The Funambulist Balances ‘Twixt Heaven and Hell
The “Hard Rain” backdrop: Rolling Thunder Revue Tour ‘76
Somewhere along the road Bob Dylan added a slackwire instructor to the traveling carnival that was the Rolling Thunder Review Tour 1976. One of the oldest forms of funambulism, slackwire walking involves balancing against instability and Earth’s downpull while maintaining your equilibrium on a narrow wire.
In mid 1976, Dylan may have felt a compelling need to learn more about maintaining equilibrium. The second leg of the RTR Tour, so full of joy and promise in 1975, was showing its caked greasepaint and tattered costume underpinnings in mid-1976 — half-full auditoriums, canceled and combined shows, altogether bad vibes.
Dylan’s marital status was also beginning to fray. And as his marriage came apart, Dylan was conducting at least two on-tour affairs, one with his slackwire teacher, who was smart enough to vanish whenever Sara Dylan appeared in full witchy The Empress persona. Larry Sloman thought The Empress was something Sara deeply identified with after seeing an oversized version of the Tarot card dominating Sara’s hotel room during the first leg of the RTR tour.
Robert Shelton once described Sara as “…a Romany spirit, seeming to be wise beyond her years, knowledgeable about magic, folklore and traditional wisdom.” She and Dylan had a shared interest in Tarot, although Dylan’s is better-known.
Certainly he was thinking of magic, divination, and Tarot during the mid-70s. The Empress card makes an appearance on the back cover of Desire — an album filled with Tarot-like imagery — and Dylan was captured in a staged photo by photographer Ken Regan at the ‘75 RTR rehearsals reading the occult book Crystal Magick.
What makes that photo particularly interesting in the context of Dylan’s mid-70s magical interests is the last paragraph of the blurb printed on the back cover of the book, “Linked with [Pushong’s] book ‘THE TAROT OF THE MAGI’ the path to Initiation becomes more defined to the earnest seeker of Divine Wisdom which is the inheritance waiting to be claimed by all men.”
Was Bob Dylan one of those “earnest seekers” who had read Tarot of the Magi and now was seeking Divine Wisdom through crystal scrying?
I think the answer is “yes.”
Dylan had the slackwire equipment set up in the parking lot of the hotels where the RTR cast cooped for the nights and days before showtime. The slackwire shared the lots in the early days of the tour with a unique stage backdrop Dylan was creating — eight panels of plywood, very tall panels, ultimately forming four finished canvases. Panels at least tall enough for Dylan to need a ladder to paint his plywood canvases propped against the tour buses.
Wouldn’t it be something to have stumbled across a man wearing what appeared to be an Arab headscarf, balanced precariously atop a ladder, intently painting thorns on a gigantic Sagrado Corazón portrait of Jesus as a funambulist practiced her art nearby while terrible and strange Floridian bugs circled and slammed against the glow of sodium lamps illuminating the whole weird hashish-like dreamscape.
Perhaps with help from Bob Neuwirth, Dylan had the backdrop completed by the tour’s second show in Lakeland, Florida on April 18. The panels would appear periodically during the tour’s run, apparently only used at outdoor venues, and not always those. As well as Lakeland, there are photos of the panels appearing at the Gainesville, and of course, Fort Collins, shows. But outside of those three, any other panel appearances are undocumented. Unlike its ‘75 leg, the ‘76 RTR tour was nowhere near as well-photographed or reported on, either officially or by fans.
Panel 1: Sacred Heart Christ
A gaunt suffering figure with a halo of red and blue radiating lines, golden-brown earth tones, a bright orange-red heart at center with dark streaming lines emerging. The figure holds a cross in his left hand. Altogether the panel resembles a Byzantine icon — elongated melancholy face, stylized geometric heart — filtered through a Mexican Catholic folk sensibility.
The “arrows” seen piercing the heart could be the radiating thorns/beams of a traditional Sacred Heart iconograph. But notice they form what seems like a deliberate trident image.
Panel 2: The Bearded Magus
A dark-haired, dark-bearded man in sunglasses, black sleeveless vest, playing a red-orange guitar. Possibly intended to suggest a Dylan self-portrait. The figure is surrounded by four iconographic objects:
- Upper left: three green dots/circles suggesting, what? The Trinity? The Tarot Three of Pentacles? Unlike two other icons in the panel, there is no clear “inverted” orientation.
- Upper right: a large skeleton key, horizontal, bow (loop end) to the left and bit (cutting end) to the right. The key is not inverted.
