"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" is the title of a topical song by Bob Dylan.
Recorded on 23 October 1963, the song was released on Dylan's 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin' and re-released in 1985 on the compilation album Biograph. Live renditions of the song by its author can be found on the albums Live 1975 (2002) and Live 1964 (2004).
The ballad gives a "generally" factual account of the careless killing of 51-year-old barmaid Hattie Carroll by the wealthy young William Devereux Zantzinger (the song changes his name to "William Zanzinger"), and the lax prosecution as a result of Zantzinger's privileged position: he received only a six-month sentence.
The actual incident took place February 9, 1963 at a ball at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. Dylan's song accurately implies, but never states, that Carroll was black and Zantzinger is white. The song implies that Zantzinger beat Carroll to death with his cane. In fact, he drunkenly assaulted Carroll and several others with the cane; Carroll, who was in poor health, died in hospital the following day, suffering a brain hemorrhage from the stress of Zantzinger's verbal and physical assault, but the cane itself did not leave marks on her body. No autopsy was performed to determine the specific cause of her death.
On August 28, 1963 Zanztinger was convicted of assault and manslaughter and was sentenced to six months, which he began serving on September 15. He also, paid to the Carroll family, the sum of twenty five thousand Dollars. Dylan recorded his song on October 23, when the trial was still relatively fresh news, and it was soon released, on January 13, 1964.
After the sentence was announced, the New York Herald Tribune conjectured that Zantzinger was not given a longer sentence to keep him out of the state prison, since the notoriety of his crime would make him a marked target among its largely African American inmates.
In Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan includes "Hattie Carroll" in a list of those of his early songs he feels were influenced by his belated introduction to the work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, including "Pirate Jenny" ("The Black Freighter"). Dylan writes that he was impressed by how the Brecht-Weill songs wedded a complex lyrical perspective to simple folk song structures.
Shortly after the Times album was released, he performed the song on Steve Allen's network television program.
Zantzinger has recently (as of 2005) told Howard Sounes, in Down the Highway, the Life of Bob Dylan, "It's actually had no effect upon my life", but is vitriolic in his scorn for Dylan, saying, "He's a no-account son of a bitch", claiming that the song is inaccurate. "He's just like a scum of a scum bag [sic] of the earth, I should have sued him and put him in jail". He claims that the song is a total lie, but has never prevented Dylan from performing it.
References
- Frazier, Ian, "Legacy of a Lonely Death". Mother Jones, November/December 2004, 42-47: partial version on line. Reprinted by The Guardian February 25, 2005, as "Life after a lonesome death" (full version with the full song lyrics).
- "Farmer Convicted in Barmaid's Death", New York Times Jun 28, 1963. p. 11
- "Farmer Sentenced in Barmaid's Death", New York Times Aug 29, 1963. p. 15