Slow Train Coming is the nineteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on August 20, 1979, by Columbia Records. It was Dylan's first album following his conversion to Christianity, and the songs either express 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 by music critics, and the single "Gotta Serve Somebody" became his first hit in three years, winning Dylan the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1980. The album peaked at on the charts in the UK and went platinum in the US, where it reached .
A high-definition 5.1 surround sound edition of the album was released on SACD by Columbia in 2003.
Background
By November 1978, Dylan had received some of the worst reviews of his career. In late January, he finally premiered Renaldo and Clara, the part-fiction, part-concert film shot in the fall of 1975, during the first Rolling Thunder Revue tour. Though the performances were well-received, the overwhelming majority of film reviews were negative, particularly those by The Village Voice, which printed four negative reviews by four different critics. Though critical reception in the United Kingdom was kinder, with some British critics proclaiming it a major work, his most recent album, Street-Legal, was also received poorly by most American critics. Charges of sexism, poor production, and poor writing were thrown at the album.
In the meantime, Dylan's latest tour was getting its own share of negative reviews, many of which reflected the negative criticism which greeted the American release of Bob Dylan at Budokan, taken from performances in February and March 1978.
Yet Dylan was in good spirits, according to his own account: "I was doing fine. I had come a long way in just the year we were on the road [in 1978]." This would change on November 17 in San Diego, California. As Clinton Heylin reports, "the show itself was proving to be very physically demanding, but then, he perhaps reasoned, he'd played a gig in Montreal a month earlier with a temperature of 105."
"Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd ... knew I wasn't feeling too well," recalled Dylan in a 1979 interview. "I think they could see that. And they threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don't pick things up in front of the stage. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I don't. But I looked down at that cross. I said, 'I gotta pick that up.' So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket ... And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona ... I was feeling even worse than I'd felt when I was in San Diego. I said, 'Well, I need something tonight.' I didn't know what it was. I was used to all kinds of things. I said, 'I need something tonight that I didn't have before.' And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross."
Through his Bible classes, Dylan became acquainted with "the works of Hal Lindsey, the man to whom God in his infinite wisdom had revealed the true code of Revelation," writes Heylin. "Though no saint himself, Lindsey was closely associated with the Vineyard Church. His book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), became Dylan's second Bible and added an apocalyptic edge to his worldview".
According to Lindsey, current world events had been foretold in the apocalyptic tracts of the Bible," Heylin continued. "His basic premise, in The Late Great Planet Earth, was that the events revealed to St. John in Revelation corresponded with 20th century history, starting with the re-establishment of the Jews' homeland, Israel. By identifying Russia as Magog and Iran as Gog—the confederation responsible for instigating the final conflict, the Battle of Armageddon—Lindsey prophesied an imminent End."
In later shows, Dylan would reflect these beliefs on stage. At one show in the fall of 1979, Dylan said, "You know we're living in the end times ... The scriptures say, 'In the last days, perilous times shall be at hand. Men shall become lovers of their own selves. Blasphemous, heavy and highminded.' ... Take a look at the Middle East. We're heading for a war ... I told you 'The Times They Are A-Changin' ' and they did. I said the answer was 'Blowin' in the Wind' and it was. I'm telling you now Jesus is coming back, and He is! And there is no other way of salvation ... Jesus is coming back to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years."
As Heylin writes, "[Dylan's] belief in the imminence of the End was reflected in almost all of the songs he now found himself writing." Dylan would later say in an interview taken in 1984, "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."
"Precious Angel", "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking", "When You Gonna Wake Up?" and "When He Returns" all "drew heavily and directly upon the Book of Revelation," notes Heylin. "In the early months of 1979, Dylan was writing his most message-driven album in sixteen years. This time, though, the pursuit of the millennium had overtaken more sociopolitical concerns."
Recording sessions
Dylan first heard Mark Knopfler when assistant and engineer Arthur Rosato played him the Dire Straits single "Sultans of Swing". Later, on March 29, 1979, Dylan caught the final show of a Dire Straits' residency at the Roxy in Los Angeles, California. Dylan approached Knopfler after the show, asking the guitarist to participate on his next album. Knopfler agreed, unaware of the religious nature of the material that awaited him.
Dylan also approached Jerry Wexler to produce the upcoming sessions. "What he wanted", Wexler told interviewer Ted Fox, "was more of a tailored, big funk sound, which he didn't have on his records. He wanted a little more precision, a little more musical input. It was something he felt was time." According to Wexler, it was his, not Dylan's, initiative to bring in Knopfler: that was "the innovative part of it...Instead of going with the regular Muscle Shoals section, I changed it a little bit." Studio recording had become much more complex during the 1970s, and after his struggles recording the large ensemble performances of Street-Legal, Dylan was resolute in hiring an experienced producer he could trust. He was familiar with Wexler's celebrated work with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Dusty Springfield, and other soul artists. "Synonymous with a small studio in Sheffield, Alabama, the sixties Atlantic recordings of Wexler defined the Muscle Shoals Sound," writes Clinton Heylin. Like Knopfler, when Wexler agreed to produce, he was unaware of the nature of the material that awaited him.
