Bob Dylan: Stories of the songs

My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Sara Lownds, Dylan's first wife, is the eponymous heroine of this ballad, with her last name, inherited from her first husband Hans Lownds, expanded to "lowlands".

Dylan met Lownds through a mutual friend, Sally Grossman, in 1964, and they were married in November 1965. Originally called Shirley Noznisky, she had been a Playboy Bunny before she met Dylan. Loftier things awaited her, though, as her relationship with the musician flourished, and she became his muse. His infidelity, however, led to the break-up. It caused agonies for Dylan, as reflected on perhaps his most anguished album, Blood on the Tracks.

The lyricist Jacques Levy recalls a wonderful "Sad-Eyed Lady" moment during the recording of Desire, in Howard Sounes's biography, Down the Highway. Sara and Bob had been experiencing serious marital difficulties, and had been apart for the whole summer. Sara arrived in the studio on the second day of recording the album, entirely unannounced. "Bob went back into the studio with his band and picked up a guitar. He sang 'Sara' to his wife as she watched from the other side of the glass. The song began by recalling holidays on the beach when the children were small, and mentioned the long-ago holiday in Portugal when they were first together. He asked her forgiveness for his recent transgressions, and sang at the end: 'Don't ever leave me, don't ever go.' It was extraordinary. You could have heard a pin drop."

That first ever recording of "Sara" would become Desire's last track. And these lyrics would make "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" even more famous than the song itself.

I can still hear the sound of the Methodist bells,
I had taken the cure and had just gotten through,
Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you.

Dylan and Lownds separated shortly after the recording of Desire, and were divorced in 1977. The breaking point was when she came down to breakfast one day to find Dylan sitting with his kids and another woman. Lownds won $36m from the settlement, as well as half the royalties from songs Dylan had written during their marriage.

Despite an initially bitter relationship with Dylan post-divorce, over the who should have custody of their five children and a number of other issues, they were soon civil to one another. In 1983, with Dylan seeing much of his ex-wife and kids, there was even speculation in the American press that Sara and Bob might be getting back together, but it was not to be.

Hurricane -Desire (1976)

Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Well, "champion of the world" might have been putting it a little strongly. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a decent boxer, but by no means a world-beater. The story stars on 17 June, 1966. Two men and a woman were shot dead in a bar in Paterson, New York. Carter and another man, John Artis, were questioned by police officers, passed lie-detector tests, were not identified by the surviving victims, and were subsequently released. Eight days later, they testified voluntarily in court and were exonerated. It was only when Alfred P Bello, a small-time local crook and a suspect in the case, gave a statement to the police claiming he saw Carter and Artis at the murder scene, that things started getting ugly. The pair were arrested and indicted for murder that same day. Less than a year later, Carter and Artis were convicted of the murders. The prosecutor sought the death penalty, but the jury recommended mercy. The pair received three life terms each.

In 1974, after seven years in prison, Carter published The Sixteenth Round, and Bello recanted his statement, along with one other witness who claimed to have seen Carter and Artis at the crime scene. Carter sent Dylan the book "because of his prior commitment to the civil rights struggle", and in November 1975 Dylan performed "Hurricane" for the first time.

In March 1976, a retrial was ordered, but Carter and Artis were re-convicted. Artis was released on parole in 1981, having served 15 years, but Carter had to wait another four years until Judge Lee Sarokin overturned the second trial convictions. "Human decency", said Sarokin in 1985, "mandates his immediate release."

Since 1988, Carter has lived in Canada, and has become an executive director of The Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. He received an honorary championship title belt from the World Boxing Council in 1993, and now works as a motivational speaker.

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964)

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger

Hattie Carroll, a black servant, died on 9 February 1963, after being assaulted by the society beau, William Zantzinger (the correct spelling), at a ball. Zantzinger was arrested shortly afterwards, and charged with homicide. Dylan's intervention only started, when, on 15 September 1963, Zantzinger was sentenced to what Dylan perceived to be a criminally short sentence of six months.

