Hunter S. Thompson Remembers Jimmy Carter’s Captivating Bob Dylan Speech (1974)

51 years in the past, Hunter S. Thomp­son wrote Fear and Loathing on the Cam­paign Path ’72, which “continues to be con­sid­ered a form of bible of polit­i­cal report­ing,” not­ed Matt Taib­bi in a fortieth anniver­sary edi­tion of the ebook. Concern and Loathing ’72 entered the canon of Amer­i­can polit­i­cal writ­ing for a lot of rea­sons. However if you happen to’re look­ing for one bot­tom-line expla­na­tion, it prob­a­bly comes right down to this: Says Taib­bi, “Thomp­son stared proper into the flam­ing-hot solar of disgrace­much less lies and cyn­i­cal horse­shit that’s our pol­i­tics, and he described precise­ly what he noticed—in all probability at seri­ous value to his personal males­tal well being, however the ben­e­match to us was [his leg­endary book].”

Thomp­son could have reached some jour­nal­is­tic apogee together with his cov­er­age of the ’72 Nixon-McGov­ern cam­paign. However his polit­i­cal writ­ing arduous­ly stopped there. The Gonzo jour­nal­ist cov­ered the ’76 elec­tion for Rolling Stone magazine­a­zine. And inevitably he crossed paths with Jim­my Carter (RIP), the even­tu­al win­ner of the elec­tion. Above, Thomp­son recollects the day when Carter first made an impres­sion upon him.

It hap­pened on the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia Faculty of Legislation on Could 4, 1974. Communicate­ing earlier than a gath­er­ing of alum­ni legal professionals, Carter upset their cel­e­bra­to­ry occa­sion when he dis­man­tled the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem they had been so happy with. And Carter par­tic­u­lar­ly caught Thomp­son’s atten­tion when he traced his sense of social jus­tice again to a music writ­ten by Bob Dylan:

The oth­er supply of my underneath­stand­ing about what’s proper and unsuitable on this soci­ety is from a buddy of mine, a poet named Bob Dylan. After lis­ten­ing to his data about “The Bal­lad of Hat­tie Automotive­ol” and “Like a Rolling Stone” and “The Occasions, They Are a‑Altering,” I’ve discovered to appre­ci­ate the dynamism of change in a mod­ern soci­ety.

I grew up as a landown­er’s son. However I don’t suppose I ever actual­ized the prop­er inter­re­la­tion­ship between the landown­er and people who labored on a farm till I heard Dylan’s file, “I Ain’t Gonna Work on Magazine­gie’s Farm No Extra.” So I come right here converse­ing to you right this moment about your sub­ject with a base for my infor­ma­tion discovered­ed on Rein­maintain Niebuhr and Bob Dylan.

You possibly can learn the total textual content of Carter’s speech right here. It’s additionally price watch­ing a relat­ed clip under, the place Thomp­son elab­o­charges on Carter, his well-known speech and his alleged imply streak that put him on the identical aircraft as Muham­mad Ali and Son­ny Barg­er (the god­fa­ther of The Hells Angels).

Observe: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this publish first appeared on our website in 2012. With the go­ing of Pres­i­dent Carter, it appeared like an excellent time to deliver it again.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The two,000+ Movies Watched by Pres­i­dents Nixon, Carter & Rea­gan within the White Home

Hear the Uncen­sored Orig­i­nal Ver­sion of “Hur­ri­cane,” Bob Dylan’s Protest Tune About Jailed Field­er Rubin “Hur­ri­cane” Carter (1976)

Hunter Thomp­son Explains What Gonzo Jour­nal­ism Is, and How He Writes It (1975)