Bob Dylan: Tempest

'When Dylan convened his band at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters studios in Santa Monica,' Allan Jones notes in his Uncut review of Tempest, "it was his intention to make a 'religious' album." Jones clearly thinks that there are only "inklings" to be found in Tempest itself of that original intention, presumably because of the wrath found on this album and "the often elemental ire that accompanies it, not to mention all the bloodshed, madness, death, chaos and assorted disasters" also found therein.

Douglas Heselgrave writes that "Tempest is one hell of a fiery concoction, a swirling inferno of love gone wrong that always holds out the possibility of redemption coming between falling from the saddle and hitting the ground." Presumably 'the possibility of redemption' is what Allan Jones was expecting from a 'religious' Dylan album and what he doesn't really find in Tempest, except in it's opening track 'Duquesne Whistle'.

He's right that Dylan's focus in Tempest is not on the possibility of redemption, instead it is rather more on the current reality of Hell. As Caspar Llewellyn Smith has noted Tempest is a "fire-and-brimstone" album "steeped in the country blues and old murder ballads" and as Matt Melis writes "On much of Tempest, listeners are guided by a still-yearning Dylan through a depraved and slouching world whose center cannot hold ..."

In 'Narrow Way' the central character reverses Jesus' words about walking the narrow path by seeking to drag the person he is addressing down into the hell he inhabits: 

"If I can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday."

A similar reversal is found in 'Pay In Blood' where the central character describes his violent actions towards others and states "I pay in blood, but not my own'. Jesus, of course, does pay - for the salvation of all - in his own blood.

But to pay in the blood of others seems to be the nature of the world that Dylan describes in Tempest. As the central character in 'Narrow Way' says:

"This is hard country to stay alive in
Blades are everywhere and they're breaking my skin
I'm armed to the hilt and I'm struggling hard
You won't get out of here unscarred"

This is the dark world of the night - 'Soon After Midnight' - where people renounce their faith and deny their Lord, put their "heart on a platter and see who will bite," wear dark glasses to cover their eyes as there are secrets in them that they can't disguise, there's looting and plunder on distant shores, "there's a bleeding wound in the heart of town," help comes too late for the "beggars crouching at the gate," and there are a "lot of things we didn’t do that I wish we had."

When the morning comes:

"We cried on a cold and frosty morn
We cried because our souls were torn
So much for tears
So much for these long and wasted years" ('Long And Wasted Years')

Dylan is, as ever, the storyteller rather than a character in the songs; he is a bard, a poetic teller of myths, not a confessional singer-songwriter and, therefore, it is futile to interrogate his songs to try to determine his state of mind or heart. Instead, he continues to carry out the role he first articulated in 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' of going out in the face of the tempest, the storm, the coming apocalypse, in order to say what he sees:

"I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall"

'Tempest' contains a repeated motif:

"The watchman, he lay dreaming
As the ballroom dancers twirled
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the underworld"

"The watchman lay there dreaming
At forty-five degrees
He dreamed that the Titanic was sinking
Dropping to her knees"

"The watchman, he lay dreaming
The damage had been done
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
And he tried to tell someone"

"The watchman he lay dreaming
Of all the things that can be
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the deep blue sea"

The prophet Ezekiel is called by God to be a watchman for the people of Israel. In the book of Ezekiel the watchmen are the shepherds - the priests and prophets - of Israel. Ezekiel is told by God that "if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood" (Ezekiel 33. 6).

The Dylan of Tempest, 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' and so many other songs, is the faithful watchmen who sees the storm of the apocalypse on the horizon and who warns his people before it is too late. Tempest is, therefore, a profoundly religious album.

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Bob Dylan - Scarlet Town.