4 Things We Learned From Bob Dylan's Murder Most Foul
3. It Was Written "Many Years Ago" But Nobody Can Say For Sure Exactly When
One thing that is certain about Murder Most Foul is it hasn't been recorded in the very recent past. Dylan himself was characteristically cryptic and awash with ambiguity when announcing the release of the track saying simply that it had been recorded "A while back".
But when is a while back exactly?
The answer to that question has not been officially confirmed but the lyrics seem to offer some indication that it isn't strictly a new recording. Many fans have noted that the timing to release a song about the assassination of JFK seems strange and that perhaps the original intention was to release it closer to the 50th anniversary of the iconic event back in 2013.
This appears to be confirmed by the lyrics to the song, that appear to reference the assassination as taking place 50 years ago:
What more could they do? They piled on the pain but his soul was not there, where it was supposed to be for the last 50 years they've been searching for that
Some have theorised that regardless of when the track was written, the decision to release it now was made because of both the global situation, and the current political climate in the US.