The day after Christmas, I took my bride to a pleasant hotel in Princeton, New Jersey for a spa day and a mini-retreat. We took time to catch our breath and look at the year ahead. Wandering around the college town had me thinking of connections to Princeton like Paul Jargowsky, a dear friend and one of the wisest and sharpest minds I have ever met. And John Kuzel, a poet and adventurer I ran with during a year in Dublin when I was a young man. And it had me thinking of a Bob Dylan song, “Day of the Locust,” inspired by a day in June 1970 when he received an honorary degree from the august university.
It was not a pleasant experience for Dylan and he lets us all know how he feels in this song.
Let’s Start with the Song
In four verses (the first three have eight lines and the last nine lines), Dylan tells the story of the day he travelled to Princeton to pick up his honorary degree. For roughly half the song, he sings about the cicadas that were out in force that summer, though he calls them locusts:
And the locusts sang off in the distance
Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody
Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance
Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me
We’ll come back to the locusts/cicadas. The rest of the song concerns getting to Princeton, picking up the degree and then getting the hell out of Princeton, it takes a cynical view of the whole process and Dylan comes off as a grumpy old man, not a 29-year-old.
Dylan and David Crosby
David Crosby came along for the ride. Here is how Dylan describes David Crosby in his memoir, Chronicles Vol I.
Crosby was part of a new supergroup, but I knew him from when he was in The Byrds, part of the West Coast music scene. They’d recorded a song of mine, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and the record made it to the top of the charts. Crosby was a colorful and unpredictable character, wore a Mandrake the Magician cape, didn’t get along with too many people and had a beautiful voice—an architect of harmony. He was tottering on the brink of death even then and could freak out a whole city block all by himself, but I liked him a lot. He was out of place in The Byrds. He could be an obstreperous companion.
What Happened that Day?
Dylan describes the day as a “weird adventure” and says “Somehow, I had motivated David Crosby to come along.”
Crosby offers two different versions of how he wound up on the trip. The first is funnier and more fanciful:
‘I was standing by the New Jersey Turnpike, looking for America, and Bob saw a freak and stopped to pick me up.’
The more likely version is that he had somehow connected with Dylan and helped convince him to make the trip to Princeton. So, Dylan, his wife Sara and David Crosby headed out of New York City. Dylan offers this description: “We pulled off of Route 80 in a ’69 Buick Electra, found the university on a hot and cloudless day.”
David Crosby adds a key detail in an interview with Rolling Stone, “I did something that I do to people: I got him really high,” said Crosby.
Rolling Stone gives a different account, saying that Dylan had spent the night before at the Princeton Inn and had a fourth person with him, an aide named Ben Slazman. Princeton intended to give out nine honorary degrees including diplomas to Coretta Scott King and Walter Lippman.
Dylan may have been high as Crosby described and that only fueled Dylan’s hesitancy, even paranoia. It is worthwhile noting that by this time he had been out of the public eye for nearly five years, making only a few concert appearances. He had hidden from all the proclamations that he was the spokesperson for a generation. Dylan may have felt out of his element as they led him to a dark paneled room with the other dignitaries and honorees all dressed to the nines and soaking in the Princeton ambience.
A Rolling Stone article includes observations from some of the Princeton students:
“He came romping in in his shades and he was very nervous,” reported Meir Ribilow, Class Day Chairman and one of a committee that chose the honorary degree recipients.
Ribilow, who spoke with Dylan briefly, said he found him “extremely uncommunicative,” tending to mumble and speak through either Crosby or Salzman. Another student, Brent Ogden, said Dylan would ask either Salzman or Crosby if he wanted to know something, or “even if he wanted a glass of water,” and then the message would be relayed.
At one point, Dylan was asked to don the traditional mortar board and black robes. He resisted. It may have been because of the heat; the temperature climbed past 90 degrees. Maybe he was just being difficult, which Crosby suggests. It may have been because all but 25 of the Princeton graduates had refused to wear the traditional robes, instead, donating the money for the robes to the Princeton Community Fund, an organization supporting antiwar and anti-draft activities.
David Crosby and one of the student interviewees both said that Dylan became so agitated that he started to walk out. David Crosby said he talked him into staying.
