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Dylan Redeemed: From Highway 61 to Saved
Bob Dylan's earth-shattering performance at Newport in 1965 changed the face of rock and roll and the face of folk music forever. Dylan broke the musical equivalent of the sound barrier. He had to teach his audience how to hear sounds that had never before been heard.
Dylan did the same for religion when he converted to Christianity in late 1978. Rock and reilgion have become intertwined in contemporay culture. Does rock gain its power from the decline of religious authority? Is rock a neutral medium that churches can appropriate with little or no danger to spiritual truths? Do rock and religion have the same ancient roots? Or is rock essentially at odds with Christianity? No contemporary musician presents a better test case than Bob Dylan. He played a key role in the fusion of rock and religion when he converted to Christianity.
Dylan was ahead of the contemporary Christian music trend. Although he helped legitimize Christian rock in the late seventies, even his early music had deeply spiritual undertones. From the beginning of his career, Dylan talked about his music in terms of a spiritual calling. He imbued rock with something oracular and otherworldly--a supersonic rendition of the supernatural--which gave popular music enough weight to convey something of the mystery of religious ritual.
Webb focuses on Dylan's religious period in this book, but convincingly shows that this religious period cannot be understood apart from a rereading of his entire career. Webb reevaluates Dylan's early career in light of Dylan's Christian period and shows that Dylan's Christian period was a natural development in his musical and spiritual journey.
Dylan did the same for religion when he converted to Christianity in late 1978. Rock and reilgion have become intertwined in contemporay culture. Does rock gain its power from the decline of religious authority? Is rock a neutral medium that churches can appropriate with little or no danger to spiritual truths? Do rock and religion have the same ancient roots? Or is rock essentially at odds with Christianity? No contemporary musician presents a better test case than Bob Dylan. He played a key role in the fusion of rock and religion when he converted to Christianity.
Dylan was ahead of the contemporary Christian music trend. Although he helped legitimize Christian rock in the late seventies, even his early music had deeply spiritual undertones. From the beginning of his career, Dylan talked about his music in terms of a spiritual calling. He imbued rock with something oracular and otherworldly--a supersonic rendition of the supernatural--which gave popular music enough weight to convey something of the mystery of religious ritual.
Webb focuses on Dylan's religious period in this book, but convincingly shows that this religious period cannot be understood apart from a rereading of his entire career. Webb reevaluates Dylan's early career in light of Dylan's Christian period and shows that Dylan's Christian period was a natural development in his musical and spiritual journey.
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 5, 2020
This book's title is a tad misleading for two reasons. First, it covers Dylan's progression roughly from Freewheelin' to Time Out of Mind. Second, although the main subject is Dylan's spirituality, it also includes the author's reflections on the role of sound in the church, contemporary Christian music, providence, and Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. These are all intertwined with reflections on and analysis of Dylan, but they mean that substantial time is spent on subjects other than Dylan.
Despite the book compellingly making the point that Dylan cannot be put in a box, it repeatedly attempts to do that very thing. When those efforts are clearest, they fall short. But most often the point made isn't that Dylan should be put in a different box than he typically is but that the boxes typically used are wrong, leaving room for interpretation about what Dylan really means. So, for example, Dylan never embraced the liberal agenda that embraced him. But the agenda he did embrace is left open-ended (even when the book presents an alternative interpretation).
I read this book just after reading relevant chapters of Clinton Heylan's Behind the Shades (20th anniversary edition), which I found very helpful in providing context I didn't live through. Both are great reads for anyone interested in their subject.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in an accessible but scholarly and contrarian reflection on Dylan's "Jesus years."
Despite the book compellingly making the point that Dylan cannot be put in a box, it repeatedly attempts to do that very thing. When those efforts are clearest, they fall short. But most often the point made isn't that Dylan should be put in a different box than he typically is but that the boxes typically used are wrong, leaving room for interpretation about what Dylan really means. So, for example, Dylan never embraced the liberal agenda that embraced him. But the agenda he did embrace is left open-ended (even when the book presents an alternative interpretation).
I read this book just after reading relevant chapters of Clinton Heylan's Behind the Shades (20th anniversary edition), which I found very helpful in providing context I didn't live through. Both are great reads for anyone interested in their subject.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in an accessible but scholarly and contrarian reflection on Dylan's "Jesus years."
January 24, 2018
It was OK. Parts of it I loved and then there were laugh out loud parts.
Webb really seems to go out of his way to have Dylan and his music coexist with his own beliefs.
That being said some of what he wrote I agree with. I do think that Dylan doesn't want to be
viewed as being for the left or the right, what artist would? Dylan creates and then it is up to you the listener to find what it all means. I also did not like how Webb comes across as condescending. There are large parts of the book where he rips into other authors because they don't understand Evangelicalism. I wonder what Webb would have felt about Evangelicals today? With their support of a dirt bag like Trump. I'm sure he would find some scripture that would help him redeem his support.
Webb really seems to go out of his way to have Dylan and his music coexist with his own beliefs.
That being said some of what he wrote I agree with. I do think that Dylan doesn't want to be
viewed as being for the left or the right, what artist would? Dylan creates and then it is up to you the listener to find what it all means. I also did not like how Webb comes across as condescending. There are large parts of the book where he rips into other authors because they don't understand Evangelicalism. I wonder what Webb would have felt about Evangelicals today? With their support of a dirt bag like Trump. I'm sure he would find some scripture that would help him redeem his support.
