By his own words, Bob Dylan had no idea what he was about to do when he entered the cast of the legendary western movie „Pat Garret & Billy The Kid“, neither did the cast or the movie crew know. Kris Kristofferson had a great appearance as Billy The Kid, he shines like a young Jim Morrisson. But Dylan was the complete difference. He was just there. He somehow sneaked himself into the movie, because the producers were reluctant to the idea. they gave him the name „Alias“ to underline the fact that he was there and in the movie even though nobody knew what his role or his drive in the movie ought to be.In fact, there really was a historical person named Alias associated with Billy The Kid, but I bet he was nothing like the persona of Dylan in the movie. They even gave him a few lines to speak. Like when Billy asks him his name: „Alias what?“ „Alias whatever.“ Is all he answers. And then somebody probably asked him to write a few songs for the occassion, which later on became the soundtrack to the movie. It is mostly one song, though, parts of which narrate the story in scenes that fit.

And for the scene where the old sheriff, Slim Pickens, receives a gunshot into his womb, drags himself to the river and his mammacita comes up to him and looks at him while he looks at the endless sky and the sundown, Dylan wrote „Knockin’ on heavens door“. You see this old couple, in their mid-forties, both a chubby and badly groomed but from their looks you see a deep love and bond between them. Neither speaks, because Dylan’s words echo through the scene: „Mama, take this badge of me / I cannot use it anymore / it’s getting dark, too dark to see / I feel (like) I’m knockin on heaven’s door“[1] and the next line „Mama take this guns off me / I cannot shoot them anymore / that long black cloud is coming down / feel I’m knockin on heavens door““ and so on. Actually, that’s about it in total. So if you ever wondered what the song actually is about, and if that dude who told you it was about shooting crack and so it must be okay because it is heavenly bliss, now you know. And that dude was wrong, but I hope you already figured that yourself.

Bob Dylan has always been a fast songwriter. Some of his best songs took him the time to write them down and not more, I guess. The whole soundtrack to „Pat Garret & Billy The Kid“ sounds as if it had been done in a few takes, a matter of weeks, probably, nothing more. These years were a time for major changes in Dylan’s life, it should be mentioned. Dylan left New York after the recording of the movie and moved to sunnier climates. With “New Morning” being three years old people did expect something else and consequently the reviews were all about the disappointment of the reviewer rather than the music on the record. But this song, “Knockin on heaven’s door”, remained and settled in the common musical conscience for good. The move coincided with legal problems with the record company and the move from CBS to Asylum records. Dylan finally ended up on the West coast, in Malibu.

All of these changes helped Dylan out of a writing slump and he reactivated his songwriting activities soon afterwards. His next records, “Dylan” (1973), “Planet Waves” and especially “Blood on the Tracks” (1974) (The “Basement Tapes” (1975) were recorded in the late Sixties with The Band but released later on.) So, looking at it from a discography viewpoinrt, stuck between albums like „Self Portrait“ (where the cowboy and western theme is already pending), „New Morning“ and „Dylan“ this was a period of significant transgression for Bob Dylan. Of course, such a statement is always true, especially with Bob Dylan who has been changing all the time and then some, but after the nearly fatal motorcycle accident and some crazy touring the time on the set of the movie was a sort of off time for him. And in other ways an on time. Why does everything always start to blur when it involves Bob Dylan? Anyway, this loseness of the songs and the arrangement, which consist of basic major chord mostly, is the red thread through the whole album.

