Whoever thought a Post Malone, Bob Dylan inspired collaboration of sorts would be an amazing idea was absolutely right. Unfortunately for us, we’ll probably never hear it.
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According to Rolling Stone’s recent interview with producer Michael Cash, somewhere out there, there is an unfinished Post song based on his idol Bob Dylan’s lyrics,
Revealing the track was intended for a collection of Dylan songs inspired by the 2014 T Bone Burnett-produced album, Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, which saw the likes of Marcus Mumford, Jim James, and Elvis Costello recording songs based on newly uncovered Dylan lyrics, Cash’s vision was to create his own album featuring songs recorded by rappers like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, as well as the hip-hop-influenced Malone, who’s a self-proclaimed huge fan of Bob.
Friendly with Burnett, Cash recalled, “So I said to T Bone, ‘Would you mind if I did The Attic MP3s or something? I want to f*** with this whole archetype.’ And he goes, ‘Run with it.’”
Next Cash reached out to Dylan’s longtime representative, Jeff Rosen, and pitched the idea of Posty recording a Dylan song. Also sending along a photo of the Dylan tattoo on Malone’s left bicep, as well as a link to Malone’s pre-fame cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” for good measure.
Several weeks later, Cash received some good news. “It was like two o’clock in the morning,” he says. “Jeff texts me: ‘Bob’s going to write you something. He’s got something in mind that he wants to craft specifically for this,’” though a source close to the Dylan camp says that Dylan already had the lyrics lying around.
Regardless of when and how they came about, Rosen sent lyrics for a song called “Be Not Deceived” to Cash in November 2020. Cash described Dylan’s lyrics as “talking about a loss of innocence” in reference to “disfranchised, kind of leaderless masses of children with no parent or guardian or shepherd or anything.”
As RS reported, Malone was “literally in tears” after hearing the lyrics Dylan had sent over and in March 2021, he stopped by Cash’s studio to record the song. According to Cash, the experience was rather “interesting,” recalling Malone brought his mom, girlfriend, and a film crew, and spent some of his time there “ghost hunting.” Malone also for some reason believed the famously reclusive Dylan would attend the sessions.
Cash went on to reveal that roughly 40% of the song was completed. “We got the stenciling done, he got some colors in, but he definitely wasn’t finished,” Cash explained. “It needed flair. It needed more layers. It wasn’t a complete piece of music, but it was definitely a song. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. There was a bridge, there was a chorus. It just needed to be finished.”
And while Rosen was into what he heard of the song, Cash explained he wasn’t able to get Malone back in the studio. “All I can tell you is it went from being something to be excited about to just turning into a circular, figure-eight pattern,” he said. “Nobody had an answer.”
Dylan and his team began growing weary waiting for the song to be completed. “Rosen said to me at a certain point, ‘Well, we’re just going to retract the lyrics,'” Cash said. “Bob and Mr. Rosen do things a specific way. They get things done in a New York minute, and then it started to become… Honestly, they just were like, ‘This should be finished.’”
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And well, that’s the story of the Post Malone, Bob Dylan lyrical collaboration that never was. Check out the full Rolling Stone interview with Michael Cash HERE.