November 15, 2022
As a big Bob Dylan fan, and a "born again" Christian, I was curious to read this book. But I think it is more a book about Stephen Webb, than about Bob Dylan. Poor Stephen eventually committed suicide, and knowing that when reading the book makes it easier to understand some of the comments he makes in the book, especially at the end. He read into some lyrics dark meanings that I wasn't sure that I agreed with.
October 18, 2012
This book has some provocative things to say about sound and silence, but this material comes in the last third of the book. By the time I got to this discussion of sound, music, and silence, I was thoroughly irritated by the thesis that Dylan was not on the liberal left from the beginning of his career. Webb's reading of lyrics to songs such as "Only a Pawn in Their Game" and late in the book, "Cold Irons Bound," strike me as forced and quite simply wrong. Webb has an agenda, and from my perspective, this skewers his reading of Dylan. I suspect my position as a reader who feels comfortable with Suze Rotolo's account of the early years, and also my hearing Dylan for the first time when he was just starting makes me an unfriendly reader of Webb's book. However, I am also trained as a close reader and for my money Christopher Ricks does this better than Webb. For some reason the really interesting songs from the point of view of religion - "Jokerman" and "Changing of the Guard," for example - are absent from this book. Instead we get disturbing reading of early Dylan and far-fetched reading of late Dylan.
September 7, 2013
A provocative book on the iconic Mr. Dylan. His thesis, which he does a good job of proving, is that Dylan is best understood apart from the "sixties" political assumptions that have been heaped upon him. In interview after interview, Dylan rejected political interpretations of his music. Anyone who has read Dylan's own "Chronicles" or listened to his three-year radio program "Theme Time Radio Hour" will readily understand this. Dylan embraced and celebrated the whole sweep of American music; he is not a "Woodstock" musician, he was not against the Vietnam war, he was not "The voice of his generation."
Webb's thesis is that once the politics are removed, the contours of Dylan's religious music is far from a phase, but an integral part of his approach to music and life.
Another way to see this is to get the CD "The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan" - a collection of songs by Dylan, sung by many of the best gospel singers in American music: Aaron Neville, The Staple Singers, Dottie Peoples, Helen Baylor, Shirley Caesar, and others. Their covers of Dylan's gospel songs are wonderful, and reveal the nuanced theology that infuses Dylan's music.
Webb's thesis is that once the politics are removed, the contours of Dylan's religious music is far from a phase, but an integral part of his approach to music and life.
Another way to see this is to get the CD "The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan" - a collection of songs by Dylan, sung by many of the best gospel singers in American music: Aaron Neville, The Staple Singers, Dottie Peoples, Helen Baylor, Shirley Caesar, and others. Their covers of Dylan's gospel songs are wonderful, and reveal the nuanced theology that infuses Dylan's music.
June 30, 2014
This book meant a lot to me - totally changed how I think of Dylan and his work. I now see him as a counter-cultural force as a rockster and as a Christian. That's kinda how I see myself too in my own way, so I feel closer to him now.
I bought the book before reading Webb's Mormon Christianity, which I also loved - then saw that wrote the Dylan book too. What a wandering, amazing thinker this Webb must be! I totally got the importance for Dylan in his life - that's how I am too. I even dream of Dylan once in awhile; he's that iconic for me.
After reading a few bios, I thought of Dylan is something of a misanthrope, fairly awkward with people, mysterious and unreliable. Now I think of him as very human, but someone trying to maintain ties (with his kids and loved ones), trying to do the right thing - and be an artist at the same time.
Music is Dylan's gift to the world, and he fights to maintain that gift. But his values and spiritual tuner have always been strong in his music; that's what makes Dylan Dylan!
I bought the book before reading Webb's Mormon Christianity, which I also loved - then saw that wrote the Dylan book too. What a wandering, amazing thinker this Webb must be! I totally got the importance for Dylan in his life - that's how I am too. I even dream of Dylan once in awhile; he's that iconic for me.
After reading a few bios, I thought of Dylan is something of a misanthrope, fairly awkward with people, mysterious and unreliable. Now I think of him as very human, but someone trying to maintain ties (with his kids and loved ones), trying to do the right thing - and be an artist at the same time.
Music is Dylan's gift to the world, and he fights to maintain that gift. But his values and spiritual tuner have always been strong in his music; that's what makes Dylan Dylan!
September 4, 2007
Webb does a fantastic job with his close-reading of Dylan's lyrics. This work recontextualizes some of his major performances and sets up a career narrative that strikes me as unique.
The downside is that Webb approaches rock as a genre as if this were 1957. Not only does he have the idea that rock will make kids turn to hedonistic wildness, but he doesn't get any sense of varying rock aesthetics, at one point even claiming that rock is so dischordant that you can tell what instruments make what noises. Periodically I'd want to throw the book across the room, and then he'd give me some great insight into, say, Time out of Mind and I'd have to keep going.
Webb's a theologian first, and far from a music critic. I'm not sure how he came to study (like?) Dylan, but it does make for an interesting read. It's an ambitious and challenging text, but unfortunately Webb's positioning of himself with respect to rock as a whole occasionally undercuts his authority.
The downside is that Webb approaches rock as a genre as if this were 1957. Not only does he have the idea that rock will make kids turn to hedonistic wildness, but he doesn't get any sense of varying rock aesthetics, at one point even claiming that rock is so dischordant that you can tell what instruments make what noises. Periodically I'd want to throw the book across the room, and then he'd give me some great insight into, say, Time out of Mind and I'd have to keep going.
Webb's a theologian first, and far from a music critic. I'm not sure how he came to study (like?) Dylan, but it does make for an interesting read. It's an ambitious and challenging text, but unfortunately Webb's positioning of himself with respect to rock as a whole occasionally undercuts his authority.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews