Bob Dylan's first-ever soundtrack recording ...

... was for a film featuring Father Twomey. Really!

Screenshot from the opening credits of Autopsy on Operation Abolition (1961)

I should be working on finishing chapter 4 of my Father Louis J. Twomey, SJ, biography A Priest in Good Trouble, but this is a stop-the-presses moment that is too exciting to ignore.

For some time, I’d known about Father Louis J. Twomey’s involvement with the 1961 film Autopsy on Operation Abolition. The film, which is available to watch online, is a thought-provoking critique of Operation Abolition, a 1960 propaganda film by the House Un-American Activities Committee that blamed “communist infiltrators” for the protests that disrupted a field hearing by the committee in San Francisco. It was produced by the film branch of the Catechetical Guild, which was based in St. Paul, Minnesota.

As a music historian, I had noted approvingly the authentically folky musical backdrop to the interviews and Father Twomey’s narration in Autopsy on Operation Abolition. What I didn’t know until today was that the soundtrack was recorded by Minnesota’s favorite musical son.

No, not Bobby Vee—though he was Catholic (and a friend of St. John’s Abbey). The other Bobby.

It’s true. Unbelievably, not only did Bob Dylan record the soundtrack to the one and only movie featuring Father Twomey, but he recorded it within weeks of recording his debut album for Columbia,¹ and it was never released anywhere else.

Boom! How does it feel … to be writing a Father Twomey on your own … with your mind officially blown?

I learned the incredible news while reading about a presentation put together by Bob Dylan Center curator Steve Jenkins featuring film clips from the Bob Dylan Archive. The presentation was created to coincide with the new Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

If you’re a paid subscriber, the next thing you’ll see below is a set of YouTube videos with clips of Autopsy on Operation Abolition featuring Dylan’s soundtrack, which he recorded with his friend Tony Glover. Since Bob either was under contract to Columbia Records or was about to sign with the label at that time, he signed his contract with the film producer under the name “B.L. Jefferson”—a tribute to bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.