How Alfred Hitchcock Inspired Bob Dylan’s “Motorpsycho Nightmare”

Bob Dylan’s “Motorpsycho Nightmare” appears on his 1964 album, Another Side of Bob Dylan.

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On his fourth album, Dylan began moving away from writing social and political folk songs, which prompted some to accuse the singer of selling out. (They should have saved their outrage for his electric guitar.)

“Motorpsycho Nightmare” mentions one film by name, La Dolce Vita, a 1960 comedy drama. But he also spoofs another from the era, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

There are spoilers here, but Hitchcock’s movie has been out for 65 years, so this author begs forgiveness.

She Looks Like Tony Perkins

Dylan builds his traveling tale using iconic references from Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller. The song’s character arrives at a farmhouse after long hours on the road, looking for a place to sleep for the night.

I pounded on a farmhouse
Lookin’ for a place to stay.
I was mighty, mighty tired
I had come a long, long way.

After convincing the farmer he’s not a salesman but a doctor, the farmer offers him a bed beneath the stove. But only if he agrees not to touch his daughter. The narrator also submits to milking the cows the next morning.

But while the narrator sleeps, the farmer’s daughter Rita sneaks in, lookin’ just like Tony Perkins, who portrayed Norman Bates in Psycho.

Rita offers him a shower, but Dylan sings, Oh, no, no, I’ve been through this movie before, alluding to the famous shower scene from Psycho where Marion Crane is stabbed to death.

Well, I couldn’t leave
Unless the old man chased me out.
’Cause I’d already promised
That I’d milk his cows.

The Cold War

Desperate to escape the farmer and his daughter, the narrator shouts the most offensive thing he can think of: I like Fidel Castro and his beard!

So he gets the reaction he anticipates. And the farmer—in a Cold War fever— runs him off with a gun and screams: You unpatriotic rotten doctor, Commie rat!

Well, he threw a Reader’s Digest
At my head and I did run.
I did a somersault
As I seen him get his gun.

Then the farmer’s daughter takes a job at a motel—a nod, perhaps to the Bates Motel. And the farmer waits in hiding, hoping to catch the narrator and turn him over to the FBI.

Well, I don’t figure I’ll be back
There for a spell.
Even though Rita moved away
And got a job in a motel.

Finally, Dylan mentions if it weren’t for free speech, he might be in a swamp. Bates eventually sank Crane in her car in a swamp after the murder. And Dylan’s narrator sounds grateful to have avoided a similar fate.

Me, I romp and stomp
Thankful as I romp.
Without freedom of speech
I might be in the swamp.

Photo by Gai Terrell/Redferns