"Naturally, I wanted to do the album in Muscle Shoals—as Bob did—but we decided to prep it in L.A., where Bob lived," recalls Wexler. "That's when I learned what the songs were about: born-again Christians in the old corral ... I liked the irony of Bob coming to me, the Wandering Jew, to get the Jesus feel ... [But] I had no idea he was on this born-again Christian trip until he started to evangelize me. I said, 'Bob, you're dealing with a sixty-two-year-old confirmed Jewish atheist. I'm hopeless. Let's just make an album.'"
| rev2 = Christgau's Record Guide
| rev2score = B+
| rev3 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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| rev4 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide
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As the album approached completion, Dylan was required to provide testimony in a defamation-of-character suit brought against him by Patty Valentine, an eyewitness to the murders described in Dylan's song "Hurricane" from Desire. In a May 22 pre-trial deposition, 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.
By June, with the album virtually finished, Dylan gave London's Capital Radio station an acetate disc of "Precious Angel", which premiered on Roger Scott's afternoon radio show. By July, the album was ready for issue, and pre-release copies of Slow Train Coming circulated through the press. New Musical Express would proclaim "Dylan & God – It's Official".
In a year when Van Morrison and Patti Smith released their own spiritual works in Into the Music and Wave, respectively, Dylan's album seemed vitriolic and bitter in comparison. Critic Charles Shaar Murray wrote, "Bob Dylan has never seemed more perfect and more impressive than on this album. He has also never seemed more unpleasant and hate-filled." Greil Marcus wrote, "Dylan's received truths never threaten the unbeliever, they only chill the soul" and accused Dylan of "sell[ing] a prepackaged doctrine he's received from someone else." According to Clinton Heylin, "Marcus isolated Slow Train Comings greatest flaw, an inevitable by-product of his determination to capture the immediacy of newfound faith in song."
Robert Christgau gave a mostly positive review, grading it a B+. "The lyrics are indifferently crafted," wrote Christgau. "Nevertheless, this is his best album since Blood on the Tracks. The singing is passionate and detailed." However, in an interview in Rolling Stone, Ann Druyan stated "The thing that I always loved about Dylan was the courage of his metaphors and the way he could cut to the bone of some kind of naked feeling. It always seemed very gutsy. And now it seems that he's turned away, he's blinded by the light, and so he looks for some easy explanation."
On October 20, 1979, Dylan promoted the album with his first—and, to date, only—appearance on Saturday Night Live, performing "Gotta Serve Somebody", "I Believe in You", and "When You Gonna Wake Up". On November 1, Dylan began a lengthy residency at the Fox Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California, playing a total of fourteen dates supported by a large ensemble. It was the beginning of six months of touring North America, performing his new music to believers and his hecklers alike.
Despite the mixed reactions to Dylan's new direction, "Gotta Serve Somebody" was a US Top 30 hit, and the album outsold both Blood on the Tracks and Blonde on Blonde in its first year of release despite missing the top of the charts. It even managed to place at on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1979, proving he had some critical support if not universal acclaim.
During this period, Dylan refused to play any of his older compositions, as well as any secular material. Though Pastor Larry Myers had assured Dylan that his old compositions were not sacrilegious, Dylan would say he would not "sing any song which hasn't been given to me by the Lord to sing". Fans wishing to hear his older songs openly expressed their disappointment. Hecklers continued to appear at his concerts, only to be answered by lectures from the stage. Dylan was firmly entrenched in his evangelical ways, and it would continue through his next album, whether his audience would follow or not.
When asked "What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album?" Nick Cave replied: "I guess it's Slow Train Coming by Bob Dylan. That's a great record, full of mean-spirited spirituality. It's a genuinely nasty record, certainly the nastiest 'Christian' album I've ever come across."
Track listing
Personnel
- Bob Dylan – guitar, vocals
- Barry Beckett – keyboards, percussion
- Mickey Buckins – percussion
- Carolyn Dennis – background vocals
- Tim Drummond – bass guitar
- Regina Havis – background vocals
- Mark Knopfler – lead guitar
- Muscle Shoals Sound Studio – horns
- Helena Springs – background vocals
- Pick Withers – drums
Technical personnel
- Barry Beckett – production
- Harrison Calloway – arrangement
- Gregg Hamm – engineering
- Bobby Hatta – original mastering engineering
- Wm. Stetz — cover concept/design
- Jerry Wexler – production
- Paul Wexler – original mastering supervision
- David Yates – assistant engineering
- Catherine Kanner – album cover artist
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
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!Chart (1979)
!Peak<br />position
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!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| style="text-align:center;"|1
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|-
|-
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!scope="row"|UK Albums Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|2
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!scope="row"|US Billboard Albums Chart
| style="text-align:center;"|3
|}
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
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!Chart (2019)
!Peak<br />position
|-
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Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
|-
! scope="col" | Chart (1979)
! scope="col" | Position
|-
! scope="row" | New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
| 35
|-
|}