“Even Jesus could never forgive what you do.” – Bob Dylan

I was listening to Pearl Jam today and it got me to thinking. Pearl Jam is a grunge rock and roll group from Seattle which was very popular about a decade ago and still enjoys some following. They were singing a song entitled “Masters of War” which was written and sung by Bob Dylan back in the sixties. In the song Eddie Vedder (lead singer for Pearl Jam) rails against all those who are responsible for the travesty of war. He gets kind of worked up toward then end of the song and croons this telling lyric. “Even Jesus would never forgive what you do.” CLICK HERE to read more

The Freewheelin' Robert Zimmerman

Bob Dylan's lyrics never explicitly invoke his Jewish roots, but Jewish influences are never far from the surface. CLICK HERE to read more

It's Unbelievable

Below, you will find an article by David Cloud of something called The Fundamental Baptist Information Service. As a Christian and fan of the music of Bob Dylan, I find this piece of 'writing' extremely disturbing. Not only is it ill-informed and factually inaccurate, it spills the sort of utter crap that gives Christianity a bad name. This does no service to Christ or to the Truth. CLICK HERE to read more

See also Bob Dylan's "Conversion" - (Lighting The Way Worldwide)

The Gospel According to the Beatles

Forty years ago, John Lennon famously commented that he believed that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus." At the time the comparison seemed absurd. The Beatles were a pop group. CLICK HERE to read more

Dylan 1983 Kotel

We have finally found a reasonable-quality image of Bob Dylan during his famous tefillin-wearin' appearance at the Kotel. Here is an amazing and totally-Israeli eyewitness: "In the summer of 1983, Dylan visited Israel and was famously photographed wearing tefilin -- leather straps and boxes worn during Jewish prayer -- at the Western Wall. CLICK HERE to read more and see the photo

Ira Tucker, Gospel Singer Who Gave Dixie Hummingbirds Emotive Edge, Dies at 83

Ira Tucker, a little man with a giant vocal range and acrobatic stage antics who as lead singer of the Dixie Hummingbirds helped propel gospel music toward a harder-edged, more emotive style, died on Tuesday in Philadelphia. He was 83. CLICK HERE to read more

Dixie Hummingbirds recorded a very fine version of Bob Dylan's unrecorded City of Gold for their Diamond Jubilee album produced by Larry Campbell.

The Chief Justice, Dylan and the Disappearing Double Negative

The last chief justice liked light opera. The new one cites Bob Dylan. CLICK HERE to read more

AUDIO: The Jewish Bob Dylan (June 15, 1972)

Bernard Timberg analyzes the songs of Bob Dylan looking for Jewish themes and imagery. He identifies messianic longings in Quinn the Eskimo, references to Jewish burial practices in Masters of War, and finds significance in the fact that the initials of John Wesley Harding can be interpreted as the name of the Jewish God, YHWH. Issues such as social justice and a sense of out-sideness imbue the songs of Dylan as they do the history of the Jewish people. Timberg also interviews a number of people who knew Dylan when he was still Bob Zimmerman in an effort to investigate the Jewish roots of his music, including a woman that was at his Bar Mitzvah and a counselor at a Jewish summer camp Dylan attended as a child. Also explored are a number of myths about Dylan that touch upon his Jewish identity. CLICK HERE to listen

advice to young pastors: the disease of conceit

Bob Dylan produced three albums during his openly Jesus-faith period: Slow Train Coming, Saved, and Shot of Love. Somewhere along the line, something happened and Dylan went down periscope with his faith. CLICK HERE to read more

Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace

You know, as a practising Christian I try hard not to judge others. But there’s always the reality of people who are not sane and really quite bent on evil. CLICK HERE to read more.

