It's not often, but every now and again, Bob Dylan bases an entire song on a real-life person without couching their identity. Comedian Lenny Bruce, boxer Rubin Carter, and Dylan's friend/musical rival John Lennon are a few of those who have received that treatment.
Maybe his strangest and most controversial choice in this respect was "Joey," a song that gives a snapshot of the notorious gangster Joe Gallo. The song tells Gallo's story in somewhat fantastical terms, Dylan's way of capturing a larger-than-life character.
Bob Dylan focused on long, detailed story songs on his 1975 album Desire. He did this in conjunction with Jacques Levy, his co-writer for most of the LP's tracks. Levy's background was in theater, and the material the two men concocted, full with striking imagery, dialogue, and events, often played out as if meant for a theater stage or movie screen.
On "Joey," they immortalized a character whose demise in 1972 stamped him in the modern era, but whose outsized qualities made him seem like an outlaw of yore. Gallo was known for flaunting his notoriety, instead of shying away from the spotlight as many gangsters had been brought up to do.
He had even run in celebrity circles for a while when he was released from a long prison stay in 1971. Eventually, his actions ran afoul of others in the world of organized crime, leading to his high-profile death in a hail of bullets while trying to make his way out of a seafood restaurant in Little Italy.
Some critics gave Dylan some grief for glorifying a man who'd been a violent criminal. But Dylan and Levy seem almost to be writing a movie script very loosely based on the facts of his actual life, imagining a character whose outsider status right from his earliest days left him with little choice but to be a thorn in the side of the status quo.
We're not here to debate the facts of some of the assertions made by Dylan and Levy, especially since they weren't writing a documentary. Instead, we're here to assess the song on its own merits, and it's quite effective as a deceptively moving blow-by-blow of someone leaving an indelible imprint on his milieu.
The cinematic touches are there from the birth of "Joey": Opened up his eyes to the tune of an accordion. Dylan establishes him as being Always on the outside of whatever side there was. He then delivers the broad outlines of the story, how Gallo and his brothers were in trouble with the police pretty much for the entirety of their lives.
The gangster/Western outlaw connection is made evident throughout. Joey and his brothers suffered terrible defeats, Dylan explains. He suggests Gallo wasn't as violent as his reputation suggested, recounting an example of when he spared some prisoners: We're not those kind of men.
Some bleak humor undercuts the streetfighting, like the judge who bases Joey's sentence (Five to ten) on the time of day. Dylan explains how Gallo became a well-read man in prison and stood out for his willingness to interact with black prisoners. From his momentous return to the streets to his eventual murder, Dylan and Levy continue to encase the entire story in a kind of bittersweet, yet oddly triumphant glow.
When Dylan and backing vocalist Emmylou Harris tear into the chorus (Joey, Joey / King of the streets, child at play), it's a wail of mourning from the bottom of their souls. Regardless of the actual circumstances of Gallo's life, Dylan and Levy bestow upon him a towering tribute in "Joey," an iconoclastic song worthy of both the honoree and the performer.