Bob Dylan released a long (17 minutes!) song about the assassination of JFK this week, and the weird track got Stephen Colbert and “The Late Show” wondering what would it be like if he gave other U.S. presidents that treatment.
The result is a fake ad for an album called “Bob Dylan Sings Lengthy Songs About U.S. Presidents to Help Pass the Time During the Quarantine.”
The video features parodies of well-known Dylan tracks. “Ballad of the Fat Man,” we’re told, is a 25-minute song about Taft. “Vision of 2 Adams” meanwhile is a song about mixing up John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams. And “Knockin’ on Van Buren’s Trousers” is, we’re told, a track that talks about the heroically sideburned president for 2 hours.
The ad also promises other fake songs including “Where’s Lincoln’s Mustache,” “Tangled Up in Coolidge,” “Mr. Tangerine Man” (yes we get it), “Stuck Inside a Millard With the Fillmore Blues Again,” and “Just Like a Truman.”
“And let’s hope this quarantine ends soon,” the ad concludes, “because there are only 45 presidents.” Accurate of course, but at least we might something like “The Times They Are a-Reagan” get it? Get it?
Anyway, read more about Dylan’s ode to JFK here, and watch the whole “The Late Show” clip above.