Bob Dylan and Neil Young’s friendship allowed Dylan to take on a new role: terrifying specter. While visiting Young’s ranch, Dylan grew tired and decided to take a nap in the back of a hearse that Young owned. When another visitor began driving the hearse, he was stunned to find Dylan in the back. The shock of finding him there, coupled with his disconcerting appearance, frightened the driver.
Early in his career, Young purchased a hearse that he used to drive to shows. The vehicle had plenty of space, something that was necessary for touring. The 1948 Buick Roadmaster, which Young called Mortimer Hearseburg, grew on him, though. He even wrote the song “Long May You Run” about the vehicle after it broke down.
Thing I just learned: Neil Young write "Long May You Run" (one of my fave songs) about Mort, his 1948 Buick hearse. Yeah, you could haul a 4-piece band in that. I bet it stuck to the road like a locomotive, too.
“I loved the hearse,” Young told Rolling Stone in 1975. “Six people could be getting high in the front and back and nobody would be able to see in because of the curtains. The heater was great. And the tray … the tray was dynamite. You open the side door and the tray whips right out onto the sidewalk.”
He explained that the hearse helped him make an impressive entrance at events.
“What could be cooler than that? What a way to make your entrance,” he said. “Pull up to a gig and just wheel out all your stuff on the tray.”
Bob Dylan once terrified artist Sandy Mazzeo by taking a nap in the hearse
When Dylan visited Young’s home, Mortimer Hearseburg was still kicking. As he wandered the property, he came across the vehicle and decided that, as he was tired, he would take a nap in the back.
Later, artist Sandy Mazzeo was driving the car into town when he heard some eerie noises from the back.
“I hear bam! bam! bam! on the divider and I’m thinkin’, ‘Oh my God, it’s a ghost,” Mazzeo said, per the book Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography by Jimmy McDonough.
Naturally, this would be a frightening sound to hear from the back of the hearse. Luckily, Mazzeo quickly discovered the source.
“I look in the rearview mirror and it’s Bob, and was wearing an unraveling turban."
“Dylan was in his turban stage, and he’d slept in his turban and it had come all undone,” he explained. “He looked like the mummy.”
Mazzeo explained that he offered Dylan a ride back, but the musician refused, preferring to hitchhike.
“Last I looked, he was straightening out his turban and getting ready to hitchhike back to his house,” Mazzeo said. “Those things happened in Malibu all the time.”
