| The Wicked Messenger | |
| Artist: | Bob Dylan |
| Album: | John Wesley Harding |
| Recorded: | November 29, 1967 |
| Genre: | Folk rock, country rock |
| Length: | 2:02 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Bob Johnston |
"The Wicked Messenger" is a song written and originally performed by Bob Dylan for his album John Wesley Harding. The song was recorded at Columbia's Studio A, Nashville, on November 29, 1967.[1]
The song's instrumentation is light, a characteristic shared with the rest of John Wesley Harding. It features a repetitive descending bass line that carries the song, and the most prominent instrument used is Bob Dylan's acoustic guitar.[2]
The lyrics have their origins in the Bible. In his book, Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s, Mike Marqusee writes:
Dylan was studying the Bible at the time, and he used many biblical reference in the songs on the John Wesley Harding album.[3] His mother, Beatty Zimmerman, revealed in an interview at this time:
The song revolves around a character, a "wicked messenger", who has been sent by Eli, a priest in the Books of Samuel. For the critic Andy Gill, "this eponymous messenger is, of course, Dylan himself, the bringer of harsh truths".[4] The lyrics are somewhat opaque ("When questioned who had sent for him/He answered with his thumb/For his tongue it could not speak but only flatter"), and the song ends with a sardonic, slightly cryptic moral, "And he was told but these few words/Which opened up his heart/"If ye cannot bring good news, then don't bring any"[5] perhaps a reference to 2 Samuel 4:10.
Gill's interpretation of the song is that the high priest Eli was one of the more intellectual figures in the Old Testament. To have been sent by Eli implies a reliance on intellect. Gill suggests that "perhaps Dylan felt he had valued rationality too highly over spirituality."[6]
According to his website, Dylan performed the song more than 125 times in concert between its live debut in 1987 and its most recent performance in 2021.[7]
The song has been covered by over a dozen artists, notably Faces on their 1970 album First Step; Patti Smith on her 1996 album Gone Again; and The Black Keys for the I'm Not There soundtrack in 2007.[8]