And speaking of controversial sermons, thanks a lot to David Urban for the tip about a recent upload to YouTube. It contains the audio of one of Bob Dylan’s most famous “gospel raps,” from a performance in Tempe, Arizona in 1979. Now, I’d heard this before, and maybe you have too — or you might have read it somewhere — but the YouTube user who uploaded it has done a very useful service by putting up word balloons throughout the clip, for both Dylan’s words and the audience interjections. They seem to be scrupulously accurate and it makes the whole thing a lot easier to follow.

Click here to go to YouTube or play below. The first three or four minutes is Dylan talking, and it’s followed by a performance of When You Gonna Wake Up.

Listening to this, I was reminded of the portrayal of “born-again Dylan” in the Todd Haynes film, “I’m Not There.” Not because of the similarities between the portrayal and the reality, but rather because of the differences. Of-course, Haynes would probably say that the point of the film was not to tell history, but more to just reflect and riff on the different images of Dylan that we’ve gotten over the years through the media and whatnot, and that’s no doubt true. But the “gospel Dylan” in that film, as portrayed by Christian Bale, comes across as a completely obsessed fanatic, with a blank look, like some kind of mentally-fried junkie. He has no humor, no seeming ability to relate to anyone in a real way. And this may well be how many did prefer to think of Dylan during that time — off the reservation, high on Jesus and out to lunch. Yet, listen to Dylan here, in one of his most famous/notorious speeches from the stage (it’s the one where he says “You want rock-n-roll, you can go see Kiss and rock-n-roll your way all the way down to the pit!”). Is Dylan actually out to lunch? Does he sound so unlike himself? Well, the answers people come up with are going to be subjective, but to me: I don’t think so. He wants to tell people something. He’s telling it in an eccentric way, but when was Dylan ever not eccentric? He is not without humor; he is not speaking in some kind of monotone. It’s the old Bob, the same Bob — the only uncharacteristic thing is that he has a quite specific message that he badly wants to impart, and is willing to risk mockery and embarrassment in order to do his best to impart it.

Another thing I think worthy of note is his theme during this rap, about the particular guru and all the other people who say that God is inside of them; that, in essence, they themselves are God. I think it’s a recurring theme for Dylan, that this is a way of error, and a way in which the world tries to seduce. Six years after this Arizona gig, in his 1985 interview for the Biograph booklet, he put it this way: “That lie about everybody having their own truth inside of them has done a lot of damage and made people crazy.”

And listening to Dylan during this stage of his career can’t help now but always bring to my mind that couplet from one of his newest songs, Thunder On The Mountain:

I did all I could and I did it right there and then
I’ve already confessed — no need to confess again

...................
Share this!

Posts which might be related to this one based on a mysterious algorithm:

• “Inside Bob Dylan’s Jesus Years”
• He’s better when he’s “Not There”
• He’s not there!!