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It’s All Good: Bob Dylan’s Christianity Phase
Categories: Featured, Rock and Roll
Written By: Tim T.
Mark Knopfler famously recalled that within the first few days of recording for Bob Dylan’s 1979 Slow Train Coming
Dylan had ventured into his Christianity ‘phase’ headlong with this album and would follow it up with two more religious/gospel tinged albums, Saved and Shot of Love. It remains one of Dylan’s most fascinating periods and badly in need of revisiting by the Dylan camp for a future “Bootleg” edition.
Both I Believe in You and When he Returns have to rank as two of Dylan’s most powerful songs in his long career. He often performed When he Returns seated at the piano during his ‘79 -’80 Tour and gave the audience a show-stopping display of emotion and raw power. Anyone questioning Dylan’s vocal prowess would be well served to check out the YouTube video included below. Dylan simply pours his soul into this song.
A recent admirable cover version of I Believe in You appeared on Cat Power’s album, Jukebox. It’s also worth checking out….Chan Marshall has added a bit of Faces/Stones swagger to the song to great effect.
When he Returns – Bob Dylan, 1980
And here is Cat Power with her rendition of I Believe in You:
May 13th, 2009 at 1:54 am
dude jerry wexler produced blood on the tracks, knopfler just supplied the licks.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Mike…where does the article say anything about BOTT?
May 13th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Jerry Wexler produced STC
Knopfler had a hand in producing INFIDELS
May 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I couldn’t get behind STC and especially SAVED when they first appeared. In fact it took me a couple of years to listen to Dylan again. This was on top a terrible concert from the ‘78 Big Band Tour.
But now, after making my peace with these albums and that whole ‘phase’. I think these have some of his best and most heartfelt singing. Some of the songs are a bit much lyrically, but I’m sure there are lots of people who can enjoy them. But the music and performances,especially Toronto in 1980 ( check out the video and or the cd) are terriific . I would love to see a volume of the bootleg series dedicated to this period.
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