- Lower right: a green fish, head-down, tail-up — inverted
- Lower left: an inverted chalice or cup — although the icon most resembles an old-fashioned bottle-cap opener, the triangle balancing a funnel shape could be read as a stemmed chalice or cup turned upside-down, bowl down and the stem facing up. Another inversion.
Panel 3: The Judgement
A blonde figure with golden-limned hair sounding a wind instrument is the dominant figure. To the left appears another Christ-like figure, this time blindfolded. Above his head is the Star of David. To the right is a gray-haired man. Not shown in the close-up above is what appears to be some sort of creature to that man’s lower right: A fox? A monkey? A mask that he’s holding?
Panel 4: Death Suspended
The final panel shows a beturbaned man, dressed in a yellow smock, a large inverted Ace of Spades on his breast. He holds a crystal orb or ball that he is gazing into and wears a quiver holding two arrows. A large, upright infinity symbol (or an “8” written upright) appears to his upper left.
The Reading
Before I give my very speculative interpretations, I’d invite you to reflect on the panels’ imagery yourself — as Bob Dylan meant them for his audience. Your thoughts are as valid as mine. Ultimately, only one man could tell you what he meant them to evoke… and he’s not talking.
PANEL 1 — The Christ Figure / Sacred Heart (with Trident?) / Vir Dolorum
What’s depicted: A gaunt, melancholy Christ figure with elongated face, in golden-brown earth tones, with a radiating halo of red and blue lines around the head. A bright orange-red heart at the center of the chest with dark streaming lines emerging (blood, tears, or radiating beams). The figure is holding his own cross.
That would make it a compound image: The Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sagrado Corazón) and the Vir Dolorum (the Man of Sorrows) — Christ holding the instrument of his own death.
The wound (past event) is shown on the cross-holding figure (present moment) before the wound has been received (future event). Time is folded backward. It’s Norman Raeben’s “simultaneity” principle applied to Christian iconography — the lesson Raeben taught Dylan in 1974 about time rendered theologically. Dylan has painted the entire Passion as both accomplished and contemplated in retrospect.
Three lines emerge from the heart, displaying a trident shape. Is it meant to represent the three nails of the crucifixion or the the three crosses of Calvary? Perhaps, past, present and future? Or perhaps its the first sign of threefold-ness as the panels’ organizing principle — that its overall message operates by threes.
PANEL 2 — The Bearded Magus with Inverted Icons
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A dark-haired, dark-bearded man in sunglasses and a black sleeveless vest, playing a red-orange guitar. He’s surrounded by four iconographic objects in the cardinal positions:
- Upper left: Three green dots/orbs arranged in a triangular configuration (one above, two below). Threes again.
- Upper right: A skeleton key, horizontal, bow (loop end) to the left and bit (cutting end) to the right
- Lower right: A green fish, head-down, tail-up (inverted)
- Lower left: A form resembling a stemmed chalice or cup turned upside-down — a triangle balancing a funnel, cup down, stem facing up (inverted)
The composition (central figure with four objects at corners) maps to the Magician card of the Tarot’s Major Arcana. In Pushong (author of Crystal Magik and The Tarot of the Magi) vocabulary, the Fool is called “The Magus” — the wandering soul at the beginning of the journey.
The three green dots in their triangular arrangement match some Tarot decks Three of Pentacles’ layout — three suit-symbols in a triangle. Its meaning is around creation and manifestation.
The Magus’s instruments are functional above ( dots and key) and reversed below (cup and fish). If the image is meant to represent Bob Dylan, he has painted himself as a Magician whose magic is beginning to fail.
PANEL 3 — Judgment
What’s depicted:
- A central blonde figure with golden-limned hair (suggesting a halo) playing a vertical wind instrument with both hands — possibly a shofar.
- To the figure’s left: a blindfolded, bloodied Christ figure with a white bandage/bandana covering the eyes, bloodstains under the chin
- To the figure’s right: a clean-shaven gray-haired man in overalls (suggested by three green clothing stripes), and holding what appears to be a mask — animal-faced, with dark eyes and pale muzzle.
- Above and between the figures: a black Star of David
The image quotes the Rolla-Nordic Tarot Judgment card illustrated in Pushong’s The Tarot of the Magi. That Judgment shows a central trumpet-blowing figure with radiating lines, flanked by figures below.
Where most Tarot Judgment cards card use Christian iconography (resurrection trumpet, Christian banner/cross), Dylan paints Jewish iconography: what appears to be a shofar in place of trumpet, a Star of David in place of cross/banner.
The blindfolded Christ: This may represent the figure whose most famous Western depiction is Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ, at the moment when the prophet is demanded to perform and is prevented from seeing.
