Bob Dylan returns with his first original song in eight years

By Scott Munro
( Classic Rock )
published

Bob Dylan’s new song Murder Most Foul about the assassination of JFK weighs in at 17-minutes, and is his first original studio material since 2012’s Tempest

Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (Image credit: Dave J Hogan - Getty)

Bob Dylan (opens in new tab) has released his first original song in eight years.

The track is titled Murder Most Foul and it's based around the assassination of JFK in 1963 – and it’s epic, weighing in at 17 minutes long.

Dylan says: “Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years. This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.”

Murder Most Foul is Dylan’s first original release since his 2012 album Tempest. That was followed by Shadows In The Night in 2015, Fallen Angels in 2016 and Triplicate in 2017, which all consisted of covers and live cuts.

Listen to Dylan’s Murder Most Foul below.

Earlier this year, the first details about a new Dylan biopic came to light (opens in new tab). The film has the working title of Going Electric and will focus on the singer/songwriter’s controversial transition from folk to rock in the mid-60s.

Deadline reported that Dylan is involved with the project alongside Searchlight Pictures and director James Mangold, with talks with actor Timothée Chalamet about the lead role taking place.

Chalamet was most recently featured in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and played Hal/King Henry V in Netflix movie The King.

See more
Scott Munro
Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers and magazines as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. After initially joining our news desk in the summer of 2014, he moved to the e-commerce team full-time in 2020. He maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott grew up listening to rock and prog, cutting his teeth on bands such as Marillion and Magnum before his focus shifted to alternative and post-punk in the late 80s. His favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Drab Majesty, but he also still has a deep love of Rush.