Bob Dylan has just released a new song, and it is a powerful one.
It is also quite long, lasting over 15 minutes.
The song is called "Murder Most Foul," and it is about the Kennedy assassination. That is the "Murder Most Foul" that he is talking about.
Yet, it is also about a whole lot more than that. Like many people seem to have observed, Dylan recognizes that this singular event appears to have been a turning point in American history. Prior to that, everything seemed to be going favorably in the United States, to the point that it stood in a unique place in world history. No nation or empire enjoyed quite the privileged status that Americans enjoyed in the so-called "Golden Age" of the United States in the post-war years, particularly in the 1950's and very early 1960's, right up the the Kennedy assassination.
Indeed, Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living of any country in the world. Hell, of any country that had ever existed. It was the envy of the world, and the most powerful and influential nation culturally, politically, economically, and militarily. It was far from a perfect society, to be sure. There was racial segregation, particularly in the Jim Crow South. There was a level of conformity and blind belief and obedience to government and other authority figures, that it could make life stifling. And there were problems also with economic inequality, too much military spending, and the seemingly constant threat of nuclear war, as these were also the days of the Cold War.
However, ironically, besides all of that, things were generally good. The United States was a respected, even possibly a revered, nation in the world. It was considered a legitimate leader, and the future seemed limitless with possibilities. There was little doubt that the United States was well placed to face the future, and again, that future looked bright.
What the hell happened?
Well, the Kennedy assassination felt like the first pull on a string that has since seemingly been completely undone. We look at images now of what the country was before the Kennedy assassination, and it is almost unrecognizable. It feels almost like a foreign country altogether. There are things about that country that are almost hard to believe.
It was the Kennedy assassination that served as the singular event that, it seems increasingly clear made a mighty empire fall. To be sure, it did not happen all at once and, for that matter, is not yet perhaps even complete. But looking at the United States now, as a country riddled with all sorts of problems and incredible challenges that it is actually unclear that it can or will pull together to hurdle, it seems quite apparent that the former unity and positive faith in the country is a relic from an increasingly distant era that we can hardly relate to.
If there existed a sense of togetherness and purpose to overcome mutually shared challenged back then, it has since gone away. It feels now like there are two countries within the United States, and they are increasingly at odds with one another. In fact, it sometimes feels like they cannot even coexist, and more and more people (one-third, according to a recent poll) believe that there will be a second civil war here in the United States. That the country is on a crash course to catastrophe, in other words.
Greed has taken precedence over everything else. It is the reason why Americans cannot even seem to muster a unified response to this whole coronavirus catastrophe. It is the reason why tens of millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare, and why tens of millions more have inadequate healthcare. It is the reason why we keep electing so-called "leaders" who deny scientific facts, and that is why even the existence of the climate change catastrophe to come is a political debate here in the United States, far more than it is anywhere else in the world.
Many people, both on the right and the left, view Kennedy as a great president. In many ways, he was the last president that people both on the right and the left can agree was a great and unifying leader for this country. And when he was gunned down on the streets of Dallas, something in the country changed, and it was not for the better. And if the problem came into existence then, it has only grown since, become almost like a cancer. As a country, we increasingly turned to distractions, and grew less and less serious, and this is something that Dylan addresses in this beautiful and very thought-provoking song.
Take a listen, read the lyrics. See if you are not also moved by this latest Dylan song, which feels like a throwback to an earlier era of Bob Dylan, as well.
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