Dylan - What Happened?

by Paul Williams

Photos. How Bob Dylan became a born-again Christian.

Genres: Music, Biography

128 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian note: There is more than one author on goodreads by this name.

Reviews

[Roxann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a Dylan fan. Not sure where this book even came from. I might have picked it up in a free library or something. It is not good. And, I'm guessing if Paul Williams (author) re-reads it now, he will admit it is not very good. Basically it is a review of Dylan's Evangelical/Vineyard Christian period. The book was written in 1979 so Williams didn't have the knowledge that Dylan would only put out two additional Christian albums, the last being in 1981 and the brief Christian phase would musically come to an end. The three albums are: Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980), and, Shot of Love (1981). When Williams wrote the book he had access to Slow Train and had heard some of the songs performed live from Saved. Again, this could have been a newspaper review, and quite frankly Williams is or I should say was a fanboy of Dylan's back in the day (maybe still is) but he had no insight or special knowledge or even deep research of Dylan or his music. Basically, the book is him saying what he thinks and trying to interpret lyrics from pre-Christian albums and these songs. It is not engaging because really Williams' interpretation is not more valid than mine or yours. He has no specific insight into Dylan's music and no knowledge of Christian faith or the evangelical or Vineyard movement. Dylan (IMHO) seems to have lived the life of a truth-seeker and he sought out truth in a lot of places. I suspect sometimes he found truth and sometimes he didn't. Either you like the music or you don't and that is what it really comes down to.

[Mark Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Williams grapples with his heroes acceptance of Christ. This book was written as Dylan was playing his Gospel tour with 14 shows at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco 1979. Interesting to read Williams account of each show he attended as they just happened. Also interesting how much fear and doubt about his own beliefs he lays out in the text. At 128 pages it's more a treatise on Williams psyche that Dylan's. Funny how fear and uncertainty about Dylan's artistic growth says more about his fans than the artist himself.

[Neal Umphred · Rating 4 out of 5]

An explanation and appreciation of "born again" Bob.

[Simon Sweetman]

A quite sympathetic and in-the-moment account of Dylan's turn to Christianity. Written thoughtfully by one of the goyens of early music journalism.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Williams doesn't attempt to understand Christianity, but he does attempt to explain Dylan's conversion to it. The book consists of the semi-random speculations of a Dylan fan, and it is filled with tentative conclusions drawn largely from Dylan's song lyrics and public-record information about his life. It offers no new startling insights. Williams, like many Dylan fans, was none too thrilled about Dylan's conversion or the condemnatory arrogance that accompanied his new music. (The arrogance and condemnation were nothing new, only the target had shifted.) However, Williams does at least appreciate the quality of the music Dylan produced during this period. He appropriately attacks the critics who refuse to acknowledge Dylan's post-60's genius. "It seems," writes Williams, "there are a whole lot of people out there who are so hopelessly mired in their own long-gone adolescence that they have no interest in living art at all: they want their performers to be time machines for them."

Much of the book seems to be only slightly relevant to the topic. As far as the title question is concerned, the author basically argues that because Dylan could not find salvation in women, he sought it in Christ. The musician's conversion does not concern Williams so much as the possibility that Dylan might try to force Christianity "on the rest of us." Dylan's conversion was horrifying to many of his fans. This is perhaps because these fans had related so closely with Dylan's words for so long, that when the musician accepted Christ, they were forced to ask, as does Williams, "where have we diverged? Is he wrong, or . . . does this mean one day I'm going to wake up in love with Jesus too?" A scary thought to a lot of people.

Williams is afraid Dylan's been influenced by these Christians who are "ultraconservative simply because they've never been exposed to anything else." (Born-again Christians apparently never watch television shows, or see the news, or read books, or go to movies, or set foot in a public school, or do anything else that might expose them to the enlightened liberal thinking that dominates virtually every aspect of pop culture and the academy. Dylan's willingness to adopt the attitudes of these people surprises Williams because he figures Dylan is as smart as he is. Generous concession.) This is not the only line to appall Williams. He's mystified by Dylan's zealous mention of "pornography in the schools," and asks what the songwriter could possibly be talking about. (I guess Williams hadn't been to a public college in awhile, because I was certainly exposed to theoretical analysis of pornography during my University education, and I never even sought out such a curriculum; it just found its way surreptitiously into one of my English classes.) He is equally offended by Dylan's finger pointing when he sings about "adulterers in the churches." Is Dylan, Williams asks indignantly, going to "have them shot by the Ayatollah Khomeini?" He seems entirely oblivious to the main (and very obvious) point Dylan is making about religious hypocrisy.

Williams did surprise me with one very insightful remark, however. He pointed out that Dylan has got the golden rule wrong on his song "Do Right to Me, Baby." The golden rule is not conditional, it does not say, as does Dylan, "IF you do right unto me, baby, I'll do right to you too." And, despite the author's vaguely self-righteous criticism of evangelicals, he does seem to have a somewhat open mind about Christianity, at least, he has no beef with Dylan's personal choice, just with his musical evangelism. Consequently, he prefers the quieter, humbler, more personal songs such as "What Can I Do For You?" to the bible-thumping ones like "When You Gonna Wake Up?"