Remembering Bob Dylan and John Lennon's Drugged-Out Limo Ride
By May 1966, John Lennon and Bob Dylan had become the only serious candidates for the newly conceived "Spokesman of a Generation" title. At the height of their creative powers, each of the men sought to break free from their own reputations by making music that had no precedent. Dylan, having stretched the very definition of a pop song with "Like a Rolling Stone" the previous July, had just completed the sprawling double disc, Blonde On Blonde. The Beatles' groundbreaking Revolver wasn't due out until the end of summer, but sessions began weeks earlier with Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows," a track that blended acid-tinged philosophical lyrics with boldly innovative production.
The only known footage of Dylan and Lennon together was filmed during this fantastically productive annus mirabilis. But instead of recording an artistic summit of the highest order, the camera captured the incoherent ramblings of two impossibly stoned rock stars riding around London in the back of a chauffeured limousine. Though they don't solve all of society's ills, the scene is a fascinating, unvarnished look at the tense alliance between the superstars.
It was shot on May 27th, 1966, by director D.A. Pennebaker as part of Eat the Document, a follow-up to his 1965 documentary Don't Look Back, which had chronicled Dylan's first tour of England. The musician was unhappy with the black-and-white cinéma vérité approach of the earlier film, and chose to direct the latest tour documentary himself.
By: Jordan Runtagh
Source: Rolling Stone
