Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence (Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture) 9781978710689, 9781978710702, 9781978710696, 1978710682

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Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence

Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture Series Editor: Matthew Brake The Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture series examines the intersection of theology, religion, and popular culture, including, but not limited to television, movies, sequential art, and genre fiction. In a world plagued by rampant polarization of every kind and the decline of religious literacy in the public square, Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture is uniquely poised to educate and entertain a diverse audience utilizing one of the few things society at large still holds in common: love for popular culture. Select Titles in the Series Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence, by Christopher B. Barnett Theology and Protest Music, edited by Jonathan H. Harwell and Heidi M. Altman Animated Parables: A Pedagogy of Seven Deadly Sins and a Few Virtues, by Terry Lindvall Theology and Batman: Examining the Religious World of the Dark Knight, edited by Matthew Brake and C. K. Robertson Theology, Religion, and Dystopia, edited by Scott Donahue-Martens and Brandon Simonson Theology and H. P. Lovecraft, edited by Austin M. Freeman Theology and Breaking Bad, edited by David K. Goodin and George Tsakiridis Theology and the Star Wars Universe, edited by Benjamin D. Espinoza Theology and Black Mirror, edited by Amber Bowen and John Anthony Dunne Dread and Hope: Christian Eschatology and Pop Culture, by Joshua Wise Theology and the Game of Thrones, edited by Matthew Brake Theology and Spider-Man, edited by George Tsakiridis René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture, edited by Ryan G. Duns and T. Derrick Witherington Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination, edited by Brandon R. Grafius and John W. Morehead Theology and Prince, edited by Jonathan H. Harwell and Rev. Katrina E. Jenkins Theology and the Marvel Universe, edited by Gregory Stevenson

Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence Christopher B. Barnett

L E X I N G T O N B O O K S / F O RT R E S S A C A D E M I C

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic Lexington Books is an imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2023 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Words and Music by Bob Dylan © Universal Tunes (SESAC). All rights reserved. DO NOT DUPLICATE. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barnett, Christopher B. (Christopher Baldwin), 1976– author. Title: Bob Dylan and the spheres of existence / Christopher B. Barnett. Description: Lanham : Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2023. | Series: Theology, religion, and pop culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard is well known for his claim that human life is marked by three existential spheres—the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. In Bob Dylan and the Spheres of Existence, Christopher B. Barnett argues that Kierkegaard's theory provides a key interpretative lens through which to evaluate the songwriting of Bob Dylan”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023000341 (print) | LCCN 2023000342 (ebook) | ISBN 9781978710689 (cloth) | ISBN 9781978710702 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781978710696 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Dylan, Bob, 1941– —Criticism and interpretation. | Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813–1855. | Popular music—Religious aspects—Christianity. | Popular music—Philosophy and aesthetics. | Music—Moral and ethical aspects. Classification: LCC ML420.D98 B29 2023  (print) | LCC ML420.D98  (ebook) | DDC 782.42164092—dc23/eng/20230104 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000341 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023000342 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Preface vii Abbreviations xv Chapter 1: Bob Dylan and Religion: A Survey Chapter 2: Dylan as Poet of the Aesthetic Chapter 3: Dylan as Poet of the Ethical



‌‌‌‌Epilogue: The Poet in an Age of Technology

Index



1 39



Chapter 4: Dylan as Poet of the Religious

Works Cited



79

111 149 161

169

About the Author



183

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Preface

In the spring semester of 2019, I launched an undergraduate course at Villanova University called “Bob Dylan and Theology.” Realizing that many students would lack familiarity with both of these topics, I split the course into four sections: (i) The Situation of Modern Theology, (ii) Bob Dylan’s Sources, (iii) Dylan’s Career in Socio-Religious Context, and (iv) Philosophical and Theological Themes in Dylan’s Art. The course was by and large a success, and I have taught it again in subsequent semesters. At the same time, however, “Bob Dylan and Theology” was very much a learning experience for me and, consequently, a major influence on the development of this book. Consider the challenge of putting together a reading list: the literature on Bob Dylan is as heterogeneous as it is plenteous. There is, first and foremost, an abundance of biographical material—some of it covering Dylan’s entire life, some focusing on particular “eras” of his career. There are also specialized studies that examine Dylan as an important figure in a variety of fields, including history, poetry, philosophy, and theology. As this body of literature has continued to expand, and as Dylan has remained a cultural icon into the ninth decade of his life, it is unsurprising that attempts have been made to secure his legacy as one of the most significant artists in American history. In 2016, the George Kaiser Family Foundation, in conjunction with the University of Tulsa, established the Bob Dylan Archive—a collection of over 6,000 items pertaining to Bob Dylan’s life and work. “Bob Dylan is a national treasure whose work continues to enrich the lives of millions the world over,” said Kaiser Foundation Executive Director Ken Levit, “and we are proud to be bringing such an important, comprehensive and culturally significant archive to Tulsa.”1 The archive constituted the first step in the creation of the Bob Dylan Center, a three-story museum featuring an expanded collection of Dylan artifacts as well as a rotating menu of exhibits, lectures, performances, and programs. The Bob Dylan Center opened to the public on May 10, 2022 vii

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in the Tulsa Arts District. The center’s website sums up Dylan’s importance in this way: In December 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” In 2012, he was awarded America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama. In addition to winning 11 Grammy Awards, Dylan has achieved six entries in the Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings of “qualitative or historical significance” at least 25-years-old.2

It is safe to say, then, that there is no shortage of material on Dylan, nor is there a dearth of reasons to study his work. The problem, in other words, is not whether Dylan is a subject of academic interest; it is how to go about understanding him. This was precisely the dilemma I faced when putting together the syllabus for “Bob Dylan and Theology.” If the literature on Dylan is legion, attempts to make sense of the whole of Dylan’s corpus are few and far between. Indeed, if anything, there seems to be a general consensus that Dylan is inscrutable—a Janus-faced trickster who changes Weltanschauungen like most people change clothes. This viewpoint was ostensibly codified in the 2007 film I’m Not There, which uses several different actors to represent various phases of Dylan’s career. According to director Todd Haynes, I’m Not There is an exploration of “a dissolution of meaning, a crisis of meaning”3 that Dylan represents in his life and in his art. On this reading, Dylan’s adoption of sundry personae—a hardscrabble folk musician here, a sleek pop star there—constitutes a rebellion against the notion of individual identity, which is “a straitjacket for people, for societies, for cultures, for historical moments.”4 Thus Dylan’s vast corpus of songs, along with his efforts in cinema, literature, and the visual arts, are not in service to a grand design or a higher purpose. Instead, they bear witness to the artist’s “healthy erraticality,” whereby he “transitions from character to character or self to self, which come with a death . . . is also a liberation into a new self, a new identity.”5 There is, doubtless, some merit in Haynes’ position. Not only does it account for the vicissitudes of Dylan’s career, but it resonates with a Romantic-cum-Beatnik conception of art that gives priority to the poet’s sincere yet unbounded self-expression. At the same time, however, other commentators view Dylan in strikingly different terms. According to Jeff Taylor and Chad Israelson, Bob Dylan is a kind of “servant,” whose “power comes from truth” and who warns people of “the danger of power.”6 Meanwhile, Scott Marshall portrays Dylan as an artist “preoccupied with God,” whose “spiritual odyssey” terminates in an “old-fashioned monotheism.”7 A related

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(but not identical) perspective is tendered by Seth Rogovoy, who argues that it is “imperative that one consider the Jewish nature of so much of Dylan’s life and work in order to appreciate it fully and to its truest and greatest extent.”8 Then there is literary critic Sir Christopher Ricks, whose 2003 book Dylan’s Visions of Sin situated Dylan among the major poets of the English language. As Ricks adds, “The case for denying Dylan the title of poet could not summarily, if at all, be made good by any open-minded close attention to the words and his ways with them.”9 It is plausible that Ricks’ book paved the way for the accolades and prizes bestowed on Dylan over the last decade or so. Once a mercurial rock star, he has become a poet laureate and a significant thinker. Peter Vernezze and Carl Porter state that Ricks single-handedly led to a “reassessment of Dylan’s role in relation to the intellectual community,” suggesting that “he is a poet of sufficient merit and intellectual heft to deserve a place, not merely on the list of great American performers, but among the pantheon of uniquely American minds.”10 Nevertheless, the erudite Dylan classified with “Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, [and] Twain”11 is hard to square with Haynes’ beguiling yet fickle virtuoso. It would seem, then, that the interpretation of Dylan’s oeuvre finds itself at a crossroads. In short, to borrow Ricks’ phrase, what “[is] the right way to take hold of the bundle”?12 According to Ricks, the best approach lies in Dylan’s treatment of “sins, virtues, and heavenly graces,” and he notes that, for all of his chicanery, Dylan himself confesses that his songs have “things . . . to say about such things as ghetto bosses, salvation and sin.”13 But Ricks is not a philosopher and, by his own admission, even less a theologian.14 Thus Dylan’s Visions of Sin does not probe “salvation and sin” as such but, rather, plays to Ricks’ strength—literary criticism. “I think of what I am doing as prizing songs,”15 he concedes. As someone with a background in theology and philosophy, I wondered if Ricks’ basic insight—that “salvation and sin” lie at the heart of Dylan’s songwriting—might be approached in more robust fashion. The answer, it turned out, was already under my nose. The fourth section of my syllabus, dealing with philosophical and theological themes in Dylan’s art, featured class meetings on topics such as “Passion, Love, and Loss,” “Ethics and Social Criticism,” and “God and Eschatology.” As I pondered these topics, it occurred to me that there was another notable modern writer who explored these same issues from a number of different perspectives and adopted various personae in the process. Furthermore, while this author wrote perceptively and often sympathetically about different aspects of lived experience, his insights were ultimately in service to a religious vision—a conviction that existential meaning, for all of its multiplicity, can only find fulfillment in and through God. I am, of course, speaking about the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55). More will be said about Kierkegaard’s thought as

