"The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" is a song on Bob Dylan's 1967 album John Wesley Harding. He has performed the song live in 1987 (with the Grateful Dead), 1988, and 2000.
The plainly spoken ballad is the longest song on John Wesley Harding, without chorus, bridge, or a refrain to vary its structure. Like the rest of the album, the instrumentation is very sparse. The story has Frankie Lee responding to suggestions and temptations of his friend Judas Priest, which leave him to die "of thirst" after 16 nights and days in a home with 24 women.
Andy Gill speculates that early verses of Frankie agonizing over Judas' offer of money echo Dylan's business dealings. To Frankie worldly delights are represented as "Paradise," though the devilish Judas recognizes their true price is "Eternity" - Frankie's mortal soul.
Unusually for a Dylan song, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" ends with a moral, telling the listener "the moral of this story, the moral of this song, is simply that one should never be where one does not belong", to help one's neighbor with his load, and "don't go mistaking Paradise/for that home across the road."
Heavy metal band Judas Priest derived their name from this song.
Swedish Punk Rock band Franky Lee derived their name from this song.
Read more about The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest: Covers
Famous quotes containing the words judas priest, ballad, frankie, lee, judas and/or priest:
“You show me a politician with his heels ten feet in the air, and by Judas priest, I’ll show you an honest politician.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Frankie and Johnny were lovers, O lordy how they could love,
Swore to be true to each other, true as the stars above;
He was her man but he done her wrong.”
—Unknown. Frankie and Johnny (l. 1–3)
“Any time you’ve got nothing to do—and lots of time to do it—come on up.”
—Mae West, U.S. screenwriter, W.C. Fields, and Edward Cline. Flower Belle Lee (Mae West)
“Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I betray him to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 26:14 ,15.
“Freudianism is much more nearly a religion than a science, inasmuch as the relation between analyst and patient has a great deal in common with that between priest and communicant at confessional, and such ideas as the Oedipus complex, the superego, the libido, and the id exert an effect upon the converted which is almost identical with what flows to the devout Christian from godhead, trinity, grace, and immortality.”
—Robert Nisbet (b. 1913)