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Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

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"Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the ninth track on his thirty-ninth studio album, Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). The tracks for the album were written by Dylan at his home in Point Dume in late 2019 and early 2020. It was recorded at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles in January and February 2020 and released in June 2020. The song is an accordion-driven ballad that incorporates references to other songs and to the City of Key West.

"Key West (Philosopher Pirate)"
Song by Bob Dylan
from the album Rough and Rowdy Ways
ReleasedJune 19, 2020
RecordedJanuary–February 2020
StudioSound City, Los Angeles
Length9:34
LabelColumbia
Songwriter(s)Bob Dylan
Producer(s)None listed
Audio
"Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" on YouTube
Rough and Rowdy Ways track listing
10 tracks
  1. "I Contain Multitudes"
  2. "False Prophet"
  3. "My Own Version of You"
  4. "I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You"
  5. "Black Rider"
  6. "Goodbye Jimmy Reed"
  7. "Mother of Muses"
  8. "Crossing the Rubicon"
  9. "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)"
  10. "Murder Most Foul"

"Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" has been cited as a high point of the album by many reviewers. While critics have acclaimed the song, some have been hesitant to interpret meaning from the lyrics, focusing instead on the instrumental and vocal performances. According to Dylan's official website, he has performed the song in concert 230 times as of November 2024.

Background and release

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On June 19, 2020, Bob Dylan released the album Rough and Rowdy Ways, his first album of original material since Tempest in 2012.[1][2] Tempest had been followed by three albums of covers from the Great American Songbook.[2] Meanwhile Dylan had continued to play live on his "Never Ending Tour", and had been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.[2] The tracks for Rough and Rowdy Ways were written by Dylan at his home in Point Dume in late 2019 and early 2020.[2] The songs were recorded at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles in January and February 2020.[2]: 722  At a concert in Liverpool on November 3 2024, Dylan claimed to have written the song while visiting Ernest Hemingway’s house.[3]

Apart from Dylan, who sang, and played guitar and harmonica,[2] the musicians for the album included guitarists Charlie Sexton and Bob Britt, bass player Tony Garnier and drummer Matt Chamberlain.[2] On "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)", Donnie Herron played accordion,[4] and Benmont Tench was on Hammond organ.[5] It is a ballad,[6] that starts with two verses followed by a chorus, followed by two more verses then another chorus, then two sets of three verses and a chorus.[7] The stanzas, of six lines, rhyme in an aabccb pattern.[8]: 221  The song lasts for 9 minutes and 34 seconds.[2]: 726  Some critics have compared the music to Dylan's melancholy 1989 love song "Most of the Time".[9][10]

The song's opening words, "McKinley hollered, McKinley squalled", refer to the opening of Charlie Poole's 1926 song "White House Blues", which describes the shooting and subsequent death from gangrene of President William McKinley.[11][7]: 287  In the second verse, the song's narrator identifies himself with a trio of famous Beat Generation writers: Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac.[7]: 288–289  Ginsberg, who was close friends with Dylan,[12] once wrote a poem titled "Walking at Night in Key West".[13] Dylan incorporates the titles of other popular songs into the lyrics of "Key West", including "Goin' Down Slow", "Down in the Boondocks", "Try a Little Tenderness", and "Beyond the Sea".[7]: 289–290  The lyrics also reference several locations in of Key West, Florida, including Mallory Square, where President Harry S. Truman had his winter White House, as well as the fictional Mystery Street.[11]

Historian Douglas Brinkley characterized the song as "an ethereal meditation on immortality set on a drive down Route 1 to the Florida Keys".[4] Dylan has expressed admiration for the work of longtime Key West resident Jimmy Buffett, covering "A Pirate Looks at Forty" in concert,[14] and citing the songs "Death of an Unpopular Poet" and "He Went to Paris" as his favorite Buffett compositions in an interview.[15]

Reception

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Rolling Stone ranked "Key West" the second best song of 2020 (behind only Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP")[16] and placed it seventh on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century".[17] In an article accompanying the latter list, music journalist Rob Sheffield extrapolated from the impressionistic lyrics a narrative about "a grizzled outlaw, hiding out in Florida, hounded by his memories".[17] Sheffield, who found the song enigmatic, included it in his own list of the best 25 songs of 2020.[18] Hyperallergic's Lucas Fagen wrote that, "in a voice drunk on blood and sunshine, Dylan sings a rapturous, almost operatic ode to the island, going overboard in his praise" and suggested that the song was affecting due to its "specificity and absurdity".[9] He found it poignant and unexpectedly stirring.[9] Among the reviewers who have cited it as the high point of Rough and Rowdy Ways are The New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich, who called it "Shakespearean" for its lyrical richness and complexity,[19] and Anne Margaret Daniel at Hot Press, who wrote that "'Key West (Philosopher Pirate)' is what I'd take to my desert island".[20] The song was highlighted as one of three standouts by both Ben Yakas of Gothamist and Danny McElhinney of Extra.ie when they named Rough and Rowdy Ways as among the best albums of 2020.[21][22] In GQ, Charlie Burton and Bill Prince praised the song for containing "plaintive digressions and memories brought together with the same kind of magic that Dylan was weaving back in the mid-1970s".[23]