The mask-holder and mask: The hardest figures to interpret in this panel. Who is the figure who may be holding a mask? If mask it is, what is it a mask of? If fox, the most resonant reading to me is Rabbi Akiva’s fox from Lamentations 5:18 and Talmud Makkot 24b — the fox walking on the ruins of the Holy of Holies, whose presence confirms the prophecy of destruction and simultaneously the promise of restoration.
PANEL 4 — Death the Archer wearing Inverted Spade
What’s depicted: A figure in a green turban, dark beard, calm or downcast expression. Holds a separate orb or crystal ball in his hands
- Above and to the left : An infinity symbol or figure-8 rendered vertically.
- On his breast: A large black spade, inverted.
- On his shoulder: A quiver holding two arrows.
Keeping to the Tarot theme, the figure reminds me of the Visconti-Sforza card with Death as Archer with turbaned skull, bow, and arrows.
In Dylan’s version, skeletal Death becomes living man wearing Death’s headgear and carrying Death’s arrows, marked with the inverted spade on his chest. In Tarot’s reversed-card grammar, an inverted Death card means transformation suspended, death deferred. Change, and spiritual rebirth.
The infinity sign/figure 8 above could be invoking either:
- The resurrection-eighth-day cycle (Christ rose on the eighth day; eight is the resurrection number in Christian numerology)
- Tarot card VIII (Justice in some decks) — Death held in suspension by the principle of Justice, waiting for the verdict
Both readings converge on the same point: Death’s reign is temporary. Death wears the sign of his own defeat.
The World Turned Upside-down
If Dylan was reading Crystal Magik during this period he was probably also attempting crystal scrying — attempting to invoke visions by means of gazing into a crystal ball or orb. Note that the Death figure in Panel 4 appears to be holding such an orb.
Whatever visions he saw probably had deep personal meaning to Dylan, surfacing from his subconscious during a time when he was having great difficulty maintaining spiritual/life balance. He was thinking enough about balance that he actually hired a funambulist to accompany him on tour, a person who he ironically would later have an affair with.
What conclusions can be drawn from the panels in that light? Christ crucified and wounded: the Man of Sorrows; The Magus starting to lose control over his magic; Judgment coming; but Judgment deferred by spiritual change. Is that what he saw?
The canvas can be viewed as a unified, not discrete, composition. Every panel deploys an inversion. Panel 1 inverts temporality (wound shown before it is received). Panel 2 inverts the Magician’s lower instruments. Panel 3 inverts the prophet’s sight (blindfold) and the Judgment card’s religious orientation. Panel 4 inverts Death’s sign with an inverted spade.
The whole backdrop is a mundus inversus — the medieval iconographic tradition of “the world turned upside down,” visible in works by Bruegel and Bosch.
Life is a Carnival
Mundus inversus in medieval Europe was a tradition of inversion where the world was permitted to be upside-down for a set period. Mardi Gras, the Feast of Fools, the Lord of Misrule’s brief reign. Peasants crowned as fool-kings. Donkeys brought into church. Hierarchies mocked and reversed. The world allowed to be upside-down for a time. The chaos was licensed by the Church because by inverting normal order temporarily, the normal order was renewed and strengthened.
The Rolling Thunder Revue was designed as a traveling carnival, with whiteface Pierrots and a gypsy troupe presented as outside ordinary order. The Hard Rain backdrop is the altarpiece of that carnival.
And then the carnival ended. Rolling Thunder closed on May 23, 1976 and Dylan never toured in that mode again. Three years later he walked into the Vineyard Fellowship and chose Christ. The inversion had run its course; the restoration followed. Carnival ended; Lent began.
The backdrop is autobiographical at a level Dylan rarely admits in public. Panel 2’s Magus is Dylan as the artist whose magic is partially failing. Panel 3’s blindfolded Christ is Dylan as forced prophet, demanded to perform on command. Dylan painted his own spiritual situation in spring 1976: between marriages, between religions, three years from the Christian conversion that would resolve the search.
Perhaps. Or perhaps Dylan would tell us we’re seeing patterns that aren’t there. He’d be the only one who knows.
Dylan descends from the ladder, going to watch his funambulist teacher/lover. She balances; stands on one foot, starts to sway the line back-and-forth until she’s almost horizontal to the ground at the apex of each swing. Still she retains her balance.
The thing about slackwire walking is that there’s no clean way to leave the wire. You either fall or you jump down, finally conceding to the force that you’ve been taming on the wire.
She drops down, takes a towel to dry her face and says, “Your turn, Bob.”
