TALKIN’ JOHN BIRCH PARANOID BLUES
“Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” is a talking blues song written by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in 1962. It is a satirical song, in which a paranoid narrator is convinced that communists, or “Reds” as he calls them, are infiltrating the country. He joins the John Birch Society, an anti-communist group, and begins searching for Reds everywhere: under his bed, up his chimney, down his toilet, and in his glove compartment. After exhausting the possibilities, he begins to investigate himself. (More from Wikipedia)
The main reason I got the John Birch Society Blues album is due to the history of Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Early pressings of the album included “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” and three other wonderful songs that I got to know on bootleg albums as I bought them: “Gambling Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand”, “Rocks and Gravels” and “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”. The fact that the latter song is omitted was even mentioned on the album’s liner notes. When the John Birch Society song became controversial, Columbia Records pulled back the albums and reissued them with the familiar song set that we know today. Those first few albums with the alternate songs are worth a fortune today: A 1998 record pricing catalogue that I have called Records values them at $10,000 to $15,000 in mono and $15,000 to $20,000 in stereo (though the catalogue recommends actually playing the album before ponying up that kind of cash).
(April 2012)
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The recording sessions for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.started in April 1962, and the album had a working title of Bob Dylan’s Blues – as late as July, this was still to be the name of the album. These April sessions included wonderful songs like “Sally Gal”, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”, “Rambling Gambling Willie”, “Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues”, “The Death of Emmett Till”, and “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”, among many others. Because Bob Dylan’s songwriting was progressing so quickly, nothing from the April 1962 sessions was utilized on the album as it was finally released (though a few were included on a brief early release of the album – copies are now worth five figures). I was, however, able to enjoy them on the many Dylan bootleg albums that I acquired over the years.
(June 2013/2)
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Several of Bob Dylan’s early songs were in the “talking blues” form that was pioneered in the 1920’s and popularized by Dylan’s idol Woody Guthrie in the 1940’s. Typically these songs have “Talking” or “Talkin’” somewhere in the title, such as “Talkin’ New York” on his debut album, Bob Dylan; many though were not released on his Columbia albums and often have bizarre titles, such as “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”, “Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues”, and “Talkin’ Hava Negeilah Blues”. These talking blues numbers are among Dylan’s funniest songs, albeit often with black humor.
(September 2016)
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Some of the very early pressings of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that are now extremely rare included four sterling Bob Dylan songs that were later left off the album: “Rocks and Gravels”, “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”, “Gambling Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand” and “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”. Two of these four songs, under the names “Ride Willie Ride” and “John Birch Society Blues” are included on John Birch Society Blues. The latter song is an hilarious but quite harsh take on the anti-communist group called the John Birch Society that has nice things to say about Adolf Hitler and neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell. One verse goes: “Well, I investigated all the books in the library / Ninety percent of them have gotta be thrown away / I investigated all the people that I knowed / Ninety-eight percent of them have gotta go / The other two percent are fellow Birchers / Just like me.”
“Ride Willie Ride” is an entertaining if outlandish tale of the adventures of a superman gambler who is eventually shot dead while holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights – the “dead man’s hand” made famous when Wild Bill Hickok was killed while holding those cards.
(September 2017)
