Blood On The Tracks

In July 1966, Bob Dylan crashed his Triumph 500 motorcycle in upstate New York. As he recovers in the privacy of a doctor’s home, he thinks about the death of folk music at Newport. About a piece of history gone missing for decades. Pete Seeger, wielding an ax. Andy Warhol and two Elvis Presleys. Shakespeare and a dog named Hamlet. And what really happened on that road in Woodstock, when the Bob Dylan you thought you knew…died.

As Bob Dylan continues to recover from his accident, he remembers another motorcycle crash, one that took the life of a biker with a suspiciously familiar name. Robert Zimmerman, president of the San Bernardino chapter of the Hell’s Angels, dies on the road at the very moment that another Robert Zimmerman, this one from Minnesota, becomes Bob Dylan on stage in New York.

Bob Dylan continues to spend his days recovering from his accident thinking about change. And not just artistic change, but physical change. From New York he goes to Nashville in his mind, where he’s callously snubbed by Jerry Lee Lewis, lovingly embraced by Johnny Cash, and hopelessly drunk on Leprechaun Cocktails with some of the finest musicians Music City has to offer.

When a man wears a mask, he’s gonna tell you the truth. That’s what Bob Dylan is thinking about as he continues his recovery from his motorcycle accident: being masked and not-so-anonymous on a rambling spectacle of a tour that feels more like the Greatest Show on Earth than a rock concert. Dylan’s fever dream-like state allows him to peek into the future…a future full of gypsies, boxers, sad-eyed ladies, and a homicide that would result in one of the toughest legal battles of his life.

On the fifth day of his recovery from a motorcycle accident, Bob Dylan begins to hallucinate. He claims he’s not only seen our Lord and savior, but that he’s had a close encounter with Jesus Christ himself. It’s an encounter that changes him forever. Don’t believe him? That’s fine. But everyone serves somebody. And you just might question what it is you do and don’t believe after hearing his story.

Courtrooms, contracts, lawyers, and loss. Stalkers, divorcees, punk rockers, and the wrong harmonica. These are the things on Bob Dylan’s mind as he continues to endure a secret recovery at a doctor’s private house in upstate New York. Dylan’s future continues to unfold from behind his eyes. He changes. So much that he begins to forget who he is. Or was. Who he will be, in 20 years’ time…a complete unknown.

Bob Dylan continues to recover from his motorcycle accident in upstate New York. He thinks of the things he’s done that he’s not proud of. The depths to which he’s sunk, only to find that you can always go lower. He worries that the words will stop coming. He yearns to hide in the skin of someone who is not Bob Dylan. Someone who can play “dead” one moment and break hearts the next. Someone who plays a pink guitar. Someone who sees the touch of grey in every silver lining.

As Bob Dylan’s physical injuries continue to heal, there is a growing concern that mental problems are only beginning to surface. He struggles with an identity crisis. Did he really introduce the Beatles to marijuana? Did he actually steal movie reels of an unreleased film from one of the most famous directors in the world? And what on earth was he doing inside a complete stranger’s house in London…what was it he was waiting for?

Nine days after his near-fatal accident, Bob Dylan has become increasingly consumed with his own mortality. He sees the world as a much older, and perhaps wiser, man. He has died as many times as he has lived. Bleak winters in Minnesota have taken their toll. So has the life of a touring musician. There’s also another brush with fate on yet another motorcycle…a harrowing moment that he may never escape.

Trees grow tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up, and flowers die. New people are born every day. Life doesn’t stop. Sometimes things can change in an instant—a gunshot to the head, a man losing control of a motorbike—but sometimes things take years to change. And sometimes, like in the curious case of Bob Dylan, a man can go through a lifetime of change in just ten days.