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this study unfolds, but, for now, suffice it to say that he sought to group the various ways of living a human life into three overarching categories—the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. According to Kierkegaard, these “conditions of existence,” now widely referred to as “stages” or “spheres,”16 were meant to elucidate the costs and benefits of living in a particular way. As he explains in an 1847 journal entry, “Using my diagram, a young person should be able to see very accurately beforehand, just as on a price list: if you venture this far out, then the conditions are thus and so, this to win and this to lose; and if you venture out this far, these are the conditions, etc.”17 Hence, as I will argue in the pages to come, Kierkegaard’s theory is an excellent hermeneutical lens through which to read and to understand Dylan’s oeuvre. The concept of existential spheres is pliable enough to account for what Haynes calls the “crisis of meaning” in Dylan’s shifting personae and voices, but it is also sufficiently teleological to explain Dylan’s interest in religion and repeated profession of faith in God. Indeed, from a Kierkegaardian perspective, Dylan is not unique in evincing this multiplicity, for the human self as such develops in accordance with the cultivation of distinct yet overlapping existential concerns and passions. In other words, as Kierkegaard sees it, all human beings must confront the tension between the existential spheres and, in turn, learn to set them in harmony. That Dylan’s life and art reflect this process is notable and worthy of reflection, not least because his work stands out in an era of mounting artistic commercialization. The structure of this book reproduces its content. Chapter 1 will serve as a biographical introduction to Bob Dylan’s career, paying special attention to the crucial role that religion has played throughout his life—a point that must be underlined, if the multidimensionality of Dylan’s songwriting is to be understood. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 will be devoted to treatments of Dylan as a poet of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious respectively. All told, it will be shown that Dylan’s songs instantiate various aspects of these existential spheres—a correspondence that, even if unintentional, is nevertheless capable of illuminating the scale and import of Kierkegaard’s theory and, with it, the existential depths of Dylan’s songwriting. Finally, in the Epilogue, a case will be made for Dylan’s ongoing significance in an age of iTunes and Spotify. Drawing on thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Max Weber, and Martin Heidegger, it will be argued that Dylan’s awareness of and insight into life’s irreducible mysteriousness—which finds its deepest meaning in the incomprehensibility of God and in the gift of faith—renders him an essential artistic voice in an era dominated by politics, science, and technology. Given its subject matter, I hope this book will find a broad audience— scholars and students, to be sure, but also nonspecialist readers. Thus I have made its critical apparatus as straightforward as possible and have tried not to overburden it with footnotes. Quotations from Kierkegaard’s published

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work have been taken from the current standard English translations of his work, Kierkegaard’s Writings, issued by Princeton University Press under the direction of Howard and Edna Hong. Accordingly, the standard Danish edition of Kierkegaard’s works, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter [SKS] is also indicated.18 Quotations from Kierkegaard’s Nachlaß have been taken from Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers [JP], the seven-volume set arranged and translated by the Hongs. As with the published writings, I have cross-referenced the journals and papers to SKS as well.19 A register of abbreviations has also been included, and complete documentary information can be accessed in the Works Cited section. Finally, before moving on to the book itself, a few words of acknowledgment are in order. I would like to thank my colleagues and students at Villanova University, who provide a stimulating yet hospitable academic environment. Special thanks are due to Mark Graham, Kevin Hughes, Michael Moreland, Trevor Williams, and Peter Spitaler (who first greenlit my upper-level theology course on Bob Dylan). I would also like to acknowledge a number of scholars working in the academy and in Kierkegaardiana who have had a hand in the development of this study, especially Stephen Bullivant, Clark Elliston, Josh Furnal, and George Pattison. This list, alas, does not include the many scholars who have helped with a word of encouragement, a provocative question, or simply by listening, but my gratitude remains all the same. Having said that, I would be remiss if I failed to mention Bartholomew Ryan. I have not talked to Barry in years, but I vividly remember having a long conversation with him over beers in Copenhagen. Ostensibly at a Kierkegaard conference, our discussion centered on whether or not Street-Legal was Bob Dylan’s best album—Barry was leaning in that direction, while I preferred the more popular (though superior!) Highway 61 Revisited—but the debate absolutely encouraged me to invest more in my study of Dylan. Last but certainly not least, I am grateful for the interest and support of Matthew William Brake and everyone at Lexington Books. I would like to dedicate this book to my friend Rob Kwait and his family. A serious musician in his own right—his band Cabin Dogs has played festivals with artists such as Wilco, Lucinda Williams, and Old Crow Medicine Show and opened for Drive-By Truckers, Bellamy Brothers, and (Dylan sideman) Larry Campbell—Rob is also a devotee of Dylan. At the outset of this project, I asked Rob to read over and give feedback on the manuscript. With each successive chapter, he has done so without fail, even sending emails from a hospital room while his son was receiving cancer treatment. That his son is now doing much, much better puts the final exclamation point on this work, which, in a very real sense, has passed through various stages on life’s way. “May your hands always be busy / May your feet always be swift / May you have a strong foundation / When the winds of changes shift / May your heart

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always be joyful / May your song always be sung / May you stay forever young” (Bob Dylan, “Forever Young”). Christopher B. Barnett Philadelphia, Pennsylvania October 2022

NOTES 1. Quoted in Jimmie Trammel, “Kaiser Family Foundation, TU acquire Bob Dylan Archive,” Tulsa World, March 3, 2016, https:​//​tulsaworld​.com​/entertainment​/music​/ kaiser​-family​-foundation​-tu​-acquire​-bob​-dylan​-archive​/article​_732caa5f​-16bd​-5073​ -8e80​-008d3e909046​.html. 2. Bob Dylan Center, https:​//​bobdylancenter​.com​/about​/biography​/, accessed February 11, 2022. 3. Greil Marcus, “Bob Dylan Times Six: An Interview with ‘I’m Not There’ Director Todd Haynes,” Rolling Stone, November 29, 2007, https:​//​www​.rollingstone​.com​ /movies​/movie​-news​/bob​-dylan​-times​-six​-an​-interview​-with​-im​-not​-there​-director​ -todd​-haynes​-67251​/. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Jeff Taylor and Chad Israelson, The Political World of Bob Dylan: Freedom and Justice, Power and Sin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), x. 7. Scott M. Marshall, Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life (New York: Post Hill Press, 2021), 3–4. 8. Seth Rogovoy, Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (New York: Scribner, 2009), 13. 9. Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (New York: Ecco, 2003), 19. 10. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter, “Liner Notes,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), xi. 11. Ibid. 12. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 6. 13. Quoted in ibid. 14. Ibid., 378, 380. 15. Ibid., 7. 16. In the secondary literature, scholars have used both “stages” and “spheres” when discussing Kierkegaard’s theory, though, traditionally, “stages” has been preferred. This preference was not dictated by Kierkegaard himself, though the title of his 1845 book Stages on Life’s Way (Stadier på Livets Vej) is suggestive. The Danish noun stadie, related to the Latin stadium, can be defined as a “defined part of a course or development.” And yet, as one works through Kierkegaard’s authorship, it is clear that he does not consider the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious as neatly

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“defined” sections of a human existence. Rather, they are akin to overlapping dimensions, more or less present throughout a person’s life. For that reason, I favor the word “spheres,” though I certainly wouldn’t say that “stages” is incorrect, provided that it is rightly understood. Hence, for the sake of the present book, I think it is best to see “stages” and “spheres” as effectively interchangeable, rather than constantly reiterate such linguistic niceties. 17. SKS 20, NB 2:20 / JP 1, 1046. 18. Full citations list the text in question, the volume number (when apt) and the page number(s): for example, SKS 7, 41 / CUP1, 34. 19. Volume number, journal designation, and journal entry number are provided for SKS, while volume number and entry number are supplied from the Hong edition: for example, SKS 17, AA:13 / JP 3, 3245.