The movie was shot in Durango, Mexico, and Dylan had big interest in mexican culture. Dylan-fans will immediately snap up the connection to “Romance in Durango” and other texmex-influenced songs of Dylan, most of which have the same narrative style as the songs he wrote for this movie. There is a nice summary of how the recording of the music and the shooting of the movie went down on wikipedia, so I won’t have to repeat that here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Garrett_&_Billy_the_Kid_(album))[2] Esepcially the conflicts with original score composer Jerry Fielding are very amusing (“So finally he brought to the dubbing session another piece of music - 'Knock-Knock-Knockin' on Heaven's Door.' Everybody loved it. It was shit. That was the end for me.") It should be noted on top, that  this one is, of course, the one “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid” movie that all others before led to and all afterwards come from. Even that Jesse James movie with Brad Pitt in a way. It is one of Sam Peckinpah’s masterpieces. And then let’s have another quote: „Music is of key importance in this film and Bob Dylan's brilliant score contributes enormously to the atmosphere.  …  It also subtly highlights the distance between Garrett and the Kid and our perception of them. While we achieve a certain closeness to Garrett and his psychology, the near mythical status of the distant, slightly enigmatic Kid is highlighted by the fact that he is frequently being sung about on the ballad-like soundtrack rather than being fleshed out as a character. Music plays a big part in the nature of the violent scenes as well. Whereas most scores (including those of Peckinpah's usual composer, Jerry Fielding, who loathed Dylan's work on this movie) would tend in one way or another to play up the violence, to heighten the drama, here the music plays against it, softening it. It diminishes the excitement and adds instead to the prevalent mournful, contemplative feel. Killing in this film is unheroic, an empty and almost banal ritual.“ (Maximilian Le Cain, http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/13/garrett.html) Thank you Maximilian for saying it so well.

„Pat Garret & Billy The Kid“ only has a few songs with vocals, it is mostly instrumentals anyway. Maybe this is why the song was re-used on the „Biograph“-Box and found a bigger audience there some time later. Moreover this song uses the basic D/C/G-chord progression over and over again, with different melodies over the same guitar chords – a simplistic approach even for Bob Dylan. Actually, the song has four chords, but nearly everyone who has played this by a campfire reduces it to three. I mean, Bob Dylan is a master of making the most out of the simplest forms, needing only two chords were lesser songwriters would go for a lot more, but „Knockin’ on heaven’s door“ is simple stuff even in his terms.

Maybe that is why so many other artists have covered this song. Everybody knows about what Guns’n’Rosed did with it, including the ten minute guitar solo by Slash in various live settings, but how many people know that their arrangement is a one hundred percent pick of the arrangement that Australian rockband Cold Chisel did? My first cover version of this song was by Sisters of Mercy on the b-side of some 12“ single.[3] Others who covered the song include Him, Pink Floyd, Scorpions, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Randy Crawford, Dolly Parton, Van Morrison, The Leningrad Cowboys, Eric Burdon, Tom Petty and even fucking Avril Lavigne. Warren Zevon recorded his version shortly before he died of lung cancer. But the song has also been used for a variety of other means aside from being covered, for instance as music in movies or titles of an Anime called „Cowboy Bepop“ (and I thought that was the name Bob Dylan used to check into hotels.) In October 2007 in Shillong, India, 1.730 guitarists strummed this song for five minutes to set a world record for the largest ever guitar ensemble. The song has also been used on soundtracks of movies as diverse as “Lethal Weapon2” or “Days of Thunder” and “Six Feet Under” or “Emergency Room”. Finally, the version of Antony & The Johnsons on the “I’m not there” soundtrack should not be forgotten, either, because with the voice of Antony anybody not half frozen to stone will feel goosebumps running up his spine. And after all, John Lennon by the way sang “Knockin’ on Dylan’s Door”.

So, what is the final word on this song? Probably just a short remark upon how a song so simple and straightforward, and so obvious in its meaning, can get a live on its own and a myth so big that it starts to fight to stand on the same spot as „Amazing Grace“. There are more people than you might think who demand this song as the one to be played on their funeral – along with „My Way“: A great song, indeed. In 1973 I was one year old and my dad was a big Kris Kristofferson and also a big Dylan-fan, so I bet he saw the movie. At least when it was rerun on TV several years later. At least that is where I saw it and I remember being heavily impressed by some of the scenes in there (and not only those with the naked girls in them...). When the song was released as a single and hit top 20 spots in USA and UK, one of the best positions in the charts for Dylan for some years, the interest of music industry snapped up again. But by then it was too late.

Georg Cracked, October 2008