1973 · Behind the Songs
A dying deputy, a film set and the simplest song Dylan ever wrote.
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is one of the simplest songs Bob Dylan ever wrote — two verses, a handful of chords, a refrain anyone can sing. He wrote it for a dying lawman in a Sam Peckinpah western, and it became one of the most-covered songs of the decade.
Dylan was in Mexico in early 1973, acting in Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as the knife-throwing Alias, when he wrote the film’s soundtrack. The song plays as a deputy, dying from a gunshot, faces the sky. Dylan recorded it with a small band, his voice weary over strummed guitars and a simple drumbeat — nothing between the singer and the song.
Released as a single that summer, it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 — Dylan’s biggest hit in years. Eric Clapton cut his own version, and Guns N’ Roses’ 1991 cover would carry it to a new generation, but the original’s power is in its spareness: a farewell that needs only two verses to say everything.
What to listen for: the two verses, plain as speech; Dylan’s tired, tender vocal; and the refrain rocking like a lullaby — a song for the dying that comforts the living.