Abbreviations

Danish1 SKS Pap.

Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (1997–2013) Søren Kierkegaards Papirer (1909–48)

English2 CUP1 EO1 EO2 EUD FT JP KJN LD M PC PV SLW SUD TD UDVS WA WL

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments,” Vol. 1 (1992) Either/Or, Vol. 1 (1987) Either/Or, Vol. 2 (1987) Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses (1990) Fear and Trembling (1983) Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, Vols. 1–7 (1967–78) Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks (2007–) Letters and Documents (1978) “The Moment” and Late Writings (1998) Practice in Christianity (1991) The Point of View (1998) Stages on Life’s Way (1988) The Sickness unto Death (1980) Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (1993) Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1993) Without Authority (1997) Works of Love (1995)

xv

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Abbreviations

NOTES 1. See the Works Cited section for complete details. 2. With the exception of Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, all abbreviations in this list correspond to editions of Kierkegaard’s Writings, edited by Howard and Edna Hong. Again, see Works Cited for more information.

Chapter 1

Bob Dylan and Religion  A Survey

On November 20, 1961—a gray, blustery late-autumn day in New York City—Bob Dylan began recording his first album for Columbia Records. A pair of three-hour sessions had been scheduled, and, as Dylan neared the end of the first, he opted to play “In My Time of Dyin’,” an old gospel number. The song originally belonged to the “negro spiritual” tradition, but it entered the blues canon in the late 1920s, when artists such as Blind Willie Johnson and Charley Patton recorded it. Alternately referred to as “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed,” the song is based on Psalm 41:3, in which the psalmist declares that God will show mercy to the one who “considereth the poor”: “The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.”1 Notably, Dylan “said that before entering the studio, he had never played ‘In My Time of Dyin’” and could not remember when and where he had heard the song for the first time.”2 Nevertheless, he recorded it in a single take, delivering its plaintive lyrics with furious conviction: Well, in my time of dying don’t want nobody to mourn All I want for you to do is take my body home Well, well, well, so I can die easy Well, well, well Well, well, well, so I can die easy Jesus gonna make up, Jesus gonna make up Jesus gonna make up my dying bed.3

For the twenty-year-old musician, who had arrived on the Greenwich Village folk scene less than a year earlier, “In My Time of Dyin’” was a striking choice to end his inaugural recording session. Dylan had been born Robert Allen Zimmerman to a Jewish household in northern Minnesota and would seem to have had little in common with the gospel music of the Mississippi 1

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Delta. And yet, his impassioned reading of “In My Time of Dyin’” signaled that there was no part of the folk tradition from which he felt alienated. Geography, race, religion, even time—none of these were barriers to Dylan’s imaginative genius. The term “genius” here is not meant as generic praise. Derived from the Latin verb gignere (“to bring forth”), genius in its broad etymological sense refers to the source of a person’s inspiration and, more specifically, to the “guiding spirit” who influences one’s unique ability or talent. This notion has become “disenchanted” (in the Weberian sense) since the Enlightenment— today, it tends to signify a person’s talent itself rather than any supernatural force behind it—but there is something apropos about referring to Dylan’s “genius” in this older sense. After all, Dylan has never been one to foreground his own personality, preferring instead to flow in and out of genres, traditions, and even personae. This point was driven home by Todd Haynes’ 2007 film I’m Not There. Billed as a “biopic,” I’m Not There recounts Dylan’s life and career by feverishly intercutting seven storylines and employing six distinct actors to represent Dylan. For example, an eleven-year-old African American boy (Marcus Carl Franklin) plays the young Dylan, leaving the Midwest to meet folk icon Woody Guthrie, whereas a lithe, sneering Cate Blanchett plays Dylan in the mid-1960s, breaking from the folk scene to embark on a wild European tour. Doubtless Haynes, qua filmmaker, revels in pushing his thesis to the limits: there is no single, isolable Bob Dylan, only a series of masquerading identities. Dylan’s genius, then, is precisely not as the sole possessor of an inborn talent; it is as the medium of something (or someone) beyond himself. Taken at face value, such a conclusion would seem to imply that Dylan is more mask than man and, consequently, almost impervious to analysis. Peter Vernezze and Paul Lulewicz go so far as to suggest that Dylan subscribes to a “Buddhist-Humean view of the self,” which holds that personal identity is an evolving “bundle” of factors rather than something fixed “in time and space.”4 This is a complex thesis, to which the present study will return. Nevertheless, the point here is simply that Dylan’s exploration of style and tradition is essential to his artistic genius, and, if this is true, then it is no less true that his genius embraces religion. Few would gainsay this claim. Not only do spirituals such as “In My Time of Dyin’” populate Dylan’s discography, but Dylan’s career trajectory intersects with religion at crucial junctures. In short, there is “a certain degree of religious consciousness in all of Dylan’s music.”5 But what is the origin of this “religious consciousness”? And how should we understand it? This chapter aims to explore these questions, paying particular attention to two overarching topics: (i) Dylan’s own background and interest in religion, especially Judaism and Christianity, and (ii) the significance (or potential significance) of Dylan’s religious engagement. For some, this

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survey will be familiar. If, at one time, Dylan’s religiousness was an embarrassment to a segment of his fan base, recent years have witnessed a surge of appreciation—a shift facilitated by the release of Trouble No More (2017), an acclaimed collection of demos, live cuts, and outtakes from Dylan’s so-called gospel period of the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the same time, however, others may be surprised to learn just how deeply and extensively Dylan—the great icon of 1960s counterculture—has been occupied by religious ideas, practices, and writings. Whatever the case, the following survey is critical if this volume is going to proceed with its thesis, namely, that Dylan can be profitably understood as a poet whose songs give expression to the “existential spheres” laid out in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. Of course, to say that Dylan’s songs have an aesthetic component may seem like a truism, and anyone familiar with Dylan’s “protest songs” such as “Masters of War” (1963) and “Hurricane” (1975) will likely need little convincing that Dylan’s work confronts ethical issues. But is it a stretch to suggest that the religious constitutes a distinct and essential category in Dylan’s catalog? Despite changing perceptions and an expanding body of secondary literature, this question would seemingly remain open for critics and fans alike. This chapter, then, will seek to flesh out why any thorough interpretation of Dylan’s life and art must take religion into consideration. DYLAN’S JEWISH BACKGROUND The basic facts of Dylan’s religious upbringing are well known. His parents, Abram and Beatrice, were the children of Eastern European Jews, who had emigrated to northern Minnesota in the early twentieth century. After being introduced at a “Zionist club social event,”6 Abe and Beatty (as they were called) went through a brief courtship and were married on June 10, 1934. They settled in Duluth, where Abe took a job with Standard Oil. Their first child was born on May 24, 1941, roughly six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. At his bris, Dylan was given the Hebrew name Shabtai Zisel ben Avraham, but his birth certificate read Robert Allen Zimmerman: “Robert was the most popular name for boys in the country at the time. Almost immediately he was known as Bob, or Bobby.”7 As World War II stormed to its conclusion, the Zimmermans enjoyed a quiet lifestyle in Duluth’s Central Hillside district, which “was predominantly Jewish and Polish, with a synagogue at the end of the road.”8 In 1946, another son, David Benjamin, was welcomed into the family, and young Bobby was enrolled at Nettleton Elementary School. It should have been a time of joy, but tragically Abe contracted polio and, after a period of incapacity, lost his

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job. Hence, without “work, short of money, and needing relatives around to help them,”9 the Zimmermans moved in with Beatty’s mother, Florence, who lived in the mining town of Hibbing about 75 miles northwest of Duluth. Despite a sizable population of first- and second-generation immigrant families, “Hibbing was the quintessential small town, where American flags hung from every building on Independence Day and where virtually everybody knew one another.”10 When his health improved, Abe opened up an electrical store downtown, and, by 1948, he was able to move his family to a modest detached home in a residential neighborhood. It was here that Dylan’s childhood came to resemble so many others in postwar America, as he and his friends played sports and roamed the area on their bikes, sometimes venturing as far as Bennett Park at the edge of the open pit iron mines.11 But there was another aspect of Dylan’s youth that, although less conspicuous, nevertheless influenced him in key ways: “Young Bobby Zimmerman grew up Jewishly—surrounded by Jewish relatives and enjoying a full range of Jewish experience.”12 Abe was involved in B’nai B’rith (“Children of the Covenant”), an international Jewish service organization, and he became president of the local lodge.13 Beatty was no less involved, as she chaired a branch of the women’s Zionist organization Hadassah.14 The Zimmermans were not Orthodox,15 but they “retained enough connection with Jewish tradition to observe the dietary laws, [and] to mark the weekly Sabbath.”16 Moreover, and perhaps most significantly, they provided their sons with “a grounding in the Bible,”17 including its ethical commands and prophetic exhortations, not to mention a general metaphysical-cum-mystical Weltanschauung. For Dylan, as for any Jewish male, these lessons were accentuated in the time leading up to and inclusive of his bar mitzvah. Since the local synagogue Agudath Achim (“Association of Brothers”) was small in size and lacked a permanent rabbi, one had to be brought in from the outside to conduct bar mitzvah training. His name was Reuben Maier, and, as Dylan recalled, he made a strong (if somewhat awkward) impression upon arriving in Hibbing: There weren’t too many Jews in Hibbing, Minnesota. Most of them I was related to. The town didn’t have a rabbi, and it was time for me to be bar mitzvahed. Suddenly a rabbi showed up under strange circumstances for only a year. He and his wife got off the bus in the middle of winter. He showed up just in time for me to learn this stuff. He was an old man from Brooklyn who had a white beard and wore a black hat and black clothes. They put him upstairs of the cafe, which was the local hangout. It was a rock ’n’ roll cafe where I used to hang out, too. I used to go up there every day to learn this stuff, either after school or after dinner. After studying with him an hour or so, I’d come down and boogie. The rabbi taught me what I had to learn, and after he conducted this bar mitzvah, he just disappeared.18