Authors Adam Selzer and Michael Glover Smith have drawn thematic parallels between "Key West" and Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg's "Over the Rainbow"[24] and Dylan's own "Murder Most Foul", respectively. Smith also praised Donnie Herron's accordion playing on the track, which he cited as "the aural personification of a gentle Florida breeze, warmly embodying the 'healing virtues of the wind' that Dylan so memorably sings about".[25] Spectrum Culture included the song on a list of "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '10s and Beyond". In an article accompanying the list, critic Kevin Korber praised the "dreamlike" lyric, and suggested that they could reflect Dylan, aged nearly 80, imagining what an afterlife would be like while only having his lived experience to extrapolate from.[26]

The Big Issue placed "Key West" at number 8 on a 2021 list of the "80 best Bob Dylan songs – that aren't the greatest hits" and called it a "[g]loriously meandering masterpiece from his latest album".[27] Edward Docx included the track in his 2021 list of "80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know" in The Guardian.[28] Rolling Stone critic Andy Greene acclaimed "Key West" as "the best song [Dylan has] written in at least the past decade",[29] while the Associated Press writer Scott Bauer found the song "breathtaking".[30]

Live performances

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Dylan pictured at the London Palladium on October 19, 2022. He performed "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)" at the show.[31]

"Key West" received its live debut at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 2, 2021, the first concert of Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour. In a Rolling Stone review, Greene identified the performance as the "high point" of the show.[29] Dylan performed several different arrangements of the song on tour.[32][33] Richard Williams of The Guardian reviewed a London Palladium show in October 2022 and felt that the use of different chords for the song compared to those on the album gave the song a different feel.[34] According to Dylan's official website, he has performed the song in concert 230 times as of November 2024.[35]

Accolades

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Accolades for "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)"
Publication Accolade Rank Ref.
Rolling Stone The 50 Best Songs of 2020 2 [16]
Rolling Stone The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century 7 [17]
The Big Issue The 80 Best Bob Dylan Songs That Aren't Greatest Hits 8 [36]
Spectrum Culture Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '10s and Beyond N/A [26]
The Guardian 80 Bob Dylan Songs Everyone Should Know[a] N/A [28]

Notes

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  1. ^ List, excluding Dylan's best-known songs, by Edward Docx.[28]

