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Bob Dylan released the song “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” in 1964. The song was a ripped-from-the-headlines protest song about the death of a Black woman named Hattie Carroll following an attack from a wealthy, white bar patron, William Zantzinger. The song is well-written but includes some historical inaccuracies. According to Dylan’s biographer Clinton Heylin, he was lucky he didn’t get sued over the song. 

Bob Dylan didn’t get all the facts accurate in 1 of his songs, said his biographer

Dylan wrote the song “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” after reading a news story about Carroll’s death. Zantzinger was intoxicated and shouted at Carroll before hitting her with his cane. Carroll spoke about how much Zantzinger upset her before collapsing. She died of a brain hemorrhage several hours later.

After reading about Carroll’s death, Dylan wrote a song about her. In it, he chronicled Zantzinger’s attack on her and the subsequent trial. According to Heylin, Dylan got several details wrong. First, he misspelled Zantzinger’s last name as “Zanzinger.” He also named the charge as first-degree murder rather than second-degree, with which Zantzinger was initially charged. Dylan also misconstrued several details of Carroll’s life, including the number of children she had. 

Heylin also took issue with the fact that Dylan made a clear link between Zantzinger’s verbal and physical attack on Carroll and her death. He believed that while the stress may have had an impact, Dylan couldn’t justifiably lay such blame on him. Heylin thought Zantzinger could have sued.

“He’s very lucky that he didn’t get his a** sued,” Heylin said, per Rolling Stone. “I love the song, but it’s a shameful piece of writing.”

1 of the song’s subjects was not happy about ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’

Zantzinger was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six months in prison, which he was allowed to serve after the fall tobacco harvest. A panel of judges believed that Zantzinger had caused Carroll’s death because she had underlying health problems. After serving jail time, he went back to running his farm and working in real estate. 

Years later, Zantzinger said Dylan’s song had “no effect” on his life, but he still couldn’t stand the musician. 

“He’s a no-account son of a b****; he’s just like a scum of a bag [sic] of the earth,” he told Howard Sounes in his book Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. “I should have sued him and put him in jail.”

Bob Dylan was later sued over a different song

Ultimately, Zantzinger did not sue Dylan over the song. Years later, the musician landed in trouble over the song “Hurricane.” This was another song that he based on a true story. In it, he used the name of a key witness, Patty Valentine, in the murder trial of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. She was one of only three witnesses who didn’t recant their testimony. Valentine claimed Dylan’s song portrayed her as a liar.

Per Rolling Stone, Dylan’s lawyers said Valentine’s testimony “is reported accurately in ‘Hurricane.’ That report is not offensive to anyone’s ordinary sensibilities.” A federal court dismissed her lawsuit.

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