The Arrival of the Jester
“When the jester sang for the King and Queen
In a coat, he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me”
The cover for the Bob Dylan album ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’, released by Columbia Records in 1963. The cover features Dylan and his girlfriend Suze Rotolo walking near their apartment in Greenwich Village, New York City. (Photo by Blank Archives/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
The jester that appears in the following lines of the third verse is widely believed to be associated with Bob Dylan, mostly because it is rather easy to identify him by the James Dean coat he sported on the cover of his “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album released in 1963. Because of this association, we get a date for the opening of verse three, 1963, one of the most critical years in American history because of the assassination of John Kennedy (November 22, 1963). Some historians consider the year so radical that it marked the starting point of the 60s.
“A voice that came from you and me” further identifies Dylan, who was mostly known for his distinctive, unpolished voice as well as his literate and introspective approach to folk music. The learn was the voice of a generation, and the Jester is a mythological figure that plays the role of a trickster, advising Royals by undermining them, something that Dylan also seemed to do by heralding a new order in popular music.