John Wesley Harding Lyrics

John Wesley Hardin (1853–1895) was American gun-fighter. His name was rendered as "John Wesley Harding" on the Dylan song and album. Dylan discussed "John Wesley Harding" when he spoke with Rolling Stone Magazine in 1969: "I was gonna write a ballad on ... like maybe one of those old cowboy ... you know, a real long ballad. But in the middle of the second verse, I got tired. I had a tune, and I didn't want to waste the tune, it was a nice little melody, so I just wrote a quick third verse, and I recorded that ... I knew people were gonna listen to that song and say that they didn't understand what was going on, but they would've singled that song out later, if we hadn't called the album John Wesley Harding and placed so much importance on that, for people to start wondering about it ... if that hadn't been done, that song would've come up and people would have said it was a throw-away song." Johnny Cash wrote and recorded a song about Hardin entitled "Hardin Wouldn't Run". It relates some of the true events of Hardin's life, including his murder at the Acme Saloon.