Bob Dylan: John Wesley Harding
Everything about the cover photograph by John Berg is peculiar.
The first thing that you notice is the seeming lack of balance in the photo. If Dylan were simply flanked by those two other blokes, then it would seem to make sense, but the fact that there is a fourth, and frowning figure, hovering in the background disrupts the entire scene. It seems nonsensical and, I’m assuming, deliberately haphazard. Take a look at Dylan and you’ll notice that the colour of his hat and jacket are an approximation of the colour of the tree’s trunk behind him, as though, yes, he is being sucked into the blackness (the void) of the tree itself. The idea that a tree could be black - I know it’s a black and white photo - as though it’s one of those trees you’d see in a forest that has been ravaged by fire. Here, though, somewhere in New York State deep in a nasty dry winter the whole scene is somewhat dismal. But the thing is Dylan and the two other blokes are grinning dumbly in spite of it all, yet we as the people who are looking at the photo can’t escape the almost menacing gaze of the bloke in the back.
More stuff to note:
check out the foreground, there is a hat, down the bottom, probably attached to a head; when was the last time you saw cover art so poorly cropped?
the bloke in the background is a carpenter who was working on Dylan’s house the day the photo was taken;
the two blokes in front are from the Bengali Bauls, a South Asian traditional music group, apparently;
the pale brown frame is odd and ugly, particularly the rounded-off corners at the top;
and, finally, that dreadful font (name?) is perfect, almost flat and lifeless, but seemingly with a little “zing” to the starting “J” and final “G”.
Music notes: the new “enhanced” ultra-expensive CD sounds great, but a crappy second hand vinyl version sounds just as good.
Paul:
1. I actually like that font, as long as it’s not overused. In this case, it works perfectly.
2. The dude farthest to the right looks like Horatio Sanz from Saturday Night Live. I’d never noticed before.
# 13 Aug 07 at 6:47 pm
Bob:
If you turn the album over and look along the top edge of the tree you’ll see tiny faces that look like Dylan and the Beatles embedded there - I swear I saw them once back in the 60’s.
# 09 Sep 07 at 12:26 pm
Marc Jones:
So does anyone know what the font is? It’s a bit like Eagle, but has extra details in the A and E
# 23 Nov 07 at 9:27 pm
Mitchel Cohen:
I remember waiting with our group at SUNY Stony Brook for this album, and when it came out we played it over and over again looking for clues to where Dylan was trying to take us THIS time.
We looked examined the cover with a magnifying glass back when, and indeed there are faces embedded in the tree trunk and elsewhere, reminscent, yes, of the Rolling Stones’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” which one-upped the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper” cover ….
# 24 Dec 07 at 6:16 pm
Erik Haegl:
Way back in them bad ole days what we knew Dylan was best at was what we called F-cking with your head. He, Lennon and others seemed to compete in this sport. I’ve even used it myself when I worked in a Arkansas refridgerator plant and f-cked with coworkers’ heads over The Late Great Planet Earth.
And M. Cohen you may be thinking of Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Stones 6 months after Sgt. Peppers
# 08 Jan 08 at 12:41 pm
Robbie:
this is a bob dylan record… and is clearly not about the crop of an image or type used.
whats written here is waaaay over thought, do you really think the person cropping this photo thought it to this extent?
and the font is great, defiantly puts the record in its ‘time period’
# 04 Feb 08 at 9:05 pm
Brad:
The faces that you see in the tree is the cover of “rubber soul”
# 06 Apr 08 at 4:51 am
Nantucket Art:
I think this whole sleeve is about rejecting the mythical figure Dylan had become during the mid sixties.
The year before recording this album Dylan nearly died in a motorbike crash, causing him to retreat to the hills of Woodstock to rethink his life and career.
The photo used on the resulting album looks just like a family shot - this is not a photoshoot of a rockstar. Dylan stands as an equal amongst the other figures - debunking the folk-hero myth and presenting him in a more humble tradition of country music.
# 15 Apr 08 at 7:20 pm