Slow Train Coming (1979)
1. Gotta Serve Somebody
2. Precious Angel
3. I Believe You
4. Slow Train
5. Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
6. Do Right To Me Baby (Do Unto Others)
7. When You Gonna Wake Up?
8. Man Gave Names to All the Animals
9. When He Returns
By the end of the 1970s, Dylan had already worn many masks—prophet, poet, outlaw, and troubadour. But Slow Train Coming, released in 1979, marked a seismic shift in both subject and tone: the beginning of what would later be dubbed Dylan’s “Born Again” phase. It was a transformation that startled fans and critics alike—not least because, for the first time in his career, Dylan wasn’t just hinting at spiritual themes; he was proclaiming them.
To many, this album was a line in the sand. The lyrical directness, saturated with evangelical fervor, alienated a large portion of his secular fan base. There were cries of betrayal, accusations of proselytizing, and a general discomfort with Dylan's apparent pivot from the cryptic and the poetic to the declarative and devotional. But history has a way of sorting through controversy with a cooler head, and with distance, Slow Train Coming emerges not merely as a theological statement, but as one of the strongest musical works of Dylan’s 1970s output.
From a production standpoint, the album is cleaner, more considered than the sprawling Street Legal which preceded it. Gone are the brass-heavy arrangements and muddy mixes; in their place, a refined and simplified soundstage that gives Dylan’s voice and lyrics full prominence. The instrumentation is taut, measured, and blessed with the presence of Mark Knopfler—then of Dire Straits—whose guitar work lends the album a distinctive edge, at once understated and piercing.
The title track rolls in with deliberate gravity, a mid-tempo groove underscored by a palpable sense of judgment and inevitability. Gotta Serve Somebody, the album’s lead single and eventual Grammy winner, distills the central message with crisp clarity—its message moral, its rhythm muscular. But it is on I Believe in You where Dylan's sincerity becomes most affecting: a tender and vulnerable performance that ranks among his most emotionally resonant.
Not all is fire and brimstone. Precious Angel offers a gentler, more lyrical perspective, buoyed by one of the album’s more melodic guitar lines. Yet Dylan being Dylan, he cannot resist the eccentric and the unexpected: Man Gave Names to All the Animals, with its reggae bounce and near-nursery rhyme simplicity, stands out not just for its lightheartedness, but for its audacity. It is both absurd and oddly endearing—a reminder that Dylan’s spiritual awakening did not erase his sense of mischief.
If Slow Train Coming failed to win over those unreceptive to its message, it nonetheless stands as a work of remarkable cohesion and conviction. Dylan did not dabble in faith; he dove in headfirst. And for all the polarized reactions, the album is a testament to artistic courage—delivered, as always, with the voice of a man who has never stopped searching.
Go back to the main page
Go To Next Review