Murder Most Foul. Storia, memoria e mito nella produzione tarda di Bob Dylan

While many of Dylan's songs became historic anthems of the civil rights movement, their author never misses a chance to remind us that his interest in historical events lies in the possibility of turning them into metahistorical tales. In Chronicles (2004), he writes: "The madly complicated modern world was something I took little interest in. It had no relevancy, no weight. What was up to date for me was stuff like the Titanic sinking, the Galveston flood, John Henry driving steel, John Hardy shooting a man on the West Virginia line. This was the news that I considered". However, in Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan taps into contemporary history more than in any other album, clearly stating his intent in "Mother of Muses": "I'm falling in love with Calliope | She don't belong to anyone, why not give her to me?". By invoking such an elitist relationship with the muse of epic poetry, Dylan begins a raging reflection on the meaning of time, history, and memory that culminates in a seventeen-minute track about Kennedy's assassination. References to facts, people, films, and songs from different places and times merge into masterpieces that, reliving memories, reshape history. The present paper examines these themes and mechanics and the labile boundary between memory and history, between written and oral cultures, in the 2016 Nobel laureate's late narrative songs.