A Post Malone And Bob Dylan Collaboration Almost Happened

What would a collaboration between Post Malone and Bob Dylan sound like? Well, we almost found out.

Rolling Stone reports that producer Michael Cash began dreaming up an album where hip-hop artists like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Post Malone would cover Bob Dylan songs. Inspired by the 2014 album, Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, which saw artists like Elvis Costello and Marcus Mumford record songs based on unreleased Dylan lyrics, Cash contacted regular Dylan collaborator T Bone Burnett.

Cash recalls, “So I said to T Bone, 'Would you mind if I did something? I want to f**k with this whole archetype.’ And he goes, ‘Run with it.’” 

After reaching out to Dylan's rep, Jeff Rosen, Cash ran the idea by Post Malone, who is not only a fan and has covered Dylan, he also has a tattoo of the legendary singer-songwriter on his left bicep. 

Eventually Cash was sent lyrics from Rosen to a song called “Be Not Deceived." “It was talking about a loss of innocence,” he explains to the magazine. “And what people are going through — disfranchised, kind of leaderless masses of children with no parent or guardian or shepherd or anything. It talked about going out and making your own way. And when you read it, honestly, it’s poetry. It’s beautiful.”

When Cash read the lyrics to Post Malone over the phone, he says the rapper was "literally in tears.” They entered the studio in March 2021 to record “Be Not Deceived" and according to Cash "got about 40 percent done before Malone had to take off." 

“We got the stenciling done, he got some colors in, but he definitely wasn’t finished,” Cash tells Rolling Stone. “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.” 

Unfortunately, however, Cash was unable to get Post Malone to finish the track. “I was like, ‘Dude, he’s going to finish this track. Bob Dylan wrote it.’ I’m wrong. I’m an idiot. This thing was just never going to come out.” Dylan's team decided to retract the lyrics and then the project was quashed.

In the end, Cash says, “it just seems like nobody really managed expectations, and it just seems like nobody communicated. A really cool piece of music got made, and then it just got weird. It got really weird. So maybe it got weird, but this is two really important musicians that I feel put the work in and it needs to be shared.”

Here's to hoping one day this track will see the light of day.