In 1979 Dylan rode the religious right zeitegeist and produced the dire Slow Train Coming album in which he showcased the smorgasbord of religious hatred and bile in what is definitely his weirdest album -after Saved! which followed it.
Running the gamut of bigotry he spews out his embarrassing born again lyrics and although he had formally eschewed 'finger pointing songs' of the early 60's protest period few were to imagine that 15 years later he would be indulging in sulphorous finger jabbing songs such as appear on Slow where he manages to be racist -Sheiks wandering around America controlling it with Oil, misogynist- railing against women for not being able to hold their tongues and threateningly warning the unbelievers of the fate in store if they do not mend their ways and bend the knee to God.
In You Gotta serve somebody he states that whether you are a stockbroker or a bum you will have to serve somebody. So we have the conflation of an achiever with a derelict -what's the difference? and once he has thus demeaned human endeavour he goes in for the kill telling us that we have two choices: serve the Devil or serve the Lord.
Musically the album is ok -I would not go so far as the late Christopher Hitchens who claimed Dylan had never sung better but the band is competent and featured Mark Knopfler who must have been desperate to musically contribute and be associated with such appalling lyrics.
It seems Dylan was cynically jumping on the religious bandwagon as his conversion seems to have been short lived for he only made one more overtly religious album abovementioned which plumbed further artistic depths with caterwauling female backing singers in what is almost a parody of gospel.
Some music can lend itself to religious sentiment but this is so forced and self conscious in its faux righteousness it is Dylan going thru the motions and repeating the tired litany of evangelistic tripe which is the stock in trade of religious hucksters from Billy Graham on down.
What comes across most starkly and in this I think Dylan is no exception amongst the religious is the sheer molten hatred and contempt for the human race dripping off practically every word and sentence of the lyrics. If misanthropy is your thing no one does it better than the religious in their myopic almost pathological loathing of humanity.
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