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Dylan’s bar mitzvah took place on May 22, 1954, during which he demonstrated his substantial and nuanced knowledge of Hebrew.19 After the service, about 400 relatives and friends of the Zimmermans, many coming from out of town, crowded into the nearby Androy Hotel. In less than seven years, Dylan would embark on a trip to New York City and the beginning of a legendary music career. For the time being, however, his parents made him the center of what was a significant celebration for Hibbing. As a teenager, Dylan remained involved with Jewish cultural life. Perhaps most notable in this connection are the “three or four summers”20 he spent at Herzl Camp in northwestern Wisconsin. Founded in 1946 and named after the Zionist political leader Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), Herzl Camp sought to promote learning about Israel and Judaism in a fun summertime environment. The camp started out as a modest venture, but by the time Dylan began attending, it was thriving destination for Jewish youth across the Midwest. Its popularity, however, by no means minimized the extent to which Herzl Camp was intensively Jewish. As Dylan’s close friend Louie Kemp recalls: “They kept kosher there [at Herzl Camp], they kept Shabbos, an Orthodox rabbi ran the camp.”21 Even if it is doubtful that Dylan himself acceded (or even thought to accede) to every aspect of the camp’s teaching, there were certainly cultural expectations that he would not have missed: “[Dylan] did not want to go to camp at first, but his mother was set on the idea. ‘She wanted to send him there so he could meet Jewish kids and maybe meet some Jewish girls,’ says Howard Rutman, one of the friends Bob made at camp.”22 It is a perduring irony that Beatty’s goals were achieved, albeit in a way that she could not have anticipated. Already a proficient musician,23 Dylan would slip away at camp to practice “the piano in the lodge building.”24 Moreover, he met like-minded peers such as Larry Kegan, who hailed from St. Paul and who had already formed a doo-wop group. Thus a culture of popular music developed at Herzl Camp: [Dylan and Kegan] formed a double act at camp. Bob playing the piano and both boys singing. Girls soon came around and Bob struck up a friendship with Judy Rubin, a girl he saw on and off for several years. He was also keen on Harriet Zisson. But it was the buddies he made at camp that were most important to him.25

Indeed, in time, Dylan would form an a cappella group with Kegan and Rutman called The Jokers. They performed at school dances in the St. Paul area and even cut a 78 rpm record.26 Dylan also led bands in Hibbing, including The Shadow Blasters and The Golden Chords. His vocational path was beginning to take shape.

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It was around this time that Dylan began to detach from his Jewish upbringing. Most obvious was Dylan’s adoption of a stage name. Long known as “Bobby Zimmerman,” he began to refer to himself as “Bob Dylan,” telling a girlfriend that “Dylan” was an homage to the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.27 Indeed, Dylan was determined to pursue a career in music, even though Abe and Beatty were adamant that their eldest son go to college. Initially, they tried to find a compromise. In 1959, Dylan enrolled at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, electing to major in music. Moreover, he joined the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, “the best of the four Jewish fraternities in and around campus.”28 Dylan’s extended family had connections to the “Sammies” (as they were called), and his parents, ever watchful, encouraged him to become a member. They even paid for him to stay at the fraternity house during his freshman year.29 It would turn out to be a short-lived arrangement. Dylan began to frequent the bohemian commercial district known as Dinkytown, located west of central Minneapolis, just across the Mississippi River. Though Dinkytown was close in proximity to Dylan’s fraternity house, it had an entirely different ethos. Instead of frat parties and rock ’n’ roll, Dinkytown was the place where “students read beatnik literature, the politics was left-wing radical, and the music that was played and listened to . . . was folk.”30 Dylan became a regular on the scene, associating with folk musicians such as “Spider” John Koerner and Dave Morton. And though Jews could be found among the denizens of Dinkytown, Dylan did not want to be seen as one of them, if only to avoid being “limited in the eyes of others by being defined simply as Jewish.”31 As Morton later commented, “He didn’t like the Jewish boys [in Dinkytown]. He was pretending not to be Jewish.”32 Unsurprisingly, tensions soon developed with the Sammies as well: “The Sammies simply did not like Bob. He kept strange hours and did not join in their activities or share their interests, and his introverted nature made him seem aloof.”33 Dylan soon found himself out of the fraternity—and out of a place to live. He bounced around Dinkytown, often staying with friends, and eventually picked up a regular gig at the Inn of the Purple Onion in St. Paul.34 But challenges remained. Bob Scroggins, a cook at the Purple Onion, recalls that Dylan did not make a great impression: “I would tell my friends to come on the nights [‘Spider’ John] Koerner played. ‘[Koerner] might be famous someday. Bob Dylan is okay, but I don’t like his voice and he’s not great on guitar.’”35 Dylan stayed in college for a while longer, but, after reading Bound for Glory (1943), the idealized autobiography of Woody Guthrie, he set his mind to meeting the folk icon, who was a long-term patient at Greystone Park Hospital in New Jersey, not far from New York City.36 Dylan left Minnesota in December 1960, briefly bouncing around Chicago and Madison before catching a ride to New York City. He arrived in Manhattan on January 24,

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1961, and “events unfolded rapidly from the moment he set foot in the city.”37 In less than a year he would cut his first album for Columbia Records, and his youth in Hibbing, so informed by Judaism, would seem a distant memory. DYLAN’S LATER INTEREST IN RELIGION That the 1960s represented a sea change in Western religious life is a widely acknowledged, if also subtly complex, verity. According to Hugh McLeod, there are at least four senses in which the religious landscape was changing at this time.38 First, an increasing range of religious Weltanschauungen were made readily accessible through broadcast media such as radio and television. Second, assumptions and expectations regarding religious identity were called into question, so much so that Western society began to be seen as “pluralist” or “secular.” Third, the processes by which religious socialization took place were gradually weakened, leading to a diminished understanding of basic religious doctrines. Fourth, and perhaps inevitably, debates within religious institutions about their future grew more and more rancorous. Taken as a whole, these changes were so revolutionary that, by the mid-1970s, the religious habits of Western culture were almost unrecognizable: “In the religious history of the West these years may come to be seen as marking a rupture as profound as that brought about by the Reformation.”39 Thus Bob Dylan’s advent on the Greenwich Village folk scene came at a formative and, for him, propitious time. John F. Kennedy had recently been sworn in as the 35th president of the United States, and in December 1961, a few weeks after Dylan finished recording his first album, American involvement in the Vietnam War officially began. Such military and political upheavals augured religious ones. Roughly a year later, in October 1962, Pope John XXIII would open the Second Vatican Council in Rome, proclaiming that the Church should reformulate its teaching in order to reach a changing modern audience. In short, major historical changes were afoot, just as Dylan crossed the George Washington Bridge, thanked his ride, and began to trudge south from Washington Heights to Greenwich Village. “When I arrived,” Dylan recalls in his 2004 autobiography Chronicles: Volume One, “it was dead-on winter. The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snowpacked. . . . I didn’t know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis, but that was all about to change—and quick.”40 Almost at once, Dylan visited the most important clubs and hangouts in Greenwich Village—Café Wha?, The Gaslight Café, Kettle of Fish. “I was there to find singers,” Dylan recalls, “the ones I’d heard on record—Dave Van Ronk, Peggy Seeger, Ed McCurdy, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Josh White, The New Lost City Ramblers, Reverend Gary Davis and a bunch

