The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (1964) – Bob Dylan

Here’s Bob at the apex of his protest music beginnings. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll was one of the first songs I heard in my youth where I truly paid attention to the lyrics. It’s a song where every other aspect of the music takes a back seat – only the words seem to matter. Even the chorus feels like a brief respite in a sermon of grave injustice. What struck me wasn’t just the prominence of the lyrics, but how the story itself drove the song – as if the events were being reported and exposed right before my ears. And then to discover it all happened to a real person named Hattie Carroll – that just blew my mind while incensing me. There are people who have written about the actual incident and trial and recall with striking clarity the day the verdict made the headlines and their aghast reaction to it.

Such was my immersion into Dylan’s material as an early teen, I could tell his music and lyric were not just shaping me, but forming in large part my values system outside of the family microcosm. No one I knew liked Bob, or seemingly knew what he was about. It was only when my next door neighbour who happened to be my Geography teacher and table tennis coach at high school played the Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 record on repeat in his van driving us on long trips to tournaments, did I realise my idol’s music wasn’t just confined to my bedroom. Trying to emulate my favourite artist, I started to write poems and lyrics about all the stuff happening in my life. Afraid I might be embarrassed and lead a terminal bullied life at school, I kept these written notes a secret. If they got out on the street or, much worse, into a school newspaper to join the bona fide list of school try-hards, the game was up. 

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William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled round his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath’rin’…

These are the opening lines of Bob Dylan’s song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, written in 1963 to pay homage to this 51-year-old mother of 10 children and purported to be killed by a wealthy plantation owner at the Emerson Hotel in downtown Baltimore.

Until researching more about the case for this article, I assumed (for decades mind you) that William Zantzinger had bludgeoned Hattie Carroll to death with his cane (Murder in the first-degree, if you will). Dylan’s song contains at least two inaccuracies (according to the Wikipedia reference below) Zantzinger was not booked for first degree murder, but for second degree murder. Dylan also misspells and mispronounces Zantzinger’s surname as “Zanzinger”. Below is what happened according to the Nation article reference. If you are unfamiliar with Dylan’s lyrics, then I would recommend you read them below prior to the following:

Carroll was serving drinks at the Spinster’s Ball, an annual event attended by Maryland’s white old-family elites, when one of the party’s drunken revelers, Billy Zantzinger, decided she was being disrespectful. He called her a racial epithet then struck her with his cane. Zantzinger also hit two other Black employees that night—a bellhop named George Gessell, whom he hit on the arm, and waitress Ethel Hill, whom he hit on the buttocks when she argued with him over his mistreatment.

Carroll died the next day at Baltimore’s Mercy Hospital, from a stroke brought on by the attack.

William Zantzinger was convicted of the manslaughter and assault of Hattie Carroll and not for first-degree murder. The court ruled that Hattie Carroll had died from a stroke possibly brought on by the stress of the attack, reducing the charge from murder to manslaughter and assault. According to the Wikipedia article below it was a ‘25-cent toy cane‘ in which Zantzinger drunkenly assaulted at least three of the Emerson Hotel workers.

Wikipedia:
In the words of the court notes: “He asked for a drink and called her ‘a black bitch’, and ‘black s.o.b’. She replied, ‘Just a moment’ and started to prepare his drink. After a delay of perhaps a minute, he complained about her being slow and struck her a hard blow on her shoulder about half-way between the point of her shoulder and her neck.” She handed him his drink. After striking Carroll, he attacked his own wife, knocking her to the ground and hitting her with his shoe.

Within five minutes from the time of the blow, Carroll leaned heavily against the barmaid next to her and complained of feeling ill. Carroll told co-workers, “I feel deathly ill, that man has upset me so.” The barmaid and another employee helped Carroll to the kitchen. Her arm became numb, her speech thick. She collapsed and was hospitalized. Carroll died eight hours after the assault.

At the time of incident, Charles County was still strictly segregated by race in public facilities such as restaurants, churches, theaters, doctor’s offices, buses and the county fair. The schools of Charles County were not integrated until 1967.

Now, onto the song itself. Most of the following was extracted from the Wikipedia article below:

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll was released on Dylan’s 1964 album – The Times They Are a-Changin’. My previous entry here from the album was One Too Many Mornings, although that article’s focus was on the Live Free Trade Hall 1966 version. The melody of ‘The Lonesome..’ chorus is largely taken from a folk song called Mary Hamilton, and you can listen to the Joan Baez version here.  

According to a 1991 Washington Post report, Dylan wrote the song in Manhattan, sitting in an all-night cafe. A radio documentary on the song said rather that he wrote it both in New York and at the home of his then-lover, Joan Baez, in Carmel… He (Dylan) recorded it on October 23, 1963, when the trial was still relatively fresh news, and incorporated it into his live repertoire immediately, before releasing the studio version on February 10, 1964. 

[Verse 1]
William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gatherin’
And the cops was called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder

[Chorus]
But you who philosophize disgrace
And criticize all fears
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears

[Verse 2]
William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering, and his tongue, it was a-snarling
And in a matter of minutes, on bail was out walking

[Verse 3]
Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothin’ to William Zanzinger

[Verse 4]
In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ’em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence

References:
1. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll – Wikipedia
2. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll Took Place 60 Years Ago Today – The Nation