On Infidels

I've been somewhat obsessed lately with a Bob Dylan album that was released in 1984 called Infidels. I must admit that I thought I was past my Bob Dylan phase, but, sincerely, I have always found the man fascinating. Someone who can reach the heights of fame that he has, while, really, defying categorization, is amazing to me. So, I'm listening to this album every day now, and I can't completely explain why. Let me share some lyrics with you:

From License to Kill:

Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
And they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill
Then they bury him with stars
Sell his body like they do used cars. [...]

Now, he's hell-bent for destruction, he's afraid and confused
And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
All he believes are his eyes
And his eyes, they just tell him lies.

From Union Sundown:

Well, you know, lots of people complainin’ that there is no work.
I say, “Why you say that for
When nothin’ you got is U.S.–made?”
They don’t make nothin’ here no more,
You know, capitalism is above the law.
It say, “It don’t count ’less it sells.”
When it costs too much to build it at home
You just build it cheaper someplace else.

Talk about shades of Distributism...

This album dates to just after Bob's 'Born Again' period when he was frequenting Vineyard churches. Bob had a conversion in an Arizona hotel in the late seventies. He had a fever, and he describes an experience where he felt that Jesus was in the room with him, touching his arm. Bob's conversion had foreseeable consequences in the circles he was wont to travel in at the time. He is remembered as having said from the stage:

Years ago they ... said I was a prophet. I used to say, "No I'm not a prophet" they say "Yes you are, you're a prophet." I said, "No it's not me." They used to say "You sure are a prophet." They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, "Bob Dylan's no prophet." They just can't handle it.

Some of the responses of his pop-music contemporaries were pretty humorous. During his born-again period Dylan recorded a overtly religious song called Gotta Serve Somebody, with the refrain: "It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody." John Lennon responded by recording a song called Serve Yourself, with obvious connotations.

Here's some more lyrics from Infidels. From the song I and I:

Been so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed.
Look how sweet she sleeps, how free must be her dreams.
In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed
To some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams. [...]

Think I’ll go out and go for a walk,
Not much happenin’ here, nothin’ ever does.
Besides, if she wakes up now, she’ll just want me to talk
I got nothin’ to say, ’specially about whatever was.

The fascinating thing to me is simply that someone is saying things like this in a place where Dylan is (or was). I don't know that it is Chestertonian, per se, because I think that Chesterton came from a Truth-seeking perspective, primarily. But here is someone in the dizzying heights of fame, exploring issues of comparable gravitas.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Bob has gotten lost in the inevitable tangle of relationships and confusion that defines so much of modern life. Here is Bob recently on faith:

Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like "Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain" or "I Saw the Light"—that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

I suppose we'll have to let Bob sit content where he is, for now. But his career is testament to the complicated web that grace can weave through any life - especially when one is open to the Truth.