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of others—most of all to find Woody Guthrie.”41 And find them he did, albeit with persistence. Dylan did not break in at places like the Gaslight Café but had to start at rock-bottom, playing “low-level basket houses or small coffeehouses where the performer passed the hat.”42 Eventually, however, he would make his mark by featuring a selection of “hard-core folk songs,”43 paired with a strident (if unorthodox) playing style. It was not talent that would set him apart, but passion: I’d either drive people away or they’d come in closer to see what it was all about. There was no in-between. There were a lot of better singers and better musicians around those places but there wasn’t anybody close in nature to what I was doing. Folk songs were the way I explored the universe, they were pictures and the pictures were worth more than anything I could say. I knew the inner substance of the thing.44

Dylan sharpened his knowledge of the folk tradition by frequenting what he calls “the citadel of Americana folk music,”45 namely, the Folklore Center on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Run by the activist and author Izzy Young, the Folklore Center was indeed not so much a store—though it did sell books and records—as a museum. Dylan would dally there, talking to the inquisitive Young and thumbing through his collection of folk esoterica, including sheets of “sea shanties, Civil War songs, cowboy songs, songs of lament, church house songs, anti-Jim Crow songs, union songs—archaic books of folk tales, Wobbly journals, propaganda pamphlets about everything from women’s rights to the dangers of boozing.”46 This was the world that captured Dylan’s artistic imagination, even unto his own self-effacement: “Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn’t care about doing that. With me, it was about putting the song across.”47 Eventually, Dylan would meet Dave Van Ronk at the Folklore Center, and the so-called “Mayor of MacDougal Street” offered the newcomer a gig at the Gaslight Café. This was Dylan’s proverbial big break, linking him to the most influential figures in Greenwich Village and paving the way for his first record deal. But it also reiterates the paradox at the heart of Dylan’s ascent in popular music—that it stemmed from his ability to interpret old songs to which he had no direct relation. Folk music allowed him to tap into something beyond himself, to inhabit worlds that were not his own. As Dylan puts it, “The ’50s culture was like a judge in his last days on the bench. It was about to go. Within ten years’ time, it would struggle to rise and then come crashing to the floor. With folk songs embedded in my mind like a religion, it wouldn’t matter. Folk songs transcended the immediate culture.48

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Here Dylan hits on a key aspect of folk music: by definition, it does not emerge from a generalized (and increasingly secular) “American” culture but from various (and traditionally religious) local communities. As Kip Lornell explains, “Folk music often retains well-established associations with functional activities within the community: in the workplace, during a religious ceremony, or at a community dance.”49 Consequently, as Lornell goes on, folk songs are not normally attributed to a single writer, and they are “disseminated by word-of-mouth, aurally, or through informal apprenticeships within a community.”50 That is not to deny, of course, that folk music has become commercialized since the invention of the phonograph and the mass production of disc records in the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, while classical music is “often heard in formal, often greatly subsidized, concerts,” and while popular music “fundamentally owes its dissemination to the mass media,” “only a very small percentage of [folk musicians] make their full-time living from music.”51 At bottom, then, folk music is “the forgotten music of America that reflects both our diverse heritage and our everyday lives.”52 To embrace the folk tradition—as Dylan did—is to draw on the music that developed “almost as soon as the first Europeans and Africans arrived in the New World.”53 The number of subgenres within the folk tradition is extensive, including Zydeco, Polka, and Mariachi. Still, Lornell foregrounds four major categories of folk music, all of which have had a marked influence on Dylan: Anglo-American Secular Folk Music (British Ballads, Bluegrass, etc.), Anglo-American Sacred Music (Psalmody, Southern Gospel Boogie, etc.), African American Religious Folk Music (Spirituals, Gospel, etc.), and African American Secular Folk Music (Work Songs, Blues, etc.). Thus Dylan’s reference to the “transcendence” offered by folk music is nuanced. Yes, folk songs tended to emerge from previous historical epochs, but in addition to (or perhaps even because of) their chronological priority, folk songs retained an unmistakable connection to religious customs and themes, touching on liminal questions about life and death, redemption and sin. It was, moreover, this sincerity and solemnity that so appealed to Dylan. “Songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment,” Dylan writes, “They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality.”54 In short, folk music entailed that Dylan remain in close contact with religious ideas and topics. This point is made clear on Dylan’s debut album, which “had him in more than one song, staring death in the eye and crooning about Jesus and his dying bed.”55 But it was not just traditional gospel numbers such as “In My Time of Dyin’” and “Gospel Plow” that Dylan was recording. He was also composing songs inspired by gospel and blues. In “Long Ago, Far Away,” written in 1962, a snarling Dylan associates the crucifixion of Jesus to the lynchings in the Jim Crow era South. There is a “cost”

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to preaching “peace and brotherhood,” and a “man he did it long ago / And they hung him on a cross.” Dylan would invoke Jesus on a number of other tracks during the period 1962–65, including two that would become classics in the “protest song” genre, namely, “Masters of War” (1963) and “With God on Our Side” (1964). Other songs would draw on biblical and spiritual themes but in more general fashion. “Let Me Die in My Footsteps” (1962) entreats the “Lawd God” for help in opposing political corruption, and “When the Ship Comes In” (1963) utilizes the story of Exodus 15 to illustrate the coming defeat of those who wage turmoil and violence: “And like Pharoah’s tribe / They’ll be drownded in the tide.” Here, as in other songs from the era, Dylan seems especially indebted to African American spirituals, which W.E.B. Du Bois once described as “the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world.”56 Elsewhere Du Bois calls spirituals “Sorrow Songs,” albeit with an important caveat: spirituals also express the hope that “somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good.”57 Today Dylan is famous for his indirection—a point to which this study will return—but even at the outset of his career he tried to avoid conflating his own personal beliefs with those articulated in his music. For example, he once remarked to Izzy Young: “Got no religion. Tried a bunch of different religions. . . . Never seen a god; can’t say till I see one.”58 Moreover, as Dylan’s celebrity grew during the 1960s, he began making similar pronouncements to the public. When, on a brief 1965 tour of England, a reporter asked about his religious beliefs, Dylan responded acerbically: “No, why should I believe in anything? I don’t see anything that anybody’s offered me to believe in that I’m gonna believe in and put my trust and faith and everything in.”59 Nevertheless, Dylan’s music complicates such statements—a fact not lost on many of his early critics and interlocutors. After noting that Dylan’s songs frequently quote from the Bible, British reporter Maureen Cleave suggested that Dylan was a student of Scripture, but he neither confirmed nor denied her claim.60 Ralph Gleason, founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine, upheld Dylan as a “moral referee” and “a preacher,”61 whose poetic “assault on Western society”62 had garnered him a unique role in popular culture—“the prophet of the Doomsday Poems.”63 Gleason’s comparison of Dylan to an apocalyptic prophet came in March 1966, less than a year after Dylan had released Highway 61 Revisited and a few months before he issued Blonde on Blonde. In a career of several highpoints, this period was probably the highest. Highway 61 Revisited contains Dylan’s signature song “Like a Rolling Stone,” and Blonde on Blonde is frequently grouped among the greatest albums in rock music history. Indeed, by the mid-1960s, Dylan had moved on from the traditional folk stylings of his first few albums, and he seemingly had abandoned the “protest song” genre

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that had catapulted him to stardom—controversial decisions that infuriated a vocal contingent of his fan base, so much so that, during a May 1966 concert in Manchester, England, a heckler cried out “Judas!” In retrospect, however, the dichotomy between the “folk Dylan” and the “rock Dylan” seems exaggerated. For example, Highway 61 Revisited was named after the so-called “Blues Highway,” which runs from northern Minnesota to New Orleans. Thus the title implies that Dylan’s “turn” to rock music was actually an “electric reading of folk and blues.”64 In other words, Dylan did not intend to abandon folk music but to perform it, in his own phrase, “with a rock ’n’ roll attitude.”65 With this in mind, Gleason’s recognition that Dylan’s later work retained the ethico-religious component of folk music is apt. On “Highway 61 Revisited,” the second song on Highway 61 Revisited’s second side, Dylan links the Blues Highway with one of the founding stories of the Judeo-Christian tradition: Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son” Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on” God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?” God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but The next time you see me comin’ you better run” Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?” God says, “Out on Highway 61”

Here Highway 61 is a surrogate for “the land of Moriah” (Gen. 22:2), the place where Abraham was to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God. In the biblical story, Abraham’s fidelity to God is eventually proven and Isaac’s life spared, but not before a period of anguished wandering in Moriah. Similarly, for Dylan, it is in the folk and blues tradition (“Highway 61”) that one comes to a crossroads66 between the natural and the supernatural, violence and the sacred. That music belongs to and opens up a liminal space also comes through on Blonde on Blonde, albeit in somewhat different fashion. If Highway 61 Revisited amounts to rugged blues-inflected folk rock, Blonde on Blonde tends to showcase a cleaner, more precise sound: “It’s that thin, wild mercury sound,” Dylan once commented, “It’s metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up.”67 Perhaps no song on the album captures this refined, almost luminous quality better than “Visions of Johanna.” Said to have been written during the East Coast blackout of 1965,68 which struck New York City early in the evening on November 9 and lasted till the following morning, the song is a patchwork of ethereal characters and images, reminiscent of the drug-fueled, hallucinatory poetry of William S. Burroughs. Over Al Kooper’s shimmering organ, Dylan sings of a woman who “holds a handful of rain”

