Posted: Fri Jan 07, 2005 2:08 pm
At the time he recorded his "gospels" Dylan was very close to Christian fundementalists of the same breed that now reign the White House. (I don't want to talk politics now...). That's what pushed me away from the songs, but now I see a master of words and music testing just another style, probing into it.
It's interesting that as soon as Dylan realised the political connections of the Vineyard Fellowship (the fundamentalists he flirted with) he ran a mile. The Vineyard's Pastor and several Vineyard liggers formed part of his ontourage in 1979/80. Dylan even initially submitted his material to them for theological approval .. but soon tired of that and complained that things around them were "too tight", that they wanted to censor his output and he couldn't behave as he wished to around them. At this time Dylan performed only songs, "written off the gospel", as he put it. However, some sentiments obviously slipped past the censors e.g. "People starving & thirsting/Grain elevators are bursting/You know it costs more to store the food/Than it do to give it" ... hardly the position of the masters of war in the White House. By autumn 1980 the vineyard liggers had vanished from the entourage.
I don't think Dylan was just testing a style ... Paul Williams has written that Dylan was in the "first flush of a love affair with Christ". He was 100% sincere when he wrote those songs .... and many of the songs on Saved are incredibly moving. I guess afterwards he just complicated his thinking a bit.
It's interesting that as soon as Dylan realised the political connections of the Vineyard Fellowship (the fundamentalists he flirted with) he ran a mile. The Vineyard's Pastor and several Vineyard liggers formed part of his ontourage in 1979/80. Dylan even initially submitted his material to them for theological approval .. but soon tired of that and complained that things around them were "too tight", that they wanted to censor his output and he couldn't behave as he wished to around them. At this time Dylan performed only songs, "written off the gospel", as he put it. However, some sentiments obviously slipped past the censors e.g. "People starving & thirsting/Grain elevators are bursting/You know it costs more to store the food/Than it do to give it" ... hardly the position of the masters of war in the White House. By autumn 1980 the vineyard liggers had vanished from the entourage.
I don't think Dylan was just testing a style ... Paul Williams has written that Dylan was in the "first flush of a love affair with Christ". He was 100% sincere when he wrote those songs .... and many of the songs on Saved are incredibly moving. I guess afterwards he just complicated his thinking a bit.
