LYRICSe
"You ... cover up the truth with lies."

Mr. Dylan takes poetic license with the facts throughout the song, particularly in his descriptions of what people said and did. His quotes are not real (according to the real "Miss Patty Valentine," who was interviewed for this report).

Valentine could not see the bartender. His body was behind the bar. (See photo)

Read Pat Valentine's 1967 trial testimony in full! PDF file.

The "somethin' that he never done" line fails the accuracy test. [See "Carter Guilty" headline that appeared a year after this song came out]

Could-a been the champ? His record was 7-7-1 in 1965-'66 and getting worse each year.
• Ring Magazine says Carter's career is going down the tubes. Article published two months before the murders.
• View his boxing record for 1965-'66.

Mr. Dylan's imagination is running wild again.

It was four months later when Bello admitted to police that he had taken cash from the register. See report from October 1966

Bello DID NOT step over bodies to go steal money from the cash register. He went to the register to get a dime to call police and took an extra $60 in cash -- which he fully admitted at trial. Yes he stole it; no, that was not his reason for going to the register. [Read his taped statement]

Pat Valentine said on 1/12/00 that none of this exchange between her and Bello actually happened.

BOTH Bello and Valentine called the cops. Bello was so rattled while he was on the phone that he couldn't remember what street the bar was on and ran outside to look for a sign. He couldn't find it -- even though it was right there on the corner. [Read his taped statement about the phone call]

NEW! (11-06) Now you can ride along on Carter's getaway route using YouTube. See for yourself where he was pulled over ... just minutes from the murder scene, not "far away in another part of town," as Dylan wrote. Click here

Dylan's language implies that it was a casual drive, but prosecutors believe that after the shootings Carter rendezvoused with accomplices, dumped the guns at an apartment and was trying to get home when he was first stopped by police, as the map shows. Also see getaway graphics on main page and the YouTube video of the getaway route.

Carter admitted he was only a few blocks away just before the murders, in a bar called the Nite Spot. [SEE Carter's hangout AND the murder scene in one photo!] -- [See map of getaway route.]

Number One Contender??? Carter was No. 3 in May 1965, but just 10 months later he had fallen to No. 9, according to "Ring" magazine. That last ranking was published in May of 1966, the month before the murders. "Ring" said Carter's hopes for a crack at the middleweight title were dead.

View "Ring's" 1966 article about Carter's fading career.

Carter's record was a dismal 7-7-1 in 1965 and 1966.

Ring Magazine's rankings for Carter:

• 1962: Unranked
• 1963: No. 3 contender
• 1964: No. 3 contender
• 1965: No. 5 contender
• 1966: Unranked

(The champion is on top of the rankings, then comes the No. 1 contender and so on.)

This is the first of several verses in which Dylan uses racism over reason in an attempt to discredit those who prosecuted Carter. His use of racism is coupled with generalizations that don't address the facts. Well, that's just the way things go.

No act of racism by prosecutors has ever been documented.

The judge who freed Carter said the use of the racial revenge theory, which calls the murders retaliation for the earlier killing of a black man, appealed to "racism over reason." But the jury that convicted Carter in 1976 had two voting black members, and a black legislator (working with a black investigator) who examined the case for the N.J. governor said racial revenge was the only plausible explanation for the murders. See Hawkins report.

On the day of the murders, press reports raised the possibility of racial revenge. See end of article.

Carter's car was pulled over because it matched the description of the getaway car — perfectly. See car graphic.

Bello did not admit the attempted burglary until months later when he gave a full statement about what he saw that night. [Read that portion of statement] (Bello and Bradley were near the murder scene to break into a sheet metal company.)

[Bello explains why he kept his mouth shut for four months in this police report]

The quote is made up, and the description of the car was much more precise because it included the distinctive butterly taillights. It was so precise that two police officers immediately recognized Carter's car from the description because they had pulled it over minutes before. [See car graphic] • [See Prosecutor's brief]

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Two cops stopped Carter's car just 10 minutes after the murders and let him go. Minutes later, after getting a detailed description of the killers' car, those cops realized Carter's car fit the description and went looking for it. They found it -- with Carter and Artis inside -- just 30 minutes after the murders. THAT is how Carter got caught. See map • [See Prosecutor's brief]

He ain't the guy?! The wounded man, Willie Marins, made no such statement. He said "I don't know." [See graphic] [See clipping]

Marins was too scared to identify Carter publicly, but privately he told his brother and two friends that it was Carter and Artis who did the shooting. (See news story.)