There was an altercation between Bob and the Princeton people, who insisted that he wear a robe. I had to convince Bob to stay and do it.
The student observer said Dylan turned around when he saw all the students waiting for the ceremonies to begin. Here’s how Dylan puts it in the song:
I glanced into the chamber where the judges were talking
Darkness was everywhere, it smelled like a tomb
I was ready to leave, I was already walkin’
But the next time I looked there was light in the room
Dylan joined the others on the stage and waited for his name to be called. Here things got worse for Dylan as he describes in his memoirs:
I stood there in the heat staring out at the crowd, daydreaming, had attention-span disorder. When my turn came to accept the degree, the speaker introducing me said something like how I distinguished myself in carminibus canendi and that I now would enjoy all the university’s individual rights and privileges wherever they pertain, but then he added, “Though he is known to millions, he shuns publicity and organizations preferring the solidarity of his family and isolation from the world, and though he is approaching the perilous age of thirty, he remains the authentic expression of the disturbed and concerned conscience of Young America.”
Oh Sweet Jesus! It was like a jolt. I shuddered and trembled but remained expressionless. The disturbed conscience of Young America! There it was again. I couldn’t believe it! Tricked once more. The speaker could have said many things, he could have emphasized a few things about my music. When he said to the crowd that I preferred isolation from the world, it was like he told them that I preferred being in an iron tomb with my food shoved in on a tray. The sunlight was blocking my vision, but I could still see the faces gawking at me with such strange expressions. I was so mad I wanted to bite myself.
The ceremony ended and Dylan found himself disconnected and isolated. Here are the lines from the song:
Outside of the gates the trucks were unloadin’
The weather was hot, a-nearly 90 degrees
The man standin’ next to me, his head was exploding
Well, I was prayin’ the pieces wouldn’t fall on me
Here’s Rolling Stone from their David Crosby interview:
“There’s a line that goes, ‘The man standing next to me, his head was exploding.’” said Crosby proudly. “That’s me!”
Dylan couldn’t wait to get out of there. Here’s how he described it in his memoirs:
After whispering and mumbling my way through the ceremony, I was handed the scroll. We piled back into the big Buick and drove away. It had been a strange day. “Bunch of dickheads on auto-stroke,” Crosby said.
Here are the lines from the final verse of the song:
I put down my robe, picked up my diploma
Took hold of my sweetheart and away we did drive
Straight for the hills, the black hills of Dakota
Sure was glad to get out of there alive
Wasn’t There a Book and a Movie with the Same Name?
In 1939, Nathaniel West published his novel Day of the Locust about the underbelly of Hollywood. There is no direct connection to this song other than the title and perhaps a link that the song comments on the cynical business of honorary degrees.
Paramount Pictures premiered the movie Day of the Locust in 1975, five years after this song came out. The film is based on the novel and has no connection to the Dylan song, Directed by John Schlesinger, the film starred William Atherton, Donald Sutherland, Burgess Meredith and Karen Black.
Can We Come Back to the Locusts?
Dylan did hear a sound, but not from locusts. That June, Brood X of the periodical cicada had returned to Princeton. Newspapers reported swarms blacking out the sky and the sound could be overwhelming. These cicadas lay dormant for 17 years before coming back to life. It turns out that there are only 15 large broods remaining and Brood X is one of the largest.
Why call them locusts? Maybe Dylan liked the Biblical references, but those locusts were destructive, not offering a sweet song. Maybe he heard people call them locusts and he didn’t do the research to find their proper name. Maybe it just sounds better.
Recording Song
Dylan brought this song into the studio on the last day of the recording for New Morning. He put down seven tracks using the last on the album. The performance starts with the sound of the cicadas and then Bob singing with the piano he’s playing. By the second half of the first verse, he’s joined by the full band and that would include Russ Kunkel on drums, Charlie Daniels on bass, Al Kooper on the organ and a guitarist that may have been David Bromberg.
Live Performances
Dylan has never performed this song live. Maybe he got to say his piece and now he has left it in the past.
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YouTube: https://youtu.be/H80Tusy6SCU?si=OGplUKXlQHkn8CWY
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5xStgjsb9BdVCHVTAHKwYs?si=033c7806ef53428a