The case against Zantzinger, though, was complex. At the ball, police had arrested Zantzinger for disorderly conduct on account of his riotously drunken state. He had already assaulted other hotel employees before he struck Carroll. It was only when Carroll died in hospital the next day that Zantzinger was arrested. But the pathologist's report was inconclusive. Carroll had hardened arteries, high blood pressure and an enlarged heart. The cane left no mark on her. In fact, she died of a brain haemorrhage brought on by the stress of the incident, to which the blow of his cane was a contributing factor. On the basis of that report, the Maryland circuit court judges reduced the charge to manslaughter, of which Zantzinger was found guilty. His sentence was restricted to six months, said the New York Herald Tribune, because a longer term would have meant having to serve time in a state prison, where the judges felt Zantzinger's life would be endangered by the largely black population.

Zantzinger was duly released after six months, and returned to Maryland, where he still lives. Reporters have periodically travelled out to Charles County to see what has become of him.

On his release from jail he went back to his farm with his wife and two children, but he soon got out of farming and moved into real estate. He begun to appear regularly in local papers in 1986, as he was trying to collect money from various delinquent tenants. Charles County seized some of his rental property in Patuxent Woods because he owed taxes on them, and Zantzinger hit the news again. Knowing that the county now owned the properties, but that the poor black tenants would not have known, he continued to collect rent, even filing complaints on those who did not pay on time. What's more amazing is that he won his suits.

The law eventually caught up with him in 1991, when Zantzinger was arrested for fraud. The judge sentenced Zantzinger to 18 months on work-release in the county jail, 2,400 hours of community service, and a hefty fine.

Zantzinger, now 65, lives in St. Mary's County. He still lives on a farm, and runs rental properties in the area.

Joey - Desire (1976)

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

Maybe because he was a racketeer, hoodlum and murderer. Joey Gallo, better known as "Crazy Joe Gallo" was a member of the Profaci crime family, which would later be known as the Colombo family. He was born, in Brooklyn, on 7 April 1929, the younger of two brothers who would go on to terrorise the streets of New York city. The Gallo brothers worked for Carlo Gambino, and were widely thought to be the killers of Albert Anastasia in 1957. For the whole of the 1950s, Gallo, with the help of his brother Albert "Kid Blast" Gallo, had tried to overthrow the head of the Profaci crime family, Joseph Profaci.

Profaci's bacon was saved in 1961, when Gallo was sent to prison, for extortion, where he would stay for the next 10 years. On his release, Gallo went straight back to business. He tried to oust Joe Colombo, the head of what was the Profaci family, and started making ties with the black gangs who Gallo correctly predicted, would soon be running New York.

On 7 April, 1972, Gallo was at Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy, celebrating his 43rd birthday, when three gunmen burst in and shot him dead. Gallo died in the gutter outside.

Dylan was introduced to Joey Gallo by Jacques Levy, his co-writer on Desire, who considered the gangster a folk hero of sorts.

Blind Willie McTell - The Bootleg Series (1991)

I travelled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell

On 5 May 1901 Blind Willie McTell was born, and named William Samuel McTell, in Thomson, Georgia. Although he lost his sight as a young boy, he would go on to become one of the most influential blues musicians of his generation.

McTell's father had left the family before William was 10, and, when his mother died in the 1920s, McTell set out on the road. In 1927, he recorded his first album with Victor Records of Atlanta. It would be the start of an extensive recording career, where McTell's brand of finger-picking blues appeared on a number of albums, under a wide array of names. McTell's sound was billed as a cross between Mississippi Delta blues and East Coast blues.

The Second World War put a stopper on McTell's success. After the war, despite recording briefly with Atlantic and doing a number of live shows, he never enjoyed his pre-war commercial success again. McTell's wife of 24 years died in 1958, and the following year, having had a long battle with diabetes, McTell joined her.

After his death, Dylan wrote the tribute song to the tune of "St James Infirmary Blues".