The current issue of Third Way has an interesting article by Stephen Tomkins exploring the way in which Bob Dylan has consistently linked religion and violence throughout his career.
Tomkins briefly surveys the religious references in Dylan's work from the religious politics of 'With God On Our Side' through "a quiet, persistent interest in spirituality" from Blonde on Blonde to Blood on the Tracks followed by the "Jesus is returning and you're in for it" message of Slow Train Coming before in his most recent work, most particularly Love and Theft, considering "the relationship between love, faith and violence, repeatedly bringing them together in an often incongruous ménage, and often at the most incongruous moments."
Tomkins concludes that the movement in Dylan's work is of the "politics of the earlier records" giving way to personal understanding; "religion, bloodshed and sex not as phenomena of the world out there, but first and above all as part of every human nature, things that we all carry around all the time." The realization found in the work, Tomkins suggests, is "that the line between Us and Them runs through me" and that perhaps "we stand a better chance of getting somewhere with changin' our times if we start by knowing ourselves."
I'm not sure though that this really gets to the heart of why Dylan links religion and violence. It's an important issue because many who are not religious link religion with violence and view the link as a reason to reject religion. Dylan doesn't do that despite clearly linking both, so exploring this theme in his work could potentially open up contemporary and universal debates. It is interesting too to compare Dylan's linking of the two with that of fellow rock star Nick Cave. Cave seems to view love as involving extreme emotion and therefore either inevitably involving violence or at least being inclined towards violence. Love of God, seems to be for him, the deepest emotion and therefore the most likely to result in violence and this is what attracted him to the language and imagery of the Bible, and the Psalms in particular. Cave's linking of religion and violence seems to me to be a better fit with the conclusion that Tomkins draws in his article than are the links which Dylan makes.
Cave argues for a personal link to do with the deepest emotion that each of us can feel, while Dylan essentially doesn't do personal in his songs because his songs are observational rather than confessional. This, it seems to me, is the trap into which many Dylan critics fall and one which Dylan himself has regularly criticised in those who seek to analyse his songs.
Dylan comes from the tradition of hobo singers (Woody Guthrie) and beat poets (Jack Kerouac) for whom the journey and the
documenting of their experience is life itself. Dylan as journeyman, as traveller, is the key insight of the liner notes for
Tell Tale Signs where Larry Sloman signs off with
a paragraph quoting a myriad of Dylan's lyrics:
"He ain't talking, but
he's still walking, heart burning, still yearning. He's trampling through the
mud, through the blistering sun, getting damp from the misty rain. He's got his
top hat on, ambling along with his cane, stopping to watch all the young men and
young women in their bright-coloured clothes cavorting in the park. Despite all
the grief and devastation he's seen on his odyssey, his heart isn't weary, it's
light and free, bursting all over with affection for all those who sailed with
him. Deep down he knows that his loyal and much-loved companions approve of him
and share his code. And it's dawn now, the sun beginning to shine down on him
and his heart is still in the Highlands, over those hills, far away. But there's
a way to get there and if anyone can, he'll figure it out. And in the meantime,
he's already there in his mind. That mind decidedly out of time. And we're all
that much richer for his journey."
Dylan's manifesto for his work is 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall'; a song about walking through a world which is surreal and unjust and singing what he sees:
"I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it,
I saw a highway of
diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept
drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin' ..."
This is a song which has been interpreted as dealing with events that were contemporary to the time such as the Cuban missile crisis and, more generally, the threat of a nuclear holocaust. That maybe so, but I think a more straightforward interpretation and one that is closer to what the lyrics actually say is to see it as a statement by Dylan of what he is trying to do in and through his work. In the song he walks through a surreal and unjust world, ahead of him he sees a gathering apocalyptic
storm and he resolves to walk in the shadow of the
storm and sing out what he sees:
"... 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths
of the deepest dark forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all
empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the
home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face
is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where the souls are
forgotten,
Where black is the colour, where none is the number.
And I'll
tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect from the
mountain so that all souls can see it ...".
This then is the other key element to Dylan's journey and work; the idea of journeying in face of the coming apocalypse. What we have in the best of Dylan is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate
journey, undertaken in the eye of the Apocalypse, to stand with the damned at
the heart of the darkness that is twentieth century culture.
This is where religion and violence are linked in Dylan's work because apocalyptic imagery and themes run throughout his work and often require Biblical images and stories for their expression. Tomkins uses 'When The Ship Comes In' as a key song in his thesis arguing that it, like 'The Times They Are A-Changin', is about "the whole sixties social revolution, young versus old, freedom versus rules" and he picks up on Dylan's need when "rousing the righteous rabble" to use the "language of biblical violence." He sees this as an inconsistency in Dylan's early work, criticising religious politics while also appropriating its language.
