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Thursday, May 1. 2008

Thursday Dylan Lyrics: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

"Mama, take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore.
It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door."

"Knockin' On Heaven's Door," from the soundtrack album to the Sam Peckinpah film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.  This is possibly Dylan's most-covered song, yet no version that I have heard either by other artists or by Dylan himself in live performance has made a significant improvement on the understated but effective original, which we include below.

Posted by The Dylanologist in The Song and Dance Man at 15:11 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Imus version for the Hale-Bopp cultists
rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/imuscut.heavensgate.ram
real audio (Rob Bartlett, 1997 I think)
#1 Ron Hardin (Link) on 2008-05-01 18:47 (Reply)
Try the version by the Leningrad Cowboys, together with the ex-Red Army Chorus. They also do a great Sweet Home, Alabama.
#2 Acad Ronin on 2008-05-01 22:55 (Reply)
Good observation, Dylmaster. I'd never thought of it before, but you're right. I do about six or seven Dylan songs and, in thinking them through, I almost always alter the tempo or rhythm structure or word cadence or something a little bit. But I do "Heaven's Door" exactly as it came out of the box. As you said, there's simply no other way to do it.

When this plays in the movie was one of the sadder moments in the history of Westerns. Who wants to see the great Slim Pickens die?
#3 Dr. Mercury on 2008-05-02 07:51 (Reply)
The song haunts much of the movie but it is when Slim Pickens was shot and his wife comes out to sit with him while he dies - Pickens with this "I can't believe this crap" look on his face - that really hits the mark.
#4 rick moran on 2008-05-02 14:33 (Reply)

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