The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
| "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan from the album John Wesley Harding | ||||
| Released | December 27, 1967 | |||
| Recorded | October 17, 1967 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length | 5:35 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer | Bob Dylan | |||
| Producer | Bob Johnston | |||
| John Wesley Harding track listing | ||||
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"The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" is a song on Bob Dylan's 1967 album John Wesley Harding. He has performed the song live in 1987 (with the Grateful Dead), 1988, and 2000.
The plainly spoken ballad is the longest song on John Wesley Harding, without chorus, bridge, or a refrain to vary its structure. Like the rest of the album, the instrumentation is very sparse. The story has Frankie Lee responding to suggestions and temptations of his friend Judas Priest, which leave him to die "of thirst" after 16 nights and days in a home with 24 women.
British music critic Andy Gill has speculated that early verses of Frankie agonizing over Judas' offer of money echo Dylan's business dealings. To Frankie worldly delights are represented as "Paradise," though the devilish Judas recognizes their true price is "Eternity" - Frankie's mortal soul.
Unusually for a Dylan song, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" ends with a moral, telling the listener "the moral of this story, the moral of this song, is simply that one should never be where one does not belong", to help one's neighbor with his load, and "don't go mistaking Paradise/for that home across the road."
Heavy metal band Judas Priest derived their name from this song.[1]
Swedish punk rock band Franky Lee derived their name from this song.
Covers
- Jerry Garcia and David Grisman: Been All Around This World (2004)
- Martyna Jakubowicz on Tylko Dylan (2005), as Jot jak Judasz (in Polish)
