False Prophet (song)

The title of the song, and the refrain "I ain't no false prophet", are believed by many to be self-referential as Dylan has been referred to as both a "prophet" and a "false prophet" on many occasions since the 1960s. Speaking to Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes in 2004, Dylan said, "You’re just not that person everybody thinks you are, though they call you that all the time: ’You’re the prophet. You’re the savior.’ I never wanted to be a prophet or savior. Elvis maybe. I could easily see myself becoming him. But prophet? No.”[10]

More notoriously, Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, opposed Dylan's playing at a Catholic youth event for Pope John Paul II in 1997. In a memoir about his predecessor published in 2007, Benedict wrote that he "doubts to this day whether it was right to let this kind of so-called prophet take the stage" in front of the Pope.[11]

It is likely that Dylan, who has been known to play songs as reference points for his band in the studio,[12][13] played Billy "The Kid" Emerson's "If Lovin' is Believin'" during the Rough and Rowdy Ways sessions. As drummer Matt Chamberlain explained in an interview, "(Dylan) might have like a reference point for a groove or a feel and then we'll just kind of jam on that. And then he'll start trying to sing over it, and then he'll get on the piano and add some extra chords and we'll kind of work out the arrangement, and the next thing you know we've tracked the song."[14]

Dylan referred to "False Prophet" as one of three 12-bar blues songs on Rough and Rowdy Ways (the other two being "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" and "Crossing the Rubicon") while praising guitarist Charlie Sexton in an interview with Douglas Brinkley that appeared in The New York Times.[15] This implies that Sexton is the principal guitarist on the song, which features some colorful but subtle electric guitar playing and a near-solo during the outro.

NME critic Mark Beaumont, reviewing the song on May 8, 2020, before the release of Rough and Rowdy Ways, interpreted it as a sly self-inquiry into the Bob Dylan persona: "If there is a touch of autobiography, Dylan is clearly proud of his work after 50-plus years in the game, taking on a boxer’s pre-match bravado ('I’m first among equals, second to none / Last of the best, you can bury the rest') and nodding to the long-standing protest tradition he epitomised. 'I sing songs of love, I sing songs of betrayal,' he growls, 'can’t remember when I was born and I forget when I died'". Beaumont also predicted that, based on the strength of this performance, Dylan's "upcoming album will be a late-career high point".[16]

Writing at Albumism, where the song was included in the site's "New Music We Love" column, Sarah Paolantonio wrote that the "chugging beat and rhyming phrases work effortlessly as a vehicle for a man who loves to tell stories and spin tales" and praised Dylan's vocal performance, noting that his "deep rusty drawl has aged perfectly" for the electric-blues genre.[17]

Although the entirety of Rough and Rowdy Ways was released online for free via Bob Dylan's official YouTube channel, "False Prophet" was the only song for which an official lyric video was made. The video, which features minimalist animation and typography based on the album's pre-release artwork, debuted on June 22, 2020, three days after the rest of the album became available to stream.[18]

Historian Richard F. Thomas has analyzed the lyrics to "False Prophet" in relation to Classical antiquity (which factors into other songs on the album more overtly):

He sees the lines "I'm first among equals, second to none" as a reference to Augustus Caesar being "proud of his claim to be 'first among equals' which upheld the fiction that the (Ancient Roman) system, effectively a monarchy, was still a republic—those are hard to hold onto, then as now".

He sees the lines "Last of the best, you can bury the rest / Bury 'em naked with their silver and gold" as a reference to "what happened across twenty years of the Roman civil war, initiated when (Julius) Caesar crossed the Rubicon in January of 49 BC: by the year 30, Augustus, 'last of the best,' buried Antony, as Antony and he buried Brutus and Cassius, they all buried Julius Caesar, and Caesar buried Pompey".

He sees the lines "Put out your hand, there's nothin' to hold / Open your mouth, I'll stuff it with gold" as a reference to the grisly murders of at least two Roman generals (Manius Aquillius and Cassius Dio) who "were reported to have died by having their mouths stuffed with gold".[19]

• List of Bob Dylan songs based on earlier tunes

• Video on YouTube