To mark the 58th anniversary of JFK’s death, Timothy Hampton, author of Bob Dylan: How the Songs Work writes about Dylan’s song “Murder Most Foul,” which chronicles the assassination. Click here to learn more about the book. Click here to read the full essay. An excerpt appears below:

“As we think back now to the infamous days of November 22 and January 6, when violence targeted the republic from within, Dylan’s ‘Murder Most Foul’ shows us the challenge of American memory, in the Post-Trump, BLM era. Speaker Pelosi may take the laudable step of linking the two dark days together. But Dylan reminds us that even our most popular cultural artifacts have become interwoven with the political and racial violence that has shaped the country.”