"Early Roman Kings" is a

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

song written and performed by

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

that appears as the seventh track on his 2012 studio album ''Tempest''. It was also released as the album's lead single through

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

on August 7, 2012. Like much of Dylan's 21st-century output, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym

Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, ...

Composition and recording

The song is built on a generic riff familiar from many blues recordings, notably

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

Mannish Boy "Mannish Boy" (or "Manish Boy" as it was first labeled) is a blues standard written by Muddy Waters, Mel London, and Bo Diddley (with Waters and Diddley being credited under their birth names). First recorded in 1955 by Waters, it serves as an " ...

Willie Dixon William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he ...

's "

Hoochie Coochie Man "Hoochie Coochie Man" (originally titled "I'm Your Hoochie Cooche Man") is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Muddy Waters in 1954. The song makes reference to hoodoo folk magic elements and makes novel use of a sto ...

" and

Bo Diddley Ellas McDaniel (born Ellas Otha Bates; December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known professionally as Bo Diddley, was an American guitarist who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, incl ...

's " I'm a Man", but it has drawn praise for Dylan's humorous, original lyrics and committed performance. Writer Lloyd Fonvielle, in an online essay, noted the song's relationship to the

Chicago blues Chicago blues is a form of blues music developed in Chicago, Illinois. It is based on earlier blues idioms, such as Delta blues, but performed in an urban style. It developed alongside the Great Migration of the first half of the twentieth cent ...

and how

David Hidalgo David Kent Hidalgo (born October 6, 1954, in Los Angeles.) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. Hidalgo frequently plays musical instruments such as accordion, violin, 6-string banjo, cello, requin ...

's accordion part replaces the part that would traditionally be occupied by a harmonica and/or guitar. He claims this transposition gives the track the feeling of a "ghost blues". Lyrically, Fonvielle sees the song as "a kind of road map to the apocalyptic landscape of the album as a whole. The 'early Roman kings' seem to be symbols of the wicked men ruling America today. They are vicious, supernaturally powerful, bent on domination and horrific violence". Dylan scholar Tony Attwood has observed that the song seems to simultaneously reference the Roman Kings, who were a

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

-based street gang in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Kings of

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

(who preceded the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

and the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

). Historian

Richard F. Thomas Richard F. Thomas (born September 26, 1950) is the George Martin Lane Professor of the Classics at Harvard University. His scholarship has focused on various critical approaches, metrics and prose stylistics (particularly Tacitus), genre studies, ...

agrees, noting that Dylan seems to be "playing" with classicists by creating expectations, via the "Latin" title, that the song will be about Roman antiquity then subverting those expectations by describing the titular characters as wearing "sharkskin suits". The song is performed in the key of

G major G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable compositi ...

Critical reception

Critic Jedd Beaudoin, writing at ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'', called the song a "masterpiece", noting that it "draws on various streams of American music, namely the blues and early rock 'n' roll. With bawdy, insistent rhythms and fine, refined lyrics, the composition is a testament to the multitudes heard across the Minnesota native's output". Irish poet

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Pr ...

called it "a particular favorite" in a 2016 ''New Yorker'' story celebrating Dylan's winning the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

Greil Marcus Greil Marcus (born June 19, 1945) is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a broader framework of culture and politics. Biography Marcus wa ...

has cited the song as one of his favorites on ''Tempest'', calling it "hilarious". ''Spectrum Culture'' included the song on a list of "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '10s and Beyond". In an article accompanying the list, critic Peter Tabakis also noted Dylan's use of humor in the song: "Dylan, no doubt, is in on the joke. When he insists, '''I ain’t dead yet, my bell still rings'','' it’s with a smirk. A statement like that is inherently self-defeating. If you have to say it, it probably ain’t so. The proof of Dylan’s vitality here is not in his words, but in the sheer verve of this music. '''I’ve had my fun''', he sings at the end of 'Early Roman Kings', a claim no one can dispute".

In popular culture

"Early Roman Kings" was the first song from ''Tempest'' to be released in any form when a segment of it was featured in a

Cinemax Cinemax is an American pay television, cable, and satellite television network owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. Developed as a companion "maxi-pay" service complementing the offerings shown on parent net ...

commercial for the TV series '' Strike Back: Vengeance'' in August 2012''.''

Cultural references

The lines "I can strip you of life / Strip you of breath / Ship you down / To the house of death" are taken from

Robert Fagles Robert Fagles (; September 11, 1933 – March 26, 2008) was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek and Roman classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer. ...

' translation of Book 9 of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

's ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

''.

Cover versions

Singer-songwriter

Peter Case Peter Case (born April 5, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His career is wide-ranging, from rock n' roll and blues, to folk rock and solo acoustic performance. Biography Early career Case was born in Buffalo, New York a ...

covered the song on his 2021 album ''The Midnight Broadcast''.

Live performances

Between 2013 and 2021, Dylan performed the song live over 570 times. This makes it the most frequently performed song from ''Tempest'' by a considerable margin. The live debut occurred at the

Xcel Energy Center Xcel Energy Center (also known as "The X") is a multipurpose arena in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Completed in 2000, it is named for its locally based corporate sponsor Xcel Energy. With an official capacity of 17,954, the arena has four ...

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

on November 7, 2012 and the most recent performances occurred on the

Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour is the current ongoing tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan in support of his 39th studio album '' Rough and Rowdy Ways'' (2020). The tour began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 2, 2021 and is sched ...

in 2021.

References

External links

Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site
Chords
at Dylanchords {{authority control 2012 singles 2012 songs Bob Dylan songs Songs written by Bob Dylan Song recordings produced by Bob Dylan