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and of “the ghost of ’lectricity [that] howls in the bones of her face.” The flamboyance of Dylan’s imagery is not haphazard—a flaw that often diminishes Burroughs’ work—but rather is in service to an overarching metaphor about seeking “to transcend the physical world, to reach the ideal.”69 The real word, it seems, is austere, devoid of beauty—a place of heat pipes, empty parking lots, and salesmen. Even the arts have been shorn of transcendence: “Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial / Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while.” And yet, the narrator, who may or may not be Dylan himself, cannot extinguish his longing for the one who is not there, namely, the mysterious Johanna. One might assume that “Johanna” refers to a woman, but Dylan’s lyrics are not clear. The narrator only sings of “visions of Johanna” that “conquer my mind” and “keep me up past the dawn.” Notably, the Christian name Johanna is derived from the Hebrew “Yehohanan,” meaning “Yahweh is gracious.” Is the phrase “visions of Johanna,” then, meant to signify visions of God? Such a reading is by no means excluded, and, as is well known, the Bible makes clear that God communicates with human beings by way of visions: “The word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield” (Gen. 15:1).70 In any case, the point of these brief exegeses is simply to show that, even as Dylan moved away from folk music to rock ’n’ roll, he remained indebted to and interested in religious stories and themes. Moreover, when Dylan’s period of white-hot rock stardom minified in the summer of 1966, the casualty of a now legendary motorcycle accident,71 he retreated to Upstate New York and embarked on a phase of his career that has been described as “biblical rock.”72 It began discreetly, with Dylan devoting his convalescence to reading. As he told one reporter, “[I am] thinking about where I’m going, and why am I running and am I mixed up too much and what am I knowing and what am I giving and what am I taking.”73 With these questions in mind, Dylan took a notable interest in philosophical and religious literature, reading books such as The Prophet (1923) by Khalil Gibran and The Outsider (1956) by Colin Wilson. Gibran was a member of the Maronites—a Syriac Christian community, named after the fourth-century ascetic St. Maron and today based in Lebanon, that is in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church—and The Prophet reflects the multiplicity of his background. Blending Christianity, Islamic Sufism, and the Bahá’í Faith, Gibran’s classic relays the teachings of fictional prophet Al Mustafa, who discourses on subjects such as love, prayer, and work. The latter topic may have particularly caught Dylan’s attention in this period of crisis: “Work is love made visible. / And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple. . . . / And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”74 In comparison with such

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lyrical wisdom, Wilson’s The Outsider may seem unrelated. It is a survey of the lives and writings of a variety of important modern figures, including Fyodor Dostoevsky, T. S. Eliot, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Vincent Van Gogh. And yet, just as Gibran’s Al Mustafa possesses especial insight into the spiritual life, so does Wilson aim to explore the kind of person who comprehends “what he sees and touches as reality.”75 He refers to this person as “the Outsider,” partly because he cannot “live in the comfortable, insulated world of the bourgeois,”76 but also because he is uniquely attuned to the chaos, even absurdity of existence. This attunement, Wilson adds, is not an endorsement of nihilism; it is in service to authenticity and, possibly, to the greater good: “[The Outsider] has a distressing sense that the truth must be told at all costs, otherwise there can be no hope for an ultimate restoration of order.”77 Gibran’s prophet and Wilson’s Outsider, albeit in different ways, stand athwart the masses and point toward something higher. In conjunction with and likely on account of such literary interests, Dylan also experienced a renewed interest in the Bible at this time. A couple years earlier, he had purchased an estate in the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony just outside Woodstock. Dubbed Hi Lo Ha, it “was snuggled in thick woodland with a mountain stream filling a natural swimming hole.”78 Now, with time on his hands and a young family79 to boot, Dylan broke from the rock counterculture and embraced the roles of “family man” and country singer. Part of this reinvention was a renewed interest in Scripture: “Dylan immersed himself for hours in the Bible. A Bible was placed on a pedestal in the middle of the living room and . . . next to a collection of the songs of [country singer] Hank Williams.”80 The juxtaposition of biblical insight and country music would characterize Dylan’s work for the next several years. First, there was The Basement Tapes, officially released in 1975 but, in fact, recorded in 1967. Contractually required to provide demos to his manager Albert Grossman, Dylan began a series of informal recording sessions with The Band, initially at Hi Lo Ha and then in the basement of “Big Pink”—a nearby country home, so-called due to its pink siding, that had been rented by some of the members in The Band. In the end, Dylan and The Band recorded 138 tracks during this period, and by all accounts it was a happy time. As Dylan later put it, “That’s really the way to do a recording—in a peaceful, relaxed setting—in somebody’s basement. With the windows open . . . and a dog lying on the floor.”81 Indeed, just as the Beatles embraced psychedelia with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Dylan moved in a different direction. When Noel Paul Stookey of the folk band Peter, Paul and Mary opined that the Beatles were breaking new ground with Sgt. Pepper’s, Dylan quipped “Do you ever read the Bible?”82

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Of course, this was neither the first nor the last time that Dylan would return to the Bible in order to chart a new artistic path. What distinguishes The Basement Tapes, then, is not just that the album represents a “kind of obsession with the sacred”83 but that, in doing so, it captures a different side of American religious life—what Greil Marcus calls the “weird but clearly recognizable America within the America of . . . institutional majoritarian power.”84 In particular, Marcus adds, The Basement Tapes explores how human freedom unfolds mysteriously if often banally before God’s distant majesty: “God reigns here, but his rule can be refused. His gaze cannot be escaped; his hand, maybe.”85 Indeed, on “Sign on the Cross,” an outtake from The Basement Tapes sessions first released in 2014, Dylan’s narrator describes how he has been haunted by “that old sign on the cross . . . that old key to the kingdom,” which seems to loom over various periods of his life. Featuring Garth Hudson’s swelling organ, the song begins to resemble an altar call, especially during the spoken-word bridge: “Ev’ry day, ev’ry night, see the sign on the cross just layin’ up on top of the hill. Yes, we thought it might have disappeared long ago, but . . . I just would like to tell you one time, if I don’t see you again, that the thing is, that the sign on the cross is the thing you might need the most.” One commentator has noted that, by the end of “Sign on the Cross,” Dylan brings to mind “a country-fried preacher who may have been dipping into his moonshine supply.”86 This point is not wrong, but it elides the song’s underlying theological vision—that divine grace can come through fear just as much as love. In retrospect, it is clear that The Basement Tapes set the tone for the next several years of Dylan’s career. In the autumn of 1967, Dylan journeyed to Nashville to record the songs for John Wesley Harding, which would be released in December of the same year. It was not Dylan’s first time to record in Nashville—famously, the sessions for Blonde on Blonde were moved to Nashville, when Dylan grew dissatisfied with the tracks recorded in New York City—but this time his move to the Bible Belt was more organic, as if a product of how he had been “transformed both spiritually and artistically.”87 Musically, Dylan sought to replicate in the studio the lo-fi sound he had captured on The Basement Tapes, albeit with country flourishes such as the use of steel guitar. Influenced by Hank Williams and Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot, this minimalist aesthetic was intended to facilitate a “journey among the sacred.”88 John Wesley Harding contains “more than sixty biblical allusions”89 over its running time, and, in “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” Dylan treats the Catholic Church’s “Doctor of Grace” as a seeker of lost souls, one of whom may be the singer himself: “Oh, I awoke in anger / So alone and terrified / I put my fingers against the glass / And bowed my head and cried.” Indeed, Dylan later described John Wesley Harding in striking

