The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest

File:Charlie McCoy03.JPG

Dylan's seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde, was released in June 1966.{{cite web |url=https://www.bjorner.com/DSN01225%20(66).htm |title=Still on the Road: 1966 Blonde on Blonde recording sessions and world tour |last=Björner |first=Olof |website=About Bob|access-date=August 22, 2022 |archive-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220605143326/http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01225%20%2866%29.htm |url-status=live }}{{Cite web|date=May 27, 2012|last=Beviglia|first=Jim|title='The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest' by Bob Dylan|url=https://americansongwriter.com/the-ballad-of-frankie-lee-and-judas-priest-by-bob-dylan/|access-date=April 26, 2021|website=American Songwriter|language=en-US|archive-date=April 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426141103/https://americansongwriter.com/the-ballad-of-frankie-lee-and-judas-priest-by-bob-dylan/|url-status=live}} In July 1966, Dylan had a motorcycle accident, and spent the next year-and-a-half recovering and writing songs at his home in Woodstock.{{sfn|Sounes|2011|pp=219–225}} From around June to October 1967, he recorded 138 songs with members of the group the Hawks (later known as the Band).{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|pp=246–248}}{{sfn|Heylin|2011|pp=273–279}}

According to Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, all the songs for John Wesley Harding, Dylan's eighth studio album, were written and recorded during a six-week period at the end of 1967.{{sfn|Heylin|2010|p=343}}{{cite news |last=Irvine |first=Troy |title=Record swing: Dylan's back |newspaper=The Arizona Republic |date=January 14, 1968 |page=4-N}} With one child born in early 1966 and another in mid-1967, Dylan had settled into family life.{{sfn|Sounes|2011|pp=224–225}}

"The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" was recorded in one take during the first recording session for John Wesley Harding on October 17, 1967, in Columbia Studio A, Nashville.{{sfn|Heylin|2010|p=435}} The producer was Bob Johnston.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} Dylan speaks, rather than sings, the lyrics,{{sfn|Starr|2021|loc=628}} and plays guitar and harmonica.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} He is accompanied by Charlie McCoy on bass and Kenneth Buttrey on drums;{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} both had been part of the larger cohort of musicians that played on Blonde on Blonde.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} Dylan told interviewer Jann Wenner that he had been seeking a sound similar to Gordon Lightfoot's album The Way I Feel, which McCoy and Buttrey had also played on.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=280}}{{cite magazine |last=Wenner |first=Jann |author-link=Jann Wenner |title=Bob Dylan Talks: A Raw and Extensive First Rolling Stone Interview |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-talks-a-raw-and-extensive-first-rolling-stone-interview-90618/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=November 20, 1969 |access-date=September 11, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111175257/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/bob-dylan-talks-a-raw-and-extensive-first-rolling-stone-interview-90618/ |url-status=live }} The song was released as the fifth track on John Wesley Harding on December 27, 1967.{{cite web| url = http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01620%201967.htm#DSN01641| title = 2nd John Wesley Harding session, 6 November 1967| last = Bjorner| first = Olof| date = October 18, 2020| access-date = December 2, 2020| website = About Bob| archive-date = June 23, 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170623045211/http://www.bjorner.com/DSN01620%201967.htm#DSN01641| url-status = live}}{{sfn|Williams|2004|p=284}} It was issued as the lead track of an EP single in Portugal in 1968,{{cite web |last=Fraser |first=Alan |title=Audio: Mono 7" Singles & EPs: 1966–68 |url=https://www.searchingforagem.com/1960s/MonoSingles1960s_3.htm |website=Searching for a Gem |access-date=September 11, 2022 |archive-date=April 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419010248/https://www.searchingforagem.com/1960s/MonoSingles1960s_3.htm |url-status=live }} and included on the compilation box set The Original Mono Recordings in 2010.

The song has 11 verses and is the longest track on John Wesley Harding.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} According to authors Philippe Margotin and Jean Michel Guesdon, the lyrics refer to two friends, Frankie Lee and Judas Priest. Lee asks Priest for a loan of money and Priest offers it freely. Lee spends it in a brothel over 16 days, then dies of thirst in Priest's arms.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} English-language scholar Homer Hogan viewed Priest as an insincere friend who tempts Lee with a false vision, leading to a conclusion where Lee is "destroyed rather than transformed".{{sfn|Hogan|1970|p=198}} After Lee's death, a "neighbour boy" who appears to be involved in Lee's demise, mumbles that "nothing is revealed".{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=188}} Hogan argued that Dylan invokes several myths through the song, including "the basic story of the god-possessed hero sacrificed by the priest, and the re-birth of the hero in a child",{{sfn|Hogan|1970|p=199}} as well as Christian themes including those of a sinner seeking salvation, of a betrayal by Judas, the Temptation of Christ, and a devil in the guise of an angel.{{sfn|Hogan|1970|pp=199–200}}

The song ends with a moral,{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} telling the listener:

{{poemquote|... one should never be

Where one does not belong.

