Slow Train Coming - Bob Dylan

...it comes from the first, Slow Train Coming.

The record opens with the murky bar-room blues of Gotta Serve Somebody (lampooned by John Lernnon shortly before his death in his Serve Yourself), a fairly by-the-numbers affair elevated by a great, growling vocal. As a single, the record proved successful both commercially and critically, earning Bob a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance By A Male, and it since become a regular on post-1980 ...
...Angel, I Believe In You, Slow Train and, especially, the beautiful piano ballad closer When He Returns are exceptional tracks by anyone's standards.

The combination of Mark Knopfler's guitar work and Jerry Wexler's production (neither collaborator had any idea of the album's evangelical nature hitherto the sessions) help give Slow Train Coming a clean, polished, radio-friendly pop-rock sound that marks it as distinct sonically as ... more

Looking back, Bob Dylan's conversion to fundamentalist Christianity in the last couple years of the 1970s appears no more significant or surprising than the radical shift of image and sound that coincided with 1969's hardcore country record Nashville Skyline or the belated embrace of turn-of-the-century western swing that followed 1997's harsh, bleak, stripped-back Time Out Of Mind. One more unexpected about-shift in a career stacked top-to-toe with such. Amusing and interesting and what have you, but nothing much more than that.

Yes, viewed from this vantage point - from the dawn of 2009 - Christian Bob loses a fair amount of stature, relevance and definition. At best, the period amounts to three little-listened-to records hidden away in the darkest corners of a vast, awe-inspiring body of work.

It's worth remembering, however, just how shocking and controversial a move this was - easily as daring and alienating as his shedding of the Acoustic Troubadour Voice Of A Generation tag in favour of electric guitars, driving rhythm sections and that wild, thin mercury sound a decade and a half earlier.

It was the final slap in the face to the idealistic, radical, progressive, left-leaning audience he courted throughout the 1960s. Bob Dylan - author of Blowing In The Wind, Masters Of War, The Times They Are A-Changing - had, just in time for the hideous, selfish, reactionary climate of the 1980s, become one of Them.

The fruits of this conversion, though - those three records and a host of incendiary, evangelical live performances captured by a wealth of bootleggers - provide plenty of nourishment for those even halfways sympathetic to his cause or, failing that, those who are least able to look beyond the explicitly Jesus-oriented lyrical content.

Of that Faith Trilogy, there is a stunning album and a half's worth of material to be wrung. The bulk of it comes from the first, Slow Train Coming.

The record opens with the murky bar-room blues of Gotta Serve Somebody (lampooned by John Lernnon shortly before his death in his Serve Yourself), a fairly by-the-numbers affair elevated by a great, growling vocal. As a single, the record proved successful both commercially and critically, earning Bob a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance By A Male, and it since become a regular on post-1980 Greatest Hits compilations.

The album's best tracks, though, far outshine it. Precious Angel, I Believe In You, Slow Train and, especially, the beautiful piano ballad closer When He Returns are exceptional tracks by anyone's standards.

The combination of Mark Knopfler's guitar work and Jerry Wexler's production (neither collaborator had any idea of the album's evangelical nature hitherto the sessions) help give Slow Train Coming a clean, polished, radio-friendly pop-rock sound that marks it as distinct sonically as well as thematically from most of Dylan's 1970s and 1980s records - it is neither as raw as, say, the masterful Blood On The Tracks nor as overproduced and garish as most of what he put out between Saved and 1989's career-saving Daniel Lanois produced Oh Mercy.

It is not a perfect record by any stretch - the cod-reggae of Man Gave Names To All The Animals is as cringe-inducing now as it must have been in 1979 - and the combination of saccharine sentimentality and deeply unpleasant You're Damned And I'm Not! raving evident in the bulk of the lyrics make for a curiously obnoxious listening experience at times. When it works, though, which is roughly 80% of the time, it's a delight.

It's easily the best of the Faith Trilogy (the weakest being Saved, widely considered one of the very worst albums of his career, although, like the notorious Self Portrait, it's nowhere near as bad as its reputation suggests) and regardless of its flaws its still one of the Dylan Must-Buys of the 1970s / 1980s (admittedly, there are precious few must-buys from the latter decade).

Bob's Christian period is in dire need of some serious re-evaluation. What a man would give for a Bootleg Series 10 - The Gospel Years. 

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