The number one single Bob Dylan has never performed live
Anyone even remotely curious about the ins and outs of songwriting needs to study what Bob Dylan has already achieved. From his solo work as a humble folk songwriter to one of the defining figures in rock and roll history, Dylan’s template for writing one classic song after the next has left its mark on any other songsmith that has come after him, from The Beatles to Tom Petty. Although he may be able to make his greatest strides in the studio, there are still a handful of classics that have never met the stage.
Then again, there are too many songs to count that would need to be included in a traditional concert setlist. Throughout his career, his clever sense of wordplay, along with bulletproof melodies, have guided him through the most turbulent years of the 1960s, often reshaping the rock landscape whenever he walked into the studio. When an artist builds up that big of a discography, there are a few that stand out more than others.
Throughout Dylan’s career, there are songs from his highly-acclaimed albums like Blonde on Blonde and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that have never been given a debut in a concert setting. Although it would be easy to look at the massive holes in the setlist across his career, one song left conspicuously absent from his shows is his first number-one hit.
For his first album in years, Rough and Rowdy Ways saw Dylan entering a new phase in his career. Having weathered every facet of rock and roll history, the latest release saw Mr. Zimmerman take on an angle where the album’s poetry came first. Regardless of the bluesy and occasionally jazzy music going on underneath, the forefront of every song is the vocal, as Dylan paints vivid pictures of his state of mind on tracks like ‘I Contain Multitudes’.
While it’s never clear whether these songs are character portraits or Dylan himself, the album closer, ‘Murder Most Foul’, felt like an epic poem being spread out over 16 minutes. Being well outside the confines of a normal single, the depiction of the death of President John F. Kennedy and the dark shadow it cast over the rest of the world became the songwriter’s first song to top the charts, peaking at number one on the US Rock Digital Song Sales chart for Billboard.
The song also features acclaimed singer-songwriter Fiona Apple on backing vocals as well, bringing a sense of tenderness to Dylan’s trademark growl. While most artists would be celebrating getting their first major hit in years, the rock legend didn’t draw any attention to the song on the stage, never once putting it in the setlist.
For any other band, playing a hit that garnered this much success would be a no-brainer, but ‘Murder Most Foul’ is a song more nuanced than what a live setting can provide. Never mind its crushing length, the song involves many different musical evolutions, with Dylan changing his tone of voice in certain spots to put the right amount of venom into lines about the idealised America slowly slipping away.
Although Dylan could easily milk the fact that he got his first number-one hit decades after his prime, ‘Murder Most Foul’ is more like a museum piece than a proper song. The stage might be a chance to showcase one’s best material, but there’s a good chance that no one can top this studio performance.
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