So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin'

Help him with his load

And don't go mistaking Paradise

For that home across the road.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}}{{Cite web |title=The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest |website=Bob Dylan's official website |url=http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/ballad-frankie-lee-and-judas-priest/ |access-date=May 11, 2020 |archive-date=August 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200812142621/https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/ballad-frankie-lee-and-judas-priest/ |url-status=live }}}}

AJ Weberman interpreted the song as a parable of Dylan's relationship with his manager Albert Grossman.{{cite news |last=Gleason |first=Ralph |title=Bob Dylan: poet to a generation |newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner |date=August 18, 1968 |page=TW.33 }} Dylan biographer Robert Shelton described the song as "a comic tall tale in frontier-ballad style" and speculated that Lee may represent Dylan, and Priest may represent the music business.{{sfn|Shelton|1987|p=393}} Critic Andy Gill regarded the early verses, where Lee considers Priest's offer of the money, as having parallels with Dylan's contractual discussions with Columbia shortly before the album's recording.{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=187}}

Poet Allen Ginsberg recalled that Dylan told him during conversations in 1968 that he was aiming to write shorter lines that each advanced the narrative of the song.{{sfn|Heylin|2011|p=286}} Ginsberg felt that this was evident in some of Dylan's work from around that period, for example in "I Shall Be Released" and "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" (which Ginsberg called a "strong laconic ballad"), where, according to Ginsberg "There was to be no wasted language, no wasted breath. All the imagery was to be functional rather than ornamental."{{sfn|Heylin|2011|p=286}} Hogan argues that the song "requires inner liberation if we are to let ourselves respond fully" but that through Dylan's delivery in a "country and western style" and, most importantly, "the magic of myth", Dylan helps the listener achieve that state of liberation.{{sfn|Hogan|1970|p=197}} Wilfrid Mellers commented that the song featured "an unremitting talkin' style, and the words spoken, for all their biblical references, could hardly be more confusedly bleak".{{sfn|Mellers|1985|p=155}}

Peter Johnson of the Los Angeles Times criticized the track for being "riddled with clichés", adding "As if that were not bad enough, Dylan offers three hoary lessons from the song".{{cite news |last=Johnson |first=Pete |title=Album reveals yet another Dylan to replace last one |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=January 18, 1968 |pages=Part IV: 1, 14}} Johnson felt that while Dylan had previously used clichés inventively, "in this album they have nothing to feed on but themselves." While noting that the track was amongst the favorite among some of Dylan's fans, journalist Mike Marqusee dismissed the song as "a contrived allegory that teases and baffles but ultimately bores."{{sfn|Marqusee|2005|p=255}} In the Chicago Tribune, Ross Baker felt that Dylan's songwriting had declined in quality, writing "He gave us fantastical memorable portraits before ... Now we have sketchily dull pictures like ... Frankie Lee, [and] Judas Priest ... whom it's impossible to care about in the least."{{cite news |last=Baker |first=Ross |title=The Sound |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |date=April 4, 1968 |page=TV.10}} Margotin and Guesdon wrote that "the performance is not up to par. The guitar part lacks rigor".{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}} Gill called it the "dullest" track on John Wesley Harding: he refers to the final verse as a "bland moral".{{sfn|Gill|2011|p=187}}

Jim Beviglia ranked the song 20th in his 2013 book Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs, referring to it as "one of the most perplexing songs Bob Dylan has ever released" and "the most instantly enjoyable" track on John Wesley Harding.{{sfn|Beviglia|2013|pages=149–150}} It was awarded an "A" rating by John Nogowski, who felt that Dylan's vocal and harmonica performance underpinned the track.{{sfn|Nogowski|2022|p=67}} The song was the inspiration for the name of the English heavy metal band Judas Priest.{{cite magazine |first=Kory |last=Grow |title=Judas Priest on Their Half-Century Heavy-Metal Odyssey |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/judas-priest-on-their-half-century-heavy-metal-odyssey-127941/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=March 9, 2018 |access-date=September 11, 2022 |archive-date=March 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220330035914/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/judas-priest-on-their-half-century-heavy-metal-odyssey-127941/ |url-status=live }}

