SLOW TRAIN
“Slow Train” is a song written by Bob Dylan that first appeared on his 1979 album Slow Train Coming. In the United States, it was released as the follow up single to “Gotta Serve Somebody”. It was also released as the lead song from Dylan’s 1989 live album with the Grateful Dead, Dylan & the Dead. Music critic Paul Williams has called it “the one track [on Slow Train Coming] that must be listened to again and again and again, inexhaustible, essential”. Rolling Stone Magazine editor Jann Wenner has called it “nothing less than Dylan’s most mature and profound song about America”. (More from Wikipedia)
The best known of Bob Dylan’s Christian albums was the previous album Slow Train Coming, which produced the hit song “Gotta Serve Somebody”, the topical song “Slow Train” (also relatively rare by this point in Dylan’s career) and the charming children’s song “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” – this one ends abruptly before naming the snake (and Dylan later verified that he meant the one in the Garden of Eden). But several of the songs didn’t pull any punches or seek shelter in allegory, notably “Precious Angel”, “When You Gonna Wake Up” and “When He Returns”.
(August 2014)