No Shelter from the Storm: Bob Dylan's Apocalypse

"I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise, Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes."--Bob Dylan

In a pop music world where issues are seldom addressed and creativity and individuality have been lost, Bob Dylan, who just turned 67, is a refreshing alternative. Like a voice crying in the wilderness, Dylan emerged in the early 1960s to become the conscience of a generation. CLICK HERE to read more

Hasidism, Mysticism, and the Songs of Bob Dylan

For my own spiritual enrichment, I was reading Hasidism and Modern Man by Martin Buber when / came across on pages 92-95 a revelation—key words and images and what / perceive to be the feeling expressed in “All Along The Watchtower.” At the time I was listening to New Morning which has other indications of Buber’s influence and which in5pired my two-year study of Buber’s work and Bob Dylan’s life and work around the time he wrote John Wesley Harding and New Morning. CLICK HERE to read more

How I Didn't Wind Up on the Cover of Bob Dylan's Saved

It all started when I got a phone call the first week of April, 1980, from Rose Ricciardella, managing editor, pop product, for CBS Records editorial services. She told me that Bob Dylan wanted to print five reviews, including one I had written, on the inside sleeve of his new album, due in the late spring. CLICK HERE to read more

Gotta Serve Somebody - Gospel Songs Of Bob Dylan

I finally got around to watching the DVD this past weekend, and it was incredible! It's so gratifying to see someone do justice to Dylan's Gospel period. CLICK HERE to read more

Blind Willie Johnson: Revival

When I had just turned 16, PBS first aired Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series. Music was central to the show's mission, so I bought its soundtrack album and listened to it constantly. It included an excerpt of Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground (On Which Our Lord Was Laid)." CLICK HERE to read more

EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED

After Sunday's 10:00 AM service, David Bradfield, our wonderful choir master, suggested I look up the words to Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Woman (AKA Everybody Must Get Stoned). CLICK HERE to read more

Theme Song

A few years ago a friend gave me a CD entitled "The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan." Most of the songs on the CD were composed in the early 1980's. Many of them are great. On this CD, they're all performed by African American singers and Gospel Choirs. Mary and I were both drawn to one particular song, Pressing On, sung by Chicago Mass Choir. CLICK HERE to read more

Thunder on the Mountain by Bob Dylan Annotated

Thunder on the Mountain is a song by Bob Dylan off of the Modern Times CD (2006). Here are the song lyrics with my comments and annotations. CLICK HERE to read more

‘Rabbi and rock star’

For one of the most polarizing figures in modern Jewish history, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach did a lot of loving. "The Singing Rabbi," who founded the House of Love and Prayer in San Francisco, regularly hugged the homeless, supported the poor, and called everyone "brother" or "sister." CLICK HERE to read more

NY Times: Living With Music

Every Grain of Sand, Bob Dylan. One reason most Christian rock really does stink is that much of the genre is saddled by a belief that Christian musicians are simply ministers who happen to use music as a tool, and who must employ only unambiguous, propositional lyrics so that listeners can’t possibly be led astray. CLICK HERE to read more

The Rock and Roll Report » Cover Story - Bob Dylan’s “Slow Train Coming”, with artwork by Catherine Kanner

The concept was very concrete as he expressed it to me. As he explained it, this album was to be Dylan’s exploration of Christian ideas through his words and music. I recall being amazed to hear this. The graphic style was meant to have an engraved look - which pen and ink (my specialty) certainly mimics. CLICK HERE to read more

American Poet Genius Bob Dylan First Rocker to Get Pulitzer Nod

Accordingly to Yoko Ono, Lennon’s song, “God,” was intended as a dialogue with Dylan. Lennon spoke of Dylan as changing his writing at a time when the Beatles where bigger than anything the music world had ever seen. CLICK HERE to read more

Religious Forum: What is the role of your faith in the larger culture?

I’ve noticed a growing trend in popular music, that is, a Jewish trend. Of course there’s Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and other Jews in the music business, but none of them were as overtly Jewish as the stars of today. CLICK HERE to read more

AND THE WINNER IS...

I came late to Dylan and for years had been badgered by a friend who raved about the American folk singer with the whine in his voice. Anytime I casually listened I could hear the ‘whine’ clearly enough but little else. That was until one Sunday morning when I heard a track from a new Dylan album on the radio, The song was ‘I Believe In You’ and the just released album was ‘Slow Train A Comin’. CLICK HERE to read more

Bob Dylan: Reconciliation and Atonement

Dylan’s reaction to his Jewishness also is a product of that time, a time of anti-Semitism, when many Jewish performers, though proud of being Jewish, tried to hide their roots. CLICK HERE to read more

Who says what’s ‘Christian’ music?

