Well, Father Dave, Robyn and Brett from The Busted Halo Show on SIRIUS|XM's The Catholic Channel have invited me on the show again tomorrow night at 7:20 pm ET. It is always an honor, and a great time too. After talking about Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison and U2 on the show, tomorrow we'll be talking about Bob Dylan. I got the idea for a few reasons: (1) Robyn and I were at the same Bob Dylan concert a few weeks ago, (2) at that concert and others on this tour, Bob opened with one of his "Christian era" songs "Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking" and (3) he just released his Christmas album, Christmas In The Heart. A lot of people see Bob's "Christian" phrase as a really bad era in his career, and he probably pissed a lot of people off at the time by refusing to play any of his older, secular songs in concert. But if you check out the albums from that era, 1979's Slow Train Coming, 1980's Saved and 1981's Shot Of Love, there are a lot of great songs. I'll go on a limb and call Slow Train a classic. Even if you don't like his versions (the production is very much of its era), you should check out Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs Of Bob Dylan, which came out in 2003. Aaron Neville, Dottie Peoples, The Fairfield Four are all on the album, and Bob does a duet with Mavis Staples. Even though Bob eventually turned away from Christianity, and supposedly re-converted to Judiasm, he still sings these songs like he means them, because I think he finds God in songs about God, no matter what denomonation the songwriter is coming from, and I think that's a beautiful thing. He also sees The Bible as a great story to draw from, which I guess it is.
2 comments:
"Even though Bob eventually turned away from Christianity"
I hope you are not going to share that falsehood on the Catholic Channel.
HI, anonymous, thanks for reading and posting. Well, it's hard to know for sure what Bob is up to as he is very private/elusive, but the general consensus (maybe not the best source) is that he is no longer Christian - and perhaps he has returned to Judiasm. If you have any facts to the contrary, please share. Actually, I respect Bob's privacy, clearly he doesn't want to discuss that kind of thing - maybe I was wrong to write about his religious views (or lack thereof) anyway. My main point was really that people from all denominations can get something out of Bob's music.
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