Significantly, Marins NEVER SAID it was NOT Carter and Artis. Carter reports that fact in his own book on Page 329. See story.

This is made up and another irresponsible attempt to discredit by using racism without facts. The quotes are all made up.

The cops had no need to put the screws to Bradly because his partner Bello had already identified Carter by name. See graphic.

After Bello gave his statement, detectives went to interview Bradley — who was 75 miles away in a reformatory and therefore could not have coordinated stories with Bello. During the interview, Bradley was afraid to identify Carter while a guard was present, but said the killer "has many fans" and said his initials are "R.C.," [Read the detectives' report] Bradley's full statement about the events of that night matched Bello's.

This is all made up.

Bradley was already IN jail (a reformatory) when he was approached by detectives. 

According to the investigating detectives' report: "The guard went out of the room for a short period and Bradley said the he saw Rubin Carter come around the corner with what he thought was a rifle. ... Bradley confirmed the story told to us by Alfred Bello." Read the report (same page as in preceding graph)

Dylan is again trying to discredit police by attributing their actions to racism without citing facts.

I think the "braver" line is an allusion to Carter's comments in the Saturday Evening Post about shooting cops. See story. Carter blames the story for bringing the cops down on him — but then, he blames others for virtually everything bad that ever happened to him.

Gentleman Jim was a famous white boxer.

Noooo — he liked to talk about punching out horses. See story. And shooting at people. See story.

Paradise? Trout streams? Nice air? Oh c'mon, Bob! He left his wife at home and was hanging around and drinking in Paterson bars that night. He spent so much time at the Nite Spot he had a special table.

This is a lame attempt to portray Carter — who was convicted of beating and robbing people before he became a convicted murderer — as a nature-loving man of peace. Funny. And sad. [See page about the Content of Carter's Character page]

Months after Dylan released this song, Carter beat up a woman who was the leader of the "Free Carter" campaign in New Jersey. [See Prosecutor's Brief.] [See news story from 1976.]

"Marked in advance?" Ah, the police conspiracy. Doesn't it strike you as odd that no credible evidence of a conspiracy has been revealed in over 35 years? Has Carter team ever taken their conspiracy allegations to higher authorities? Has Carter ever sued? No.

Pig-circus = police slur. Another attempt to discredit by generalizing without facts.

The judge made them out to be drunkards from the slums? That's news to me. That alone would have been grounds for a new trial. [The judge did ask one drunken witness how many drinks he had consumed before testifying.]

Revolutionary? Will someone please fill me in on Rubin Carter's civil rights achievements? I am aware of none — except his claim to have turned down Dr. King when King allegedly asked him to join a march. All the black leaders Carter claims to have been friends with are dead (King, Malcolm X, Steve Biko). Does that tell you anything? ($100 REWARD for a clipping that proves Carter's civil rights claims.)

No guns were needed to get a conviction. Two trials proved that.

The jury that convicted Carter in 1976 had two blacks. Of course, that trial occurred after this song was written.

Prosecutor Burrell Ives Humphreys, the man who at the 1976 trial said Carter "did the deed," was a civil rights activist and a member of the NAACP. He was about as far from being a racist as a white guy can get. See excerpts from 1967 interview.

Bello and Bradley baldly lied? They were interviewed separately and had not seen each other in months, yet they told the same story about that night. Other witnesses corroborated parts of their stories. See graphic.

Newspapers went along for the ride? Here's another pathetic attempt to discredit without offering a shred of facts. When this song was being written, my paper was printing "the other side of the story," which showed why Carter was guilty. Carter's team didn't like that. [Now you can read local newspaper coverage of Carter's 1967 trial. More than 50 actual clippings!]

If Dylan had adhered to the standards of ethics and accuracy that are followed by good newspaper reporters, this would be a much different song.

I take this to be a shot at Lt. DeSimone, by all accounts a decent, honest and sensitive man, and not a racist. [See graphic.] [See his obituary.] [See testimonial dinner program] The attacks in this song were very hurtful to DeSimone and his family.

His boss was also a very ethical man. See excerpts from 1967 interview (same as two blocks above).

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

People have received millions of dollars for being falsely imprisoned. So why hasn't Rubin Carter sued?

Could-a been a champion? More likely he could-a been a Quadruple Murderer.

Bottom line ... it's a great song if you just ignore the words.

– Cal Deal (e-mail)