Just another night and just another date on that long, long road: November 18th, 1979. Click here for a clip of Bob Dylan and his band performing Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking.

Well don’t know which one is worse,
Doing your own thing or just being cool.
Well don’t know which one is worse,
Doing your own thing or being cool.
You remember only about the brass ring,
You forget all about the golden rule.

The song was originally recorded and released on Slow Train Coming. Bob Dylan later re-recorded it with some new lyrics in 2003, as a duet with the great Mavis Staples, for the very special album Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan.

One of those new verses went:

Jesus is coming
He’s coming back to gather his jewels
Jesus is coming
He’s coming back to gather his jewels
Well, we live by the golden rule
Whoever got the gold rules.

So, in both cases Bob plays with that phrase, “the golden rule.” In the first song, he contrasts the precious metal of that rule with the brass of the ring which many of us are usually pursuing. In the second version, he jokes that we are in fact living by the golden rule, i.e. the rule of gold, where whoever has the most gold is the one to whom we award the accolades and the influence.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, of-course, the Golden Rule refers to the commandment of God present in a number of places in holy scripture, both Old and New Testament, and summarizable as: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

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