"There can be few people in any walk of life who are getting a worse press than Bob Dylan...mainly, it seems, because of his religious views."
— Tim de Lisle
Christian rock is something that is almost impossible to listen to if you're an outsider. I'm sure it sounds absolutely brilliant to believers, especially if you happen to be a Bible-bashing, abortion clinic picketing, homosexual-hating zealot, but to us godless types it's low on creativity, humourless, self-righteous and limited to awfully narrow subject matter. It's also, obviously though no less crucially, made by Christians who have hopefully carved out a nice, lucrative place for themselves on the evangelical circuit. In short, they needn't bother performing for secular audiences and for all I know many of them are high on creativity, full of humour and not the least bit self-righteous, all the while covering a myriad of topics far beyond their lord and saviour. Perhaps I'll find out for myself at some point. For now, we'll have to make due with artists who dabbled in what the Louvin Brothers called "the Christian Life" and for that I'm grateful that one the finest songwriters who ever lived was once a churchey. Take a bow, Bob Dylan.
For the purposes of this entry I have delved into Dylan's born-again period, listening to the album trilogy Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love (from which "Lenny Bruce" was taken) as well as some of the recent collection The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More. It may be trite to say but this isn't exactly his most fertile period. Far from being along the creative lines of the likes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "Tombstone Blues" or "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", even his best track from the time, the strangely unreleased "Ain't Gonna Go to Hell (for Anybody)", is more along the lines of likable but lighter fare such as "One More Night" or "Mozambique": by no means an account of the man's lyrical facility although certainly ample evidence for what underrated melodies he carve out.
Slow Train Coming is generally regarded as the high point (relatively speaking) of his evangelical phase and it's a passable release. While I've never cared much for the sentiment, "Gotta Serve Somebody" is just about the best Dylan ever got at espousing Jesus without letting his muse wilt away. Worryingly, though, he descends into scriptural cliché on other numbers and the slickness of the production actually seems to mask the slightness of the material. The little Dylan had to say at the time ended up being said on Slow Train which left its follow-up, Saved, bereft of purpose beyond quoting from the Good Book in song. Which then brings us to Shot of Love, a mixed bag of gospel and his first secular tunes since prior to his conversion. Far from his new material giving him a shot of vitality, if anything it's the batch of devotional works — particularly the outstanding "Every Grain of Sand" — that manage to be far more convincing than the tedious bar band rock. Could he have begun to turn his back on Christianity just as it was beginning to bare fruit? "The constant wonder of [Dylan's] career," observed Ian MacDonald, "is that a man so often close to spiritual breakthrough so consistently winds up bumping his head on the ceiling of his own ego".
Finally we come to "Lenny Bruce" itself. I can't say that I agree with Tim de Lisle who describes it as a "poignant, simple ballad" in his Smash Hits review. It's fascinating in its own way but only because it may well contain the clumsiest lyrics of Dylan's career. Opening reasonably enough with "Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on", it quickly goes off the rails in the very next line: "Never did get any Golden Globe awards, never made it to Synanon". I don't want to get bogged down too much by details but are those really such vital points to be making? Never took home a poor-cousin Academy Award and never joined criminal cult detox program, yeah that's too bad. The whole thing reads like random jottings covering everything from an anecdote about sharing a cab with him to curious observations about how he "never robbed any churches, nor cut off any babies heads". Way to lavish our Len with praise there Bobby.
But then just what was Dylan doing composing a tribute to a 'sick' Jewish comedian at the height of being immersed Christianity anyway? The Dylanologist in me reckons that he's consciously or unconsciously attempting to claw his way back to his heyday, to a 1963 when Lenny Bruce was shocking audiences with rapid-fire rants about race at the hungry i club and when Bob Dylan was stunning audiences with his intricate lyrics at the Philharmonic Hall. Either that or he's building up Bruce in order to besmirch his own legacy — and, by extension, his fans. ("More of an outlaw than you ever were" is surely aimed at someone)
Of course there is a third possibility. Bob Dylan may have been a Christian — he may still be one for all we know — but he was never a Christian rock star. He had plenty more material to cover. He just needed to find his way back home.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Rickie Lee Jones: "Woody & Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking"
I have a good friend who's a very talented songwriter and I once had the privilege of having him play a private concert for myself and a small number of people. He introduced one number by saying that it had originally been called "O Witness" which he then changed it to "Whisky Orchard" before he finally settled on "Gold Star". "And then you wrote the song?" I wittily, if rather annoyingly, chimed in. Rickie Lee Jones has always struck me as the sort of person who would come up with a funky song title and then force herself to come up with an appropriate song to work around it. Thus, "Woody & Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking". Had squaresville Jesus boy Bob Dylan had any desire to reclaim his hipness he could've done a lot worse than to have followed the lead of Jones. An effortless, jazzy, finger-snapping, toe-tapping, scat-filled piece, this is just the sort of thing that brings groovy cats and trailer park dirtbags together.
