Among the unauthorized copies of Eat the Document that circulate in collector circles is a longer limousine scene filmed in the early hours of 27 May 1966 in which Bob Dylan appears fatigued and possibly impaired while John Lennon urges him to ‘pull yourself together’ with a line advertising a fake remedy: “Do you suffer from sore eyes… Take Zimdon!” That exchange survives on bootlegs and in recollection: Lennon later told Rolling Stone that “we were both in shades, and both on fucking junk, and all these freaks around us,” a blunt admission that both men were using drugs that night. The scene has taken on mythic status in Dylan lore, was referenced by Todd Haynes in 2008’s I’m Not There, and exemplifies how Eaton the Document’s unofficial circulation preserved intimate, messy moments the official system declined to release.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1960s
The Limo Ride with John Lennon: A Bootleg Scene Where Two Icons ‘Were on Fucking Junk’
Bob Dylan / John Lennon / Eat the Document (bootleg footage) / 1960s
Among the unauthorized copies of Eat the Document that circulate in collector circles is a longer limousine scene filmed in the early hours of 27 May 1966 in which Bob Dylan appears fatigued and possibly impaired while John Lennon urges him to ‘pull yourself together’ with a line advertising a fake remedy: “Do you suffer from sore eyes… Take Zimdon!” That exchange survives on bootlegs and in recollection: Lennon later told Rolling Stone that “we were both in shades, and both on fucking junk, and all these freaks around us,” a blunt admission that both men were using drugs that night. The scene has taken on mythic status in Dylan lore, was referenced by Todd Haynes in 2008’s I’m Not There, and exemplifies how Eaton the Document’s unofficial circulation preserved intimate, messy moments the official system declined to release.
The daily feature is taking an intermission. There’s still an entire archive to explore.