References

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  1. ^ Wood, Mikael (May 7, 2020). "Bob Dylan announces new double album, 'Rough and Rowdy Ways'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel (2022). Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (Expanded ed.). New York: Black Dog & Leventhal. ISBN 978-0-7624-7573-5.
  3. ^ Steven (November 9, 2024). ""I wrote that song at Ernest Hemingway's house. I think there's a lot of him in that song."". "I Don't Love Nobody". Retrieved November 10, 2024.
  4. ^ a b Brinkley, Douglas (June 12, 2020). "Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  5. ^ Padgett, Ray (February 5, 2022). "The Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench Talks Touring and Recording with Bob Dylan". Flagging Down the Double E's. Archived from the original on May 13, 2022. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  6. ^ Sheffield, Rob (June 19, 2020). "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century: 'Key West (Philosopher Pirate)'". Rolling Stone. Australia.
  7. ^ a b c d Gray, Michael (2021). "Rough and Rowdy Ways". Outtakes On Bob Dylan: Selected Writings 1967–2021. Pontefract: Route Publishing. pp. 252–297. ISBN 978-1-901927-86-3.
  8. ^ Grafe, Adrian; McKeown, Andrew (2020). "Coda: Late and Timely, Rough and Rowdy: A Review of Rough and Rowdy Ways". In Estanove, Laurence; Grafe, Adrian; McKeown, Andrew; Hélie, Claire (eds.). 21st-Century Dylan: Late and Timely. London: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 217–26. ISBN 9781501363696.
  9. ^ a b c Fagen, Lucas (July 18, 2020). "Bob Dylan's Collage Artistry". Hyperallergic. Archived from the original on January 15, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  10. ^ "Bob Dylan Contradicts Himself". Glide Magazine. June 23, 2020. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  11. ^ a b Wilentz, Sean (June 21, 2021). "Bob Dylan, Historian". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on June 25, 2024.
  12. ^ "The friendship between Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg". Far Out. May 12, 2021. Archived from the original on April 23, 2024. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  13. ^ Planer, Lindsay. "Holy Soul Jelly Roll: Poems & Songs". AllMusic. Archived from the original on July 7, 2023. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  14. ^ Greene, Andy (July 5, 2016). "Flashback: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez Cover Jimmy Buffet[sic] in 1982". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved February 4, 2021.
  15. ^ Sterling, Colin (May 16, 2009). "Bob Dylan Exclusive Interview: Reveals His Favorite Songwriters, Thoughts On His Own Cult Figure Status". HuffPost. Archived from the original on September 8, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2021.
  16. ^ a b Bernstein, Jonathan; Blistein, Jon; Dolan, Jon; Ehrlich, Brenna; Freeman, Jon; Grow, Kory; Hoard, Christian; Leight, Elias; Martoccio, Angie; Shaffer, Claire; Sheffield, Rob; Blake, Emily (December 7, 2020). "The 50 Best Songs of 2020". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  17. ^ a b c Dolan, Jon; Doyle, Patrick; Greene, Andy; Hiatt, Brian; Martoccio, Angie; Sheffield, Rob; Shteamer, Hank; Vozick-Levinson, Simon (June 18, 2020). "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  18. ^ Sheffield, Rob (December 17, 2020). "Year in Review: Rob Sheffield's Top 25 Songs of 2020". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  19. ^ Petrusich, Amanda. "Bob Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' Hits Hard". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on December 17, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  20. ^ Daniel, Anne Margaret. "The Verdict on Rough and Rowdy Ways by Bob Dylan: A Record We Need Right Now". Hot Press. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2021.
  21. ^ staff/ben-yakas (December 29, 2020). "The Best Albums Of 2020". Gothamist. Archived from the original on December 31, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  22. ^ "Danny McElhinney lists his artists of the year with his 2020 music review". Extra.ie. December 27, 2020. Archived from the original on December 27, 2020. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  23. ^ Burton, Charlie; Prince, Bill (June 23, 2020). "Rough And Rowdy Ways is one of Bob Dylan's greatest albums". British GQ. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
  24. ^ Selzer, Adam. "Dylan's 'Key West (Philosopher Pirate)': The Last Stop Before Kokomo". Adam Selzer's Blog. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved December 3, 2020.
  25. ^ Smith, Michael Glover (December 1, 2020). "The Best of 2020: Dylan's "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)"". White City Cinema (blog). Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved December 30, 2020.
  26. ^ a b Korber, Kevin (February 19, 2021). "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '10s and Beyond: 'Key West (Philosopher Pirate)'". Spectrum Culture. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved March 4, 2021.
  27. ^ MacKenzie, Steven (May 17, 2021). "The 80 best Bob Dylan songs – that aren't the greatest hits". The Big Issue. Archived from the original on May 17, 2021. Retrieved May 18, 2021.
  28. ^ a b c Docx, Edward (May 22, 2021). "Beyond Mr Tambourine Man: 80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 22, 2021. Retrieved May 22, 2021.
  29. ^ a b Greene, Andy (November 3, 2021). "Bob Dylan Launches New Era of Never Ending Tour at Captivating Milwaukee Opener". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 4, 2021.
  30. ^ Bauer, Scott (June 17, 2020). "Dylan, Young release masterful albums". p. A2.
  31. ^ "Oct 19, 2022 – London, England – The London Palladium". Bob Dylan's official website. Archived from the original on December 6, 2023. Retrieved April 23, 2024.
  32. ^ Willman, Chris (June 22, 2022). "Bob Dylan Lets New Material Dominate Dark But Playful SoCal Shows: Concert Review". Variety.
  33. ^ Padgett, Ray (April 9, 2024). "Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour Finale II: The Arrangements". Flagging Down the Double E's.
  34. ^ Williams, Richard (October 20, 2022). "Bob Dylan review – serene show goes straight to the heart". The Guardian. Retrieved August 1, 2024.
  35. ^ "Key West (Philosopher Pirate)". Bob Dylan's official website. Archived from the original on January 16, 2021. Retrieved April 23, 2024.
  36. ^ "The 80 best Bob Dylan songs – that aren't the greatest hits". The Big Issue. May 17, 2021. Archived from the original on May 17, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
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