For the purposes of this entry I have delved into Dylan's born-again period, listening to the album trilogy Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love (from which "Lenny Bruce" was taken) as well as some of the recent collection The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More. It may be trite to say but this isn't exactly his most fertile period. Far from being along the creative lines of the likes of "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", "Tombstone Blues" or "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", even his best track from the time, the strangely unreleased "Ain't Gonna Go to Hell (for Anybody)", is more along the lines of likable but lighter fare such as "One More Night" or "Mozambique": by no means an account of the man's lyrical facility although certainly ample evidence for what underrated melodies he carve out.
Slow Train Coming is generally regarded as the high point (relatively speaking) of his evangelical phase and it's a passable release. While I've never cared much for the sentiment, "Gotta Serve Somebody" is just about the best Dylan ever got at espousing Jesus without letting his muse wilt away. Worryingly, though, he descends into scriptural cliché on other numbers and the slickness of the production actually seems to mask the slightness of the material. The little Dylan had to say at the time ended up being said on Slow Train which left its follow-up, Saved, bereft of purpose beyond quoting from the Good Book in song. Which then brings us to Shot of Love, a mixed bag of gospel and his first secular tunes since prior to his conversion. Far from his new material giving him a shot of vitality, if anything it's the batch of devotional works — particularly the outstanding "Every Grain of Sand" — that manage to be far more convincing than the tedious bar band rock. Could he have begun to turn his back on Christianity just as it was beginning to bare fruit? "The constant wonder of [Dylan's] career," observed Ian MacDonald, "is that a man so often close to spiritual breakthrough so consistently winds up bumping his head on the ceiling of his own ego".
Finally we come to "Lenny Bruce" itself. I can't say that I agree with Tim de Lisle who describes it as a "poignant, simple ballad" in his Smash Hits review. It's fascinating in its own way but only because it may well contain the clumsiest lyrics of Dylan's career. Opening reasonably enough with "Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on", it quickly goes off the rails in the very next line: "Never did get any Golden Globe awards, never made it to Synanon". I don't want to get bogged down too much by details but are those really such vital points to be making? Never took home a poor-cousin Academy Award and never joined criminal cult detox program, yeah that's too bad. The whole thing reads like random jottings covering everything from an anecdote about sharing a cab with him to curious observations about how he "never robbed any churches, nor cut off any babies heads". Way to lavish our Len with praise there Bobby.
But then just what was Dylan doing composing a tribute to a 'sick' Jewish comedian at the height of being immersed Christianity anyway? The Dylanologist in me reckons that he's consciously or unconsciously attempting to claw his way back to his heyday, to a 1963 when Lenny Bruce was shocking audiences with rapid-fire rants about race at the hungry i club and when Bob Dylan was stunning audiences with his intricate lyrics at the Philharmonic Hall. Either that or he's building up Bruce in order to besmirch his own legacy — and, by extension, his fans. ("More of an outlaw than you ever were" is surely aimed at someone)
Of course there is a third possibility. Bob Dylan may have been a Christian — he may still be one for all we know — but he was never a Christian rock star. He had plenty more material to cover. He just needed to find his way back home.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Rickie Lee Jones: "Woody & Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking"
I have a good friend who's a very talented songwriter and I once had the privilege of having him play a private concert for myself and a small number of people. He introduced one number by saying that it had originally been called "O Witness" which he then changed it to "Whisky Orchard" before he finally settled on "Gold Star". "And then you wrote the song?" I wittily, if rather annoyingly, chimed in. Rickie Lee Jones has always struck me as the sort of person who would come up with a funky song title and then force herself to come up with an appropriate song to work around it. Thus, "Woody & Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking". Had squaresville Jesus boy Bob Dylan had any desire to reclaim his hipness he could've done a lot worse than to have followed the lead of Jones. An effortless, jazzy, finger-snapping, toe-tapping, scat-filled piece, this is just the sort of thing that brings groovy cats and trailer park dirtbags together.
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