ultimately chosen.[
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Themes
Dylan has said that he did not have a clear notion of what the song was about.[ He told Cameron Crowe in 1985 that after recording the 'John Wesley Harding' album, he "didn't know what to make of it. ... So I figured the best thing to do would be to put out the album as quickly as possible, call it 'John Wesley Harding' because that was the one song that I had no idea what it was about, why it was even on the album. So I figured I'd call the album that, call attention to it, make it something special..."][ It was the only title that he considered for the album.][ He told a 'Newsweek' interviewer in 1969 that the songs on his country 'Nashville Skyline' album: "These are the type of songs that I always felt like writing. The songs reflect more of the inner me than the songs of the past. They're more to my base than, say, 'John Wesley Harding'. There I felt like everyone expected me to be a poet so that's what I tried to be."][Reprinted in ]
Cover versions
"John Wesley Harding" has been covered by McKendree Spring on their 1969 eponymous album, as well as Tom Russell and Wesley Willis.
Notes
References
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