Slow Train Coming is the nineteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 20, 1979 by Columbia Records. It was the artist’s first effort since becoming a born-again Christian, and all of the songs either express his strong personal faith, or stress the importance of Christian teachings and philosophy. The evangelical nature of the record alienated many of Dylan’s existing fans; at the same time, many Christians were drawn into his fan base. Slow Train Coming was listed at #16 in the 2001 book CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music. The album was generally well-reviewed in the secular press, and the single “Gotta Serve Somebody” became his first hit in three years, winning Dylan the Grammy for best rock vocal performance by a male in 1980. The album peaked at #2 on the charts in the UK and went platinum in the US, where it reached #3. (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".
In a 1984 interview, Bob Dylan says: “The songs that I wrote for the Slow Train album [frightened me] . . . I didn’t plan to write them . . . I didn’t like writing them. I didn’t want to write them.”
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Bob Dylan was still a polarizing figure in the late 1970’s, and Slow Train Coming alienated at least as many fans as it attracted. Still, in its first year, the album outsold two of Dylan’s best albums, Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks in their first years; and “Gotta Serve Somebody” was a #24 hit single – his highest placement in the Billboard Hot 100 since “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” in 1973.
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Al Kasha, who takes credit for leading Dylan to Jesus, is a Messianic Jew (and that might be the best way to describe Dylan himself actually). He knew Dylan from his earliest days at Columbia Records, where he was their youngest record producer in 1960. On the blog Godreports, Kasha remarks that Dylan wrote the songs on Slow Train Coming at Kasha’s Beverly Hills home.
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One clue to what was happening with Bob Dylan occurred about six months before Slow Train Coming was released in November 1979; as reported by Wikipedia: “Before the album was completed, Patty Valentine had brought a defamation-of-character suit against Dylan, regarding the song ‘Hurricane’ from Desire; on May 22, [1979,] while giving a pre-trial deposition in his defense, Dylan was asked about his wealth. ‘You mean my treasure on earth?’ replied Dylan. He was asked about the identity of the ‘fool’ in ‘Hurricane’. Dylan said the ‘fool’ was ‘whoever Satan gave power to . . . whoever was blind to the truth and was living by his own truth’. Five days later, Dylan’s pre-trial statement was reported in the Washington Post, which also interviewed Kenn Gulliksen, who revealed to the paper that Dylan had joined the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.”
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Returning to the albums, Slow Train Coming and the albums that followed it are notable for the all-star assistance that Dylan received in putting them together. Bob Dylan heard the Dire Straits hit single “Sultans of Swing” and contacted guitarist and lead vocalist Mark Knopfler about working on an album together.
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There was a noticeable dip in the ratings given by rock critics of Bob Dylan’s Christian recordings. That was not true so much for Slow Train Coming – Robert Christgau of the Village Voice gave the album a B+ and wrote: “The lyrics are indifferently crafted. Nevertheless, this is his best album since Blood on the Tracks. The singing is passionate and detailed.” Allmusic and Rolling Stone both rated the album ***.
For Saved, the Rolling Stone rating stood, but Allmusic gave the album only **, and Christgau scored it as C+. Entertainment Weekly showed a C–. Shot of Love had ** from both Rolling Stone and Allmusic; Christgau and Entertainment Weekly showed B–.
With Infidels though, all was forgiven: Rolling Stone and Allmusic were both at ****.
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The Wikipedia article on Slow Train Coming also states (with no footnotes), in apparent violation of their NPOV (neutral point of view) policy: “In a year when Van Morrison and Patti Smith released their own spiritual works in Into the Music and Wave, respectively, [Bob] Dylan’s album seemed vitriolic and bitter in comparison.” Neither album is particularly Christian, from what I can tell; the title track of the Patti Smith album “Wave” is dedicated to the nearly forgotten Pope John Paul I, but evidently only because it was recorded during his brief papacy. Also, Patti Smith’s previous album Easter, as might be expected from the title, has more Christian imagery; and Smith opened her acclaimed debut album Horses with a spoken-word introduction that could easily be described as “vitriolic and bitter”: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.”
(August 2014)
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Items: Slow Train Coming