Who says what is and is not “Christian” music? The Christian Music Trade Association, that’s who!
CLICK HERE to read more

Fast Train a' Comin'

On August 20, 1979, Bob Dylan caused a lot of listeners shock when he recorded a profound album that seemed to indicate he had become a Christian. People were asking, "How could such an enigmatic guru accept such a simple-minded message? CLICK HERE to read more

Questions, Answers Still Blowing in the Wind

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated 40 years ago. What are your memories of that day? What impact did it have on you? How is King relevant to you and to us today? CLICK HERE to read more

Sinead O'Connor

She's one of the most powerful singers from the past 20 years, but can she ever shake off that incident? CLICK HERE to read more

Blind Willie Johnson- The Complete

This is beautiful hair-raising music by one of the most influential roots musicians of the 20th century. He has indelibly changed many musicians (such as John Fahey, Bob Brozman, and Blind Willie McTell), who were floored upon first hearing him and forever tried to approach the haunting quality, rapturous power, and effortless virtuosity of Blind Willie Johnson's music. If you liked Washington Phillips (see archives), you'll like Blind Willie Johnson, and vice versa, methinks. CLICK HERE to read more

Rock 'n' Roll All the Way Down to the Pit!

IN 1979, BOB DYLAN regaled a Tempe, Arizona, audience with a show consisting entirely of songs from his two most recent records—the ill-received Christian albums Slow Train Coming and Saved. CLICK HERE to read more

Music On My Mind

The song stands, from the beginning, as a Civil Rights anthem. By 1964, Cooke had been listening to writers such as Bob Dylan, and was so impressed by Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” he felt compelled to write a song with a message that would touch people in the same way he had been touched by Dylan’s anthem. CLICK HERE to read more

Lipa, Lead Belly, and Adar

Huddie William Ledbetter, popularly known as folk and blues sensation Lead Belly, was and remains an important influence on contemporary music. His repertoire was diverse. The five hundred songs he composed can’t be pigeonholed into a single category, but touched on many styles and contexts. He was regarded as the master of the twelve-string guitar, but he played several other instruments as well.

He is also, it turns out, the probable source of the tune most of us will be singing come Shabbos: Mishenichnas Adar marbim besimcha. (The tune itself is an old slave song, but Lead Belly put it on the performance map.) CLICK HERE to read more

Rock and Roll and Jesus

Larry Norman was, by all accounts, an amazing and powerful force. According to an obituary in the Guardian, he claimed to have had the idea of Jesus Rock in 1956 when he was just nine years old, “when he was as excited by the sound of Elvis Presley as he was by the words of Jesus Christ.” CLICK HERE to read more

Believe

The singer/songwriter Bob Dylan once said, “People seldom do what they believe in, they do what’s convenient, then repent.” The world has seen more than it’s fair share of people who can scream what they claim to believe, but most of the world is still waiting to see it. CLICK HERE to read more

Foundations

In 1978, singer / song writer / poet / philosopher and guru of all things hip, Bob Dylan experienced a personal and musical transformation which he attributed to coming to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. CLICK HERE to read more

Dylan: Jokerman or Property of Jesus? (2002)

Are Bob Dylan’s spirit and musical soul still the property of Jesus? Or has the singer/songwriter once again assumed the role of the Jokerman—mockingly reversing yet another stance to which he has been committed? CLICK HERE to read more

Sinéad O'Connor's Theology and 'Theology' (2007)

Why you shouldn't be surprised that her new album is mostly passages from the Old Testament. CLICK HERE to read more

Larry Norman, 'Father of Christian Rock,' Dies at 60

Christian music legend Larry Norman died Sunday of heart failure, according to his brother Charles Norman. He was 60.

Norman, a blonde, long-haired rocker who is often called the father of Christian rock music, was a giant in the Christian music industry, said Chris Willman, senior music writer for Entertainment Weekly. CLICK HERE to read more

Notes on Larry Norman and Bob Dylan

I'd like to offer a few comments re. the connection between Larry Norman and Bob Dylan.

My Introduction to Bob Dylan's poetry began with a Larry Norman record in 1978 - although I did not know that at the time - ONLY VISITING THIS PLANET. (Which was actually recorded in 1972.) CLICK HERE to read more