In 1979, Bob Dylan surprised nearly his entire fanbase by becoming \u201cborn-again,\u201d discovering Jesus and recording music reflecting his new-found faith. He further alienated his long-time fans by refusing to play his older selections, preferring to focus only on his new religious-based music. Slow Train Coming<\/i>, released later that year, was the first of three discs primarily focused on God-based music, and was met with critical acclaim.<\/p>\n
However, the sudden focus on Jesus in his music really shouldn\u2019t have been a tremendous surprise to people, as Dylan (who was born Jewish) often referred to Jesus in his music, one example immediately springing to mind being \u201cBob Dylan\u2019s 115th Dream\u201d off Bringing It All Back Home<\/i>. What also might surprise people, especially those who are biased against Christian music, is that nearly half the music on this one could neatly fit on any of Dylan\u2019s earlier albums and still be relevant.<\/p>\n
Slow Train Coming<\/i> is best known for the single \u201cGotta Serve Somebody,\u201d a track which definitely has a religious overtone but, to Dylan\u2019s credit, didn\u2019t hit the listener over the head with the message. But this, surprisingly, isn\u2019t the best track on this disc. Neither is \u201cI Believe In You,\u201d one of the tracks that could comfortably fit on another album and no one would have raised an eyebrow. Even Dylan\u2019s slightly off-kilter vocal delivery doesn\u2019t really distract from this one.<\/p>\n
No, the real hit on this one is \u201cWhen He Returns,\u201d one of the overtly religious tracks, and the most minimal in terms of instrumentation, with just Dylan and piano. Now, I freely admit I do not like religious music, especially what could be called contemporary Christian music, and I originally cringed a bit when I heard the gospel-like piano opening to this one. But Dylan\u2019s best vocal delivery on the album and solid songwriting seals this one for me \u2013 it\u2019s less of a sermon than it is a different kind of protest song for Dylan.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t, however, say that the more religious bend to Dylan\u2019s music is successful at all times. The two weakest tracks on the disc, \u201cGonna Change My Way Of Thinking\u201d and \u201cWhen You Gonna Wake Up,\u201d are the two tracks that feel the most like sermons. CCM music, to me, isn\u2019t bad, it\u2019s when it becomes preachy that I tend to shut down, and these two tracks had me reaching for my internal \u201coff\u201d switch.<\/p>\n
With the help of producer Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits, Slow Train Coming<\/i> often sounds to me like a precursor to what bands like the Grateful Dead would eventually sound like — not surprising since the Dead had often covered Dylan\u2019s material. Going into a slightly reggae-like feel is the saving grace to \u201cMan Gave Names To All The Animals,\u201d making it quite an enjoyable track rather than a novelty inclusion.<\/p>\n
In fact, Slow Train Coming<\/i> is successful in that Knopfler forced Dylan to be more structured in terms of his performances, much like how The Band helped Dylan on Planet Waves<\/i>. Likewise, Dylan shows time and time again that he could be religious without preaching on tracks like \u201cPrecious Angel\u201d and \u201cSlow Train\u201d — and could even be overtly religious on \u201cWhen He Returns\u201d while being musically entertaining.<\/p>\n
Dylan\u2019s conversion to Christianity was controversial, something still questioned by Dylan scholars to this day, and the three discs comprising this period of Dylan\u2019s history are sometimes looked upon with disdain. But even with its flaws, Slow Train Coming<\/i> proves that Dylan hadn\u2019t changed much, even if his message had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5866],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-40708","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-dylan","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40708"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40708"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}