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language: “[It] was a fearful album—just dealing with fear, but dealing with the devil in a fearful way.”90 With varying degrees of emphasis and success, Dylan’s next five albums more or less remained within this artistic purview, combining clean production with elements liberally borrowed from the country and folk traditions. Indeed, it could be argued that Dylan grew bored with the recording process during this period. Albums such as Self Portrait (1970) and Dylan (1973) are cluttered with a number of insouciant covers, including American standards such as “Blue Moon” or contemporaneous hits such as Paul Simon’s “The Boxer.” Yet there are moments of genuine inspiration as well, many of which continue to mine the Judeo-Christian tradition for direction and insight. Dylan’s 1970 album New Morning concludes with two overtly religious songs—the “Christmas carol-like” poem “Three Angels” and the “sober” yet tender “Father of Night.”91 Although less than two minutes long, the latter track is particularly notable, inasmuch as it seems to be loosely based on the Amidah—one of the most important prayers in the Jewish tradition, which features a series of divine benedictions and petitions.92 Also pertinent in this connection is “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” a “gospel-rock song” that highlights the “mystical dimension”93 of death. It was arguably Dylan’s greatest hit of this era. Still, by the mid-1970s, there were signs that Dylan was ready for another transformation. He sold Hi Lo Ha, made southern California his primary residence, and left Columbia Records for a short-term deal with Asylum Records.94 The new label entailed a new image. After talks with Asylum founder David Geffen, Dylan aimed to summon up his status “as a rock star on a grand scale.”95 He reunited with The Band—who, in the interim, had emerged as rock stars in their own right—and together they planned an album and world tour. Dylan started demoing new songs in June 1973, followed by proper recording sessions in Los Angeles in November of the same year. The upshot was Planet Waves (1974), a work that captures Dylan poised between nostalgic romanticism and encroaching despair. On the one hand, songs such as “Something There Is About You” and “Forever Young” are odes to family, written for his wife Sara and his eldest son Jesse respectively.96 The latter song has become one of Dylan’s most beloved tracks, using Numbers 6:24–26 (“The LORD bless thee, and keep thee . . . ”) to frame an encomium to the promise of youth. On the other hand, songs such as “Going, Going, Gone” and “Dirge” educe the desperation of endings—of relationships, of happiness, of life itself. The tour in support of Planet Waves only heightened this tension. In spite (or perhaps because) of his creative renaissance, Dylan fell into a lengthy period of dissipation, drinking heavily and philandering.97

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Consequently, by the summer of 1974, he and Sara had separated and were on the path toward divorce.98 Paradoxically, the breakdown of Dylan’s marriage fueled his artistic resurgence. He began composing songs generally centered on the “many facets of love,” albeit with a particular interest in “failed relationships.”99 This subject matter, in and of itself, is not unique in Dylan’s corpus. What is unique is that the ensuing album—the aptly titled Blood on the Tracks (1975)—features Dylan at his emotionally rawest. Long accustomed to inhabiting various dramatis personæ, Dylan now sought to bare himself on record, both in terms of lyrical content and in terms of vocal expression. As one might expect, the result is an album less overtly concerned with religious themes, though songs such as “Idiot Wind” and “Shelter from the Storm” borrow liberally from the Bible. The latter song, for example, expands on a motif from the prophet Isaiah, who depicts the reign of the coming Messiah as a “covert from the tempest” (Isaiah 32:2) of worldly injustice. For Dylan, however, this “Christ-like figure” is a loving woman, who offers succor within a rugged society where “nothing really matters much / it’s doom alone that counts.” This blurring of contexts and eras is indicative of another key influence on Blood on the Tracks, the Jewish painter and teacher Norman Raeben. The youngest son of celebrated Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, Raeben’s art was indebted both to the coarse realism of the “Ashcan School” of painting and to the “sacred texts of Judaism,” which he saw as “deeply metaphorical evocations of suffering and endurance, open to the realm of imagination.”100 Dylan began taking painting classes with Raeben in 1974, around the time that the painter “had given himself over mainly to teaching about both art and Judaism.”101 Dylan contacted Raeben hoping to learn more about both of these subjects, and “he ended up spending two months working at Raeben’s studio, five days a week, from eight thirty until four.”102 This intensive apprenticeship encouraged Dylan to look at the world, his art, and himself in a different way, paying less attention to distinct concepts and opting to “see things plain, as they really are, always aware of perspective, both straight on and from above, simultaneously.”103 With this in mind, the songs of Blood on the Tracks are less allegorical and more Kabbalistic than their predecessors, with singles such as “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Idiot Wind” following Raeben’s insistence to mingle “past, present, and future, as if they were of a piece.”104 Though initially greeted with mixed reviews, Blood on the Tracks would eventually be seen as one of Dylan’s masterpieces. Nearly a decade after his motorcycle accident, and despite both personal and professional turbulence, he had managed to claw his way back to the top of the popular music scene. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that Dylan next sought to rekindle the furious energy of the mid-1960s, moving back to Greenwich Village

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and gathering a mélange of collaborators around him, including playwrights Jacques Levy and Sam Shepard, country singer Emmylou Harris, violinist Scarlet Rivera, and poet Allen Ginsberg. Together they forged Desire (1976), one of the more eclectic albums in Dylan’s canon. Desire features protest anthems (“Hurricane”), travel epics (“Isis”), murder ballads (“Joey”), and some of Dylan’s most beloved songs of unrequited love (“Oh, Sister,” “Sara”). The latter category constitutes the spiritual core of Desire, in which Dylan “treats romance as a metaphysical relation,”105 invoking “Our Father” who intends that “[we] love and follow His direction” and pleading with his “mystical wife” to remain by his side. Still, the highlight of the Desire era was the so-called “Rolling Thunder Revue,” a vaudevillian approach to touring that Dylan had long desired to attempt: “For years Bob had been talking to friends about a touring revue show, maybe traveling by train, playing small towns. It was a carnival-type ideal, recalling . . . life in the Dakotas.”106 The Rolling Thunder Revue opened in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1975, with Dylan playing the role of muse and/or shaman rather than centerpiece. “Usually on stage less than an hour,” Dylan would appear at prearranged junctures, donning a fedora and often wearing white face paint or a “transparent plastic mask.”107 Recently, the great filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who himself has a marked interest in religious themes,108 issued Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019), a film comprised of fictional and nonfictional material. For Scorsese, the burlesque ethos of “Rolling Thunder” (and of his film) was in service to an almost Kierkegaardian paradox—that the truth is best conveyed when its representative is in disguise. As Dylan himself wryly explains, “If someone’s wearing a mask he’s gonna tell you the truth. If he’s not wearing a mask, it’s highly unlikely.” It is the contemporary Dylan, almost eighty years old, who offers this retrospective assessment of Rolling Thunder. However, what neither he nor Scorsese delve into is how Rolling Thunder pushed Dylan to the brink. The tour, particularly on its second leg, was driven by alcohol and cocaine as much as aesthetics. Dylan’s marriage was now in its death throes, and he was touring because “he did not want to get back to his day-to-day life.”109 In fact, early in 1977, Sara began divorce proceedings, and a custody battle ensued.110 Dylan soldiered on, continuing to tour and to write songs. He released Street-Legal in June 1978—an album that registered another stylistic change, with Dylan opting for the big-band, Vegas-show arrangements of performers such as Elvis Presley and Neil Diamond. And yet, lyrically, he was moving in a darker direction, interspersing allusions to astrology, tarot, and biblical prophecy with songs ostensibly about “the travails of love.”111 At times, the results are brilliant. Songs such as “Changing of the Guards” and “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” put the extravagant sound of Street-Legal

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in service to oracular pronouncements such as “Eden is burning” and “I can smell the tail of the dragon.” Still, the album’s critical reception was mixed, and, as Dylan joylessly slogged through his tour dates, he had become “an unhappy and lonely figure.”112 To be sure, Dylan was “searching for something to give meaning to his life,”113 and this search eventually led him to take what may have been the most radical step of his career—a “full-blown conversion to Christianity.”114 For years, he had written about and quoted from Jesus Christ. Now he was determined to become a disciple. THE GOSPEL PERIOD Dylan’s conversion to Christianity was (and remains) a matter of great controversy. For some, it was not so much a break from Dylan’s past as a continuation of his long-standing “preoccup[ation] with God.”115 According to this narrative, Dylan’s career, however dubious and enigmatic the details, can be best described as a “spiritual journey”—one that “remains bent on an unshakeable monotheism.”116 For others, Dylan’s conversion was nothing short of a betrayal. Critic Joel Selvin of The San Francisco Chronicle complained that Dylan had opted for “religious studies, not rock and roll” and, in the process, been “anesthetized by his new-found beliefs.”117 Still others viewed it in context: evangelical Christianity was simply a part of Dylan’s environment in the late 1970s. Not only was Dylan in the midst of a string of relationships with “Christian women,” but “there was something of a vogue for Christianity in the music business at the time, perhaps partly as a reaction to the excess of the 1960s and early 1970s.”118 On this reading, Dylan’s turn as a gospel frontman-cum-preacher was no different than his turns as a protest singer and Beat poet—only a phase. Each of these perspectives has its pros and cons. Yet, as far as the present study is concerned, the essential point is that an extensive share of Dylan’s oeuvre is dedicated to Christian music. Moreover, viewed in the context of his entire career, Dylan’s “gospel period” not only bears out his sustained engagement with religious texts and themes, but it bolsters the notion that any in-depth interpretation of Dylan’s work must take religion into account. One might even argue that the “gospel period” is the hinge of Dylan’s career, casting light and shadow on everything that came before and after it. That is not to suggest, however, that such importance was apparent at the time. Feeling that “his life was empty,”119 Dylan asked his girlfriend Mary Alice Artes to arrange a meeting between him and the leaders of the Vineyard Fellowship—an evangelical renewal movement founded in Southern California in the mid-1970s. Even before Dylan joined the fold,