But, while both songs can be understood in terms of the sixties revolution, neither need be understood in that way and the lyrics of neither song specifically make that connection. Instead both deal with rapidly approaching change described in apocalyptic terms - "admit that the waters/Around you have grown/And accept it that soon/You'll be drenched to the bone", "There's battle outside/And it is ragin'./It'll soon shake your windows/And rattle your walls", "Oh the time will stop ... 'Fore the hurricane begins/The hour when the ship comes in", "And like Pharoah's tribe,/They'll be drownded in the tide,/And like Goliath, they'll be conquered" - and when the apocalyptic moment arrives some will be on the positive side of the change and others not. Dylan may well be speaking, as Tomkins suggests, about "young versus old, freedom versus rules" but, on the basis of the lyrics themselves, it is not possible to be definitive because the language Dylan uses is deliberately unspecific. In neither song does he identify the specific nature of the change that is to come and it is this generality which gives these songs universality and continuing relevance because they can be applied to different circumstances at different times. What can definitively be said about both songs however is that they are warnings about a coming apocalyptic change and the warning is to do with which side of that change we will be on.
Understood in this way, these songs then have startling consistency with the songs which Dylan wrote in the wake of his 1978 conversion and which Tomkins describes as 'Jesus is returning and you're for it' songs. In my post Bob Dylan: Pilgrim, Dante and Rimbaud, I describe how from Slow Train Coming onwards Dylan equated the apocalypse with the
imminent return of Christ. The return of Christ in judgement is the slow train
that is "comin' up around the bend" and in the face of this apocalypse he calls
on human beings to wake up and strengthen the things that remain. Similarly, in
'The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar', he sees the apocalypse coming
("Curtain risin' on a new age") but not yet here while the Groom (Christ who
awaits his bride, the Church) is still waiting at the altar. In the time that
remains he again calls on human beings to arise from our slumber: "Dead man,
dead man / When will you arise? / Cobwebs in your mind / Dust upon your eyes"
('Dead Man, Dead Man'). In the light of this thread in Dylan's songs
throughout this period, it seems to me to be consistent to read 'Jokerman', from
Infidels as another song in this vein; as a song depicting the apathy
of humanity in the face of the apocalypse and one which is shot through with
apocalyptic imagery drawn from the Book of Revelation. We are the jokermen who
laugh, dance and fly but only in the dark of the night (equated with sin and
judgement) afraid to come into the revealing light of the Sun/Son.
For much of his career though, Dylan, while consistently writing in the face of a coming apocalypse, did not specifically equate that apocalypse with the imminent return of Christ. Apocalyptic change in Dylan's work can be understood as generational confict, Cold War conflicts, nuclear holocaust, Civil Rights struggles, and more. The generic message throughout is that apocalyptic change is coming and we need to think where we stand in relation to it. That message is as relevant today in terms of economic meltdown, climate change or peak oil, as to the Second Coming, whether imminent or not.
In Bob Dylan: Pilgrim, Dante and Rimbaud I described through his songs where Dylan's pilgrim journey in the eye of the apocalypse had taken him:
"He travels the paths of political protest, urban surrealism, country
contentment, gospel conversion and world weary blues. On his journey he: sees
"seven breezes a-blowin'" all around the cabin door where victims despair
('Ballad of Hollis Brown'); sees lightning flashing "For the countless confused,
accused, misused, strung-out ones an' worse" ('Chimes of Freedom'); surveys
'Desolation Road'; talks truth with a thief as the wind begins to howl ('All
Along the Watchtower'); takes shelter from a woman "With silver bracelets on her
wrists and flowers in her hair" ('Shelter from the Storm'); feels the Idiot Wind
blowing through the buttons on his coat, recognises himself as an idiot and
feels so sorry ('Idiot Wind'); finds a pathway to the stars and can't believe
he's survived and is still alive ('Where Are You Tonight? Journey Through Deep
Heat'); rides the slow train up around the bend ('Slow Train'); is driven out of
town into the driving rain because of belief ('I Believe in You'); hears the
ancient footsteps join him on his path ('Every Grain of Sand'); feels the
Caribbean Winds, fanning desire, bringing him nearer to the fire ('Caribbean
Wind'); betrays his commitment, feels the breath of the storm and goes searching
for his first love ('Tight Connection to My Heart'); then at the final moment,
it's not quite dark yet but:
"The air is getting hotter, there's a
rumbling in the skies
I've been wading through the high muddy water
With
the heat rising in my eyes.
Everyday your memory grows dimmer.
It don't
haunt me, like it did before.
I been walking through the middle of
nowhere
Tryin' to get to heaven before they close the door." ('Tryin' To Get
To Heaven')."
For me the link that Dylan makes between religion and violence is firstly external to us because it is about a coming apocalyptic crisis or change which will be violent. Where it then becomes personal is in how we choose to respond. Dylan's response was:
"I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest
black forest ...
And I'll
tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect from the
mountain so that all souls can see it ...".
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Bryan Ferry - A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall.
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