They call it “Bob Dylan Like You’ve Never Heard Him Before.” There are five audio clips at that link of Bob talking to Jann Wenner, as part of a series of interviews with various stars to mark the occasion of Rolling Stone’s 40th anniversary. They seem to be in a hotel room while Dylan is on tour somewhere — there’s no specific date given. Dylan is in fine form, pretty hilarious at times, turning questions back on Wenner just like the old days, but doing it all with enormous good humor. Wenner seems out of his depth a lot of the time, and nowhere more so than when he attempts to ask Dylan the big “religion question.” Dylan distinguishes between religion and faith, and it’s something Wenner doesn’t seem to be able to fathom, let alone probe meaningfully. And I get the impression that that’s just fine by Bob.

…

Addendum: More on this subject later, but in terms of Bob’s remarks about “religion” to Mr. Wenner in this interview, note what he was saying on the same subject 18 years ago, just after the release of Slow Train Coming. The interviewer, Bruce Heiman, is trying to get Dylan’s reaction to the atheist activists who are picketing his shows:

Heiman: Well the Atheists are against any sort of religion, be it Christianity ….

Dylan: Well, Christ is no religion. We’re not talking about religion … Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

[...]

Heiman: OK. They believe that all religion is repressive.

Dylan: Well, religion is repressive to a certain degree. Religion is another form of bondage which man invents to to get himself to God. But that’s why Christ came. Christ didn’t preach religion. He preached the Truth, the Way and the Life. He said He’d come to give life and life more abundantly. He talked about life, not necessarily religion …

[...]

Dylan: Well, a religion which says you have to do certain things to get to God - they’re probably talking about that kind of religion, which is a religion which is by works: you can enter into the Kingdom by what you do, what you wear, what you say, how many times a day you pray, how many good deeds you may do. If that’s what they mean by religion, that type of religion will not get you into the Kingdom, that’s true. However there is a Master Creator, a Supreme Being in the Universe.

Heiman: Alright. In another one of their statements they say that: “For years Dylan cried out against the Masters Of War and the power elite. The new Dylan now proclaims that we must serve a new master, a master whose nebulous origins were ignorance, foolishness, stupidity and blind faith. The Dylan who inspired us to look beyond banal textbooks and accepted ideologies now implores us to turn inwards to the pages of The Holy Bible, a book filled with contradictions, inaccuracies, outrages and absurdities”. Now this is what they’re saying.

Dylan: Well, the Bible says: “The fool has said in his heart, there’s no God … ”

So, I guess it’s not quite “Bob Dylan Like You’ve Never Heard Him Before.”

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