Bill Murray Sings the Poetry of Bob Dylan: Shelter From the Storm

We’ve shown you Bill Mur­ray in full-blown lit­er­ary mode, read­ing long pas­sages from Huck Finn and poems by Wal­lace Stevens, Bil­ly Collins and Emi­ly Dick­in­son. (My favorite is the poet­ry read­ing at the con­struc­tion site.) Now it’s time to add Bob Dylan to that list. And, why not? Dylan is the undis­put­ed “poet lau­re­ate of rock ’n’ roll.” Who would argue with that?

The poem recit­ed — or rather mut­tered in Mur­ray’s inim­itable style — is “Shel­ter from the Storm,” found on Dylan’s 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks. The scene comes from the film “St. Vin­cent,” which you can find in the­aters on Octo­ber 10. “Shel­ter from the Storm” begins:

’Twas in anoth­er life­time, one of toil and blood
When black­ness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilder­ness, a crea­ture void of form
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shel­ter from the storm”

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I’ll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fight­ing to be warm
“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shel­ter from the storm”

Read along with the full poem here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Mod­ernist Poem The Waste Land

Bill Mur­ray Gives a Delight­ful Dra­mat­ic Read­ing of Twain’s Huck­le­ber­ry Finn (1996)

Bill Mur­ray Reads Great Poet­ry by Bil­ly Collins, Cole Porter, and Sarah Man­gu­so

13 Lec­tures from Allen Ginsberg’s “His­to­ry of Poet­ry” Course (1975)