According to his official website, Dylan played "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" live 20 times in concert between 1987 and 2000. Trager wrote about Dylan's initial performances of the number with Grateful Dead on their 1987 tour that "A poorer song choice probably couldn't have been made, for this intimate parable was lost in the large football stadium venues where the shows took place."{{sfn|Trager|2004|p=26}} Paul Williams was generally critical of the tour's quality, but felt that the performance of the song on July 19 in Eugene, Oregon was one of several "pleasing performances [at the show], though of course one wishes Dylan as vocalist and storyteller could have been even half as present on 'Frankie Lee' as he was on the original 1968 recording".{{sfn|Williams|2005|pp=54–59}} Trager considered the performances on the Temples in Flames Tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to be significantly improved from those with Grateful Dead.{{sfn|Williams|2005|p=74}}{{sfn|Trager|2004|p=26}} According to Williams, "getting to hear Bob Dylan sing 'Frankie Lee and Judas Priest' and 'Shelter from the Storm' as though this might be his last chance ever and he doesn't want to waste it, is certainly a memorable experience".{{sfn|Williams|2005|p=86}} Dylan later performed the song several times in both 1988 and 2000 on his Never Ending Tour.{{sfn|Trager|2004|p=26}}{{Cite web |title=Setlists that contain The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest |website=Bob Dylan's official website |url=https://www.bobdylan.com/setlists/?id_song=25854 |access-date=February 27, 2023}}

The personnel for the October 1967, recordings at Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville, are listed below.{{sfn|Margotin|Guesdon|2022|p=290}}

Musicians

• Bob Dylan{{spaced en dash}}vocals, guitar, harmonica
• Charlie McCoy{{spaced en dash}}bass
• Kenneth Buttrey{{spaced en dash}}drums

Technical

• Bob Johnston{{spaced en dash}}production
• Charlie Bragg{{spaced en dash}}engineering

Citations

{{Reflist}}

Bibliography

• {{cite book |last=Beviglia|first=Jim |title=Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs |year=2013|publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham |isbn=978-0-8108-8824-1}}
• {{cite book |last1=Gill |first1=Andy |date=2011 |title=Bob Dylan: the Stories Behind the Songs 1962-1969|publisher=Carlton |location=London |isbn=978-1-84732-759-8}}
• {{cite book |last1=Heylin |first1=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Heylin |date=2010 |title=Revolution in the Air - the Songs of Bob Dylan Vol.1 1957-73|publisher=Constable & Robinson |isbn=978-1-84901-296-6}}
• {{cite book |last=Heylin |first=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Heylin |title=Behind the Shades: The 20th Anniversary Edition |publisher=Faber And Faber |location=London |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-571-27240-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Hogan |first=Homer |title=Poetry of Relevance |chapter=12. Myth and The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest |year=1970 |publisher=Methuen |location=Toronto |pages=196–209 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Margotin |first1=Philippe |last2=Guesdon |first2=Jean-Michel |date=2022 |title=Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track |publisher=Black Dog & Leventhal |edition=Expanded |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7624-7573-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Marqusee |first=Mike |author-link=Mike Marqusee |title=Wicked Messenger : Bob Dylan and the 1960s, Chimes of Freedom |edition=Revised and expanded |year=2005 |location=New York |publisher=New Press |isbn=978-1-58322-686-5}}
• {{Cite book|first=Wilfrid|last=Mellers|author-link=Wilfrid Mellers|title=A Darker Shade of Pale: A Backdrop to Bob Dylan|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1985|isbn=978-0-571-13345-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Nogowski |first=John |title=Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography, 1961-2022|edition=3rd |publisher=McFarland & Company |location=Jefferson |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-4766-4362-5}}
• {{cite book |last=Shelton |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Shelton (critic) |title=No Direction Home: the Life and Music of Bob Dylan |publisher=New English Library |location=London |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-450-04843-2 }}
• {{cite book |last=Sounes |first=Howard |author-link=Howard Sounes|title=Down the Highway: the Life of Bob Dylan |publisher=Grove Press |location=New York |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8021-4552-9 }}
• {{cite book |last=Starr |first=Larry |title=Listening to Bob Dylan |series=Music in American Life |publisher=University of Illinois Press |location=Urbana |edition=Kindle |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-252-05288-0}}
• {{cite book |last=Trager |first=Oliver |title=Keys to the Rain: the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia |year=2004 |publisher=Billboard Books |location=New York | isbn=978-0-8230-7974-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Williams |first= Paul |author-link=Paul Williams (Crawdaddy) |year=2004 |title=Bob Dylan, Performing Artist: The Early Years, 1960–1973 |publisher=Omnibus Press |orig-date=1990 |isbn=978-1-84449-095-0}}
• {{Cite book|first=Paul|last=Williams |author-link=Paul Williams (Crawdaddy) |title=Bob Dylan, Performing Artist: 1986–1990 & Beyond: Mind Out Of Time|publisher=Omnibus Press |year=2005}}

• [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/ballad-frankie-lee-and-judas-priest/ Lyrics] from Bob Dylan's official website.
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Svltq6LxoI Audio] from Bob Dylan's official YouTube channel.

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