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Knock knock

Who’s there?

Robert Zimmerman

Who?

You know...Robert Allen Zimmerman, the man who became Bob Dylan. The Dylan surname was adopted to honor Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Bob Dylan, the American folk singer who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2016, wrote the song Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door in 1973 for the movie Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, a film directed by Sam Peckinpah starring James Coburn as Pat Garrett and the late Kris Kristofferson as Billy the Kid.

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The actual Billy the Kid, born Henry McCarty, later assumed the alias William H. Bonney and was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in 1881 at the age of 21 (hence the kid part). In the movie, Dylan’s song plays as Sheriff Cullen Baker, played by SlimPickens, slowly dies from a gunshot wound. Slim Pickens, by the way was born Louis Burton Lindley Jr. (Doesn’t anyone keep the name they were born with?) and famously rode a hydrogen bomb in the movie Dr. Strangelove.

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The song Knock on Wood was written by Eddie Floyd in 1966 and later covered by Amii Stewart in the better known disco version. You better Knock knock knock on wood the song goes, referring to the superstition of knocking on wood to deflect evil or bad consequences.

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Knock knock jokes do not require the third knock. Two’s fine. Knock knock jokes date back to the early 1900s and, surprisingly, were not universally popular at first. Some actually dared to knock the knock knock joke.

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You Don’t Knock (you just walk on in) is a gospel song that says one needn’t knock on heaven’s door at all—not once and certainly not three times. "Don’t knock, ring, push, or hold. Just walk on in"---a somewhat different message than that in the Dylan Thomas poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night: Rage rage against the dying of the light...

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