Latest Dylan Release Brings Back Memories of JFK's Three Visits to the Northland

Dealey Plaza, Nov. 1963. Photo credit: Walt Cisco. Public domain

It exploded around the world like a match to gasoline. The response to Thursday evening's release of "Murder Most Foul" was actually a lesson in timing. What makes a Tweet go viral has as much to do with the conditions as it does the content. It's been 8 years since Tempest, and Dylan fans wondered if there would ever be new material to consume. Wildfires occur when there are drought conditions, not when the landscape is typhoon-soaked.

I enjoyed reading all the angles by which various writers and critics throughout the land approached the song. One listed all the people referenced, another identified all the songs referenced. In another you could find all the lyrics, which would be useful for further study. The responses ranged from emotional to philosophical, and everything in between, giving many of us who remember that dreadful day an opportunity to revisit our own first-hand emotional responses to that murder most foul.

JFK's Visits to the North Country

Iron Rangers welcome JFK to the Northland. Photo credit: Lou Novak

Here's another bit of history that might serve as backstory for the song. John F. Kennedy actually visited Duluth not just once but three times, twice in the year leading up to his election in 1960 and a third time in September 1963, two months before his fateful Dallas visit. During that 1960 campaign stop he hopped up to Hibbing in his private aircraft named Caroline. Whereas many on the Coasts consider this to be flyover country, it was hardly so for Kennedy.

His first took place in September 1959 with the aim of trying to gauge what level of support he might have for a presidential run the following year.

Kennedy's second visit to this bastion of blue collar support was October 2, 1960. The campaign was in full swing at this point, and in Chronicles, Volume One Bob Dylan describes the energy generated by that visit.

"My mother said that eighteen thousand people had turned out to see him at the Veterans Memorial Building and that people were hanging from the rafters and others were in the street, that Kennedy was a ray of light and had understood completely the area of the country he was in. He gave a heroic speech, my mom said, and brought people a lot of hope. The Iron Range was an area that very few nationally known politicians or any famous people ever made it through . . .  If I had been a voting man, I would have voted for Kennedy just for coming there."--Chronicles, Volume One

18,000 may have been an exaggeration, but the size of the impact was no exaggeration. "It was the largest crowd for a political rally in the history of the Iron Range, according to the Duluth Herald."

You can actually find that October 2 Hibbing Campaign Speech here in the JFK Library archives. It begins with these words:

I must say I would not have missed coming to the strongest Democratic area that I have seen in this campaign. (Applause) I used to think they were pretty good in South Boston, but we are going to send them out here for indoctrination. (Applause)

Nice opening, and a great way to secure hearts already won.

Here are some photos from that visit.

And a few more in this article from the Hibbing Daily Tribune published on the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Much more can be said, but this is enough to set the stage. Young Bobby had left for college in the fall of '59 and missed these visits, but he was well aware of them, as his Chronicles notation indicates.

Related Links
JFK Campaign 1960
Vintage Duluth: Duluth Public Library
JFKs Three Visits to Duluth by David Ouse

Special thanks to Duluth-born & Hibbing-raised Nelson French for the JFK Northland links.