“Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” by Bob Dylan

Tucked into the second side of Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan's January 1975 album on Columbia, "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" is a nearly nine-minute Western yarn with a bigger cast than most novels bother with. The Jack of Hearts has just hit town at the head of a gang of bank robbers, Lily and Rosemary are both painted in royal terms, and Rosemary, Big Jim's long-suffering wife, goes to her execution for his murder. The plot ducks and weaves, and Dylan never stops to explain it.

He cut it first in New York in September 1974, then again in Minneapolis that December, and the Minneapolis take is the one that made the record. Bill Berg's drums and Billy Peterson's bass keep up a jaunty barroom trot, Chris Weber strums alongside Dylan, Buddy Cage's steel guitar glints at the edges, and the harmonica blows through like dust off the prairie.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.