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Vineyard’s genius lay in its fusion of charismatic faith and popular music. A number of its pioneers were musicians and songwriters, who would go on to foster the growth of Christian pop and rock, including Larry Norman, Chuck Girard, and, most notably, Kenn Gulliksen. After releasing Charity in 1974, a hit album in evangelical Christian circles, Gulliksen established various “fellowships” in and around Los Angeles, each of which eschewed traditional hymnody in favor of Christian-themed popular music. He referred to this collection of fellowships as the “Vineyard Movement,” and, on the whole, it was characterized by a gentle Pentecostalism “with an emphasis on love.”120 Mild-mannered and “often dressed in shorts,”121 Gulliksen’s influence on Dylan would prove significant. He encouraged Dylan and Artes to join a Bible study in Reseda, and they attended regularly during the first half of 1979. “I was willing to listen about Jesus,” Dylan later explained, “I was kind of skeptical, but I was also open. I certainly wasn’t cynical. I asked lots of questions, questions like, ‘What’s the son of God, what’s all that mean?’”122 It should be underlined that Dylan did not see his association with Vineyard as utterly discontinuous with his previous beliefs: “I always knew there was a God or a creator of the universe . . . but I wasn’t conscious of Jesus and what that had to do with the supreme creator.”123 Moreover, Dylan insisted that he had had “a born-again experience”124 prior to his involvement with Vineyard—a reference to a confluence of events in November 1978, when Dylan retrieved a “not-so-small silver cross”125 onstage in San Diego and took it with him on the road. Soon after, during a tour stop in the Tucson area, he had a kind of mystical experience: “There was a presence in the room that couldn’t have been anybody but Jesus,” he later recounted, “Jesus put his hand on me. It was a physical thing. I felt it. I felt it all over me. I felt my whole body tremble. The glory of the Lord knocked me down and picked me up.”126 Whether or not this story is true, the relevant point is that Vineyard did not convert Dylan but, rather, educated him. According to Gulliksen, Dylan took “an intensive course studying about the life of Jesus; principles of discipleship; the Sermon on the Mount; what it is to be a believer; how to grow; how to share . . . but at the same time a good solid Bible-study overview.”127 Dylan was even assigned homework, which, according to one teacher, he never failed to complete.128 But other influences seeped in as well. While members of the Vineyard tended to distance themselves from the severity of fundamentalist evangelicalism, their affinity for poetry and prophecy made them susceptible to extravagant readings of Scripture—a tendency manifested in the movement’s embrace of what might be termed “pop eschatology.” As the promise of the 1960s yielded to the gloom of the 1970s, a number of prominent evangelical leaders began to argue that the end of the world was approaching. At the forefront of this trend was a Texas minister named Hal Lindsey, whose book

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The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970) spawned an industry. In 1976, Lindsey’s bestseller was turned into an eponymous documentary film narrated by Orson Welles, further establishing its brand of premillennial, dispensationalist apocalypticism. Largely drawing on the Book of Revelation, Lindsey argued that the world was entering the time of the “Great Tribulation” (Rev. 7:14), in which human beings will suffer various disasters and hardships in anticipation of Christ’s Parousia (Matt. 24, 1 Cor. 15:23, 1 Jn. 2:28, etc.). With this in mind, Lindsey was able to read contemporary sociopolitical events (from the Cold Ward to the rise of digital technology) as signs of encroaching destruction. Moreover, he had an attentive audience in the Vineyard. Larry Myers, a Vineyard pastor and one of Dylan’s mentors, has acknowledged that “Bob, along with several million other people, read Lindsey’s The Late, Great Planet Earth. We also taught on some of [its] themes in the School of Discipleship.”129 Thus Dylan’s understanding of Christian theology was a patchwork of ideas and sources, combining a Protestant evangelical emphasis on individual salvation—a theme that is less prominent in the older Catholic and Orthodox traditions—with a voguish concern for eschatological prognostication. Unsurprisingly, these themes would characterize Dylan’s music at this time as well. Four albums are frequently associated with Dylan’s gospel period. The first (and most successful) of the group is Slow Train Coming (1979). Produced by R&B legend Jerry Wexler, and recorded at the equally famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in northwest Alabama, it features an inspired Dylan accompanied by a number of first-rate musicians, including virtuoso guitarist Mark Knopfler of the British rock band Dire Straits. Each track on the album expresses Dylan’s newfound Christian faith, albeit in different ways. “Gotta Serve Somebody” is a bona fide Dylan classic, opening the album with a clever adaptation of Jesus’ well-known words: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). Dylan’s song never reverts to proselytizing, however. Instead, he holds up a mirror to postmodern decadence, suggesting that the “freedom” so often celebrated in Western culture is ultimately a form of bondage: You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

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In contrast, “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” is a children’s song based on the creation narrative in Genesis,130 while “When He Returns” is an emotional piano ballad that juxtaposes perennial Dylan questions (“How long can I listen to the lies of prejudice?”) with New Testament answers. Thus it “is a song of hope.”131 As mentioned, Dylan’s conversion to Christianity provoked a number of strong reactions, many of which were derogatory. Nevertheless, Slow Train Coming was a hit, reaching third on U.S. Billboard Albums Chart. The reception of his next two albums would be more subdued. For Saved (1980), Dylan again recorded at Muscle Shoals and again assembled an expert band, but the sum was somehow less than its parts. Critics generally panned the album, and the public was less than enthusiastic. Perhaps the novelty of Dylan’s conversion had worn off, or perhaps Saved suffers from sonic and thematic homogeneity. It is, after all, a clear-cut gospel record, even opening with a cover of “A Satisfied Mind”—a country hit from the 1950s that Dylan gives an evangelical reading. Indeed, despite boasting some excellent gospel tracks (“Pressing On,” “In the Garden”), Saved is the rare Dylan effort in which the genre seemingly consumes the artist. Dylan’s next effort would face a different challenge. While touring in late 1980, Dylan started previewing several new songs, indicating that work on a new album would be forthcoming.132 This time, however, he did not want to record in a professional studio environment; rather, he wanted to do it “his way—taking his touring band into their rehearsal studio and cutting an album live, ‘old school.’”133 It was an idea that proved better in the abstract, and Dylan exhausted a handful of big-name producers over the course of the project. Hence, by the time Shot of Love appeared in August 1981, it was a shell of its potential, leaving some of its most promising songs on the cutting room floor (“Caribbean Wind”) while releasing inferior versions of would-be masterpieces (“Every Grain of Sand”). In retrospect, perhaps the most notable aspect of Shot of Love is its slow retreat from straightforward gospel music. Aurally, Dylan was migrating back toward rock ’n’ roll, and his lyrics, while still firmly rooted in religious themes, were approaching the subject matter in more indirect fashion. This tactic would serve Dylan well on Infidels (1983), the last album of this era. Indeed, so indirect is Infidels than a number of commentators exclude it from the gospel period, thereby implying that the album marks Dylan’s return to “secular” music.134 It is true that, by 1983, Dylan had largely stopped preaching in concerts. As he once put it, “Jesus himself only preached for three years.”135 On the other hand, it is also true that “at no point did Dylan ever renounce the views he expressed between 1979 and 1981”136 and that Infidels “remains marked by biblical references and religious imagery.”137 Moreover, while touring on behalf on Infidels, Dylan continued to profess his

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newfound faith. When, in 1984, an interviewer asked about his eschatological views, Dylan asserted, “I believe in the Book of Revelation.”138 Around the same time, he told another interviewer that “ever since Adam and Eve got thrown out of the garden . . . the whole nature of the planet has been heading in one direction—towards Apocalypse.”139 Certainly a number of tracks on Infidels reflect such sentiments. “Man of Peace” reads New Testament warnings about the Antichrist (1 Jn. 2:18, 2 Jn. 1:7) against the backdrop of twentieth-century politics. “Jokerman,” often considered the album’s best song, features a similar demonic figure: “You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds, / Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister.” Whatever the case, Infidels’ artwork makes its interest in religion quite clear: the album’s inner cover is a photograph of Dylan crouching atop the Mount of Olives, with Jerusalem, bathed in pink-violet sunlight, set in the background. The picture was taken in September 1983, during Dylan’s sojourn in Israel for his son Jesse’s bar mitzvah. Precisely how Dylan understood (or understands) the relationship between Judaism and Christianity remains uncertain, but, as movements such as Messianic Judaism demonstrate, one can celebrate one’s Jewish heritage and also declare faith in Jesus Christ. Such a standpoint might seem amenable to someone like Dylan, an ethnic Jew whose evangelical conversion brought him in direct contact with the Christian Zionism professed by figures such as Hal Lindsey. After all, the “enemy” for Dylan has never been a specific religious confession but, rather, a modern world seemingly bent on self-destruction. The working title for Infidels was, not incidentally, Surviving in a Ruthless World.140 Missing from the eight tracks on Infidels was “Blind Willie McTell,