Why Knockin’ on Heavens Door is Bob Dylan's most perfect song

It may be potentially dangerous to say this, but “Knockin’ on Heavens Door” is Bob Dylan’s most perfect recording. In his entire catalogue. And I can make a convincing argument about why.

It may be potentially dangerous to say this, but “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is Bob Dylan’s most perfect recording. In his entire catalogue. And I can make a convincing argument about why.

Bob Dylan’s recording of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” treads a very, very fine line, which is part of its supreme beauty. Anything out of place would ruin the power emanating from it. It’s devastating in its understated simplicity.

Guns n' Roses are OK. Slash is OK. But there's something about their version of that song that reminds me of the movie Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.’ I always wonder who's been transformed into some sort of a clone, and who's stayed true to himself. And I never seem to have an answer.

Bob Dylan to Eduardo Bueno, 1991

Eric Clapton teetered on the edge of that line, daring to make it reggae; Guns N’ Roses slipped and fell right over it; and unfortunately, so has Bob Dylan virtually every time he’s performed the song since that day on the soundstage in Burbank, California, in February 1973.

Dylan’s song comes in at 2 minutes and 29 seconds, the absolute perfect sweet spot for a single release then and even now. It eases in and it fades out before you’ve caught on to what’s going on. It seems like a conjuring trick, and that very magic is what makes it a timeless listen.

Nothing is out of place in this song. Every nuance is right, every lilt in the vocal. No instrument is overplayed, everyone is on best behaviour. It’s a template for perfection in recording. The gold-dust sparkle shimmer of Roger McGuinn’s 12-string guitar playing catch-up with Dylan’s laid-back strum, a simmering harmonium laying beneath the sound mix, and a delicate bass played with perfect punctuation.

When I do whatever it is I'm doing there is rhythm involved and there is phrasing involved. And that's where it all balances out in the rhythm of it and the phrasing of It's not in the lyrics. People think it's in the lyrics; maybe on the records it's in the lyrics, but in a live show it's not all in the lyrics, it's in the phrasing and the dynamics and the rhythm. There was this Egyptian singer Om Khalsoum. She was one of my favourite singers of all time, and I don't understand a word she sings! And she'd sing one song - it might last 40 minutes, and she'll sing the same phrase over and over and over again, in a different way every time. And no US or Western singer, I think, that's in that kind of category, you know... except possibly me (laughs). But on another level, do you know what I mean?

Bob Dylan to Bert Kleinman 1984

The staging is a chef’s kiss. Dylan and McGuinn and the barely perceptible harmonium of Carl Fortina come over the horizon first. The bass stutters in at 6 seconds, catching the rhythm, and Dylan and the backing vocalists (Carol Hunter, Donna Weiss, and Brenda Patterson) are in at 8 seconds. Jim Keltner eases in ever so slowly, the last man standing with that snare rim rattle at 20 seconds, and the lyric kicks in at 29 seconds. And right there Dylan hits us with “mama,” the greatest archetype, the one we all hold in common: “Take this badge off of me, I can’t use it anymore.” Dylan then has 2 minutes to lay down the law before he and the band again disappear over the horizon. A sonic Western. And much like “All Along the Watchtower”, of which it is a near musical inversion, you sense something coming around the bend. That’s the magic of those chord changes—the tension and release between the A minor chord on the first go-around and the C major chord the second time around. Not a single instrument in the way, nothing overdone or overcooked, dynamically perfect, and everything right in the pocket.

The chord changes wouldn’t cause commotion in a music seminar, but their effect, however simple, speaks louder than you think. How many artists could claim truly to own a chord progression? A progression so immediately recognisable as theirs? Dylan has more than a few of them: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “All Along the Watchtower”, and without a doubt “Like a Rolling Stone” spring to mind.

Dylan’s gorgeous vocal is a revelation. It’s somewhere between the crooning country lilt of Nashville Skyline, filtered slightly through the Concert for Bangladesh. It’s pre-Planet Waves, but still a close cousin and probably the sweetest place his voice reached in the ’70s. Melodic, careful, and gentle. Only four months separate it from the publishing demos of “Forever Young,” “Nobody ’Cept You” and “Never Say Goodbye.”

I can’t begin to imagine what made Dylan later tag “just like so many times before” and the stuff about trains on the end in later performances. It’s no better than Axl Rose’s “hey, hey, hey!” and it cheapens the song. It’s a cynicism that kills the heroism of the original. I always just figured Dylan grew bored or even embarrassed by the song somehow—afraid of its simplicity, or maybe the inability to replicate or recreate it, something that he doesn’t do anyway. But if there’s one live performance ask I’d have, it would be for him to perform the song live again with his current band. They could pull it off and not overplay it.

When held against his entire catalogue, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” may not be his greatest, most powerful, or innovative song. It may not be his most epic. It might not run to histrionic heights. It might not be his most poetic (think Mr. Tambourine Man, Every Grain of Sand, Shelter from the Storm). It might be rather basic in melodic composition. But it creates an immense mood in its short span, leaving space for the listener to stand before it. It’s a broad-stroke masterpiece—typical of Dylan to save his best song not for the protagonists in the film, but the sheriff (Slim Pickens) as he cries out to his wife (Katy Jurado). There’s no finer details, nothing specific to say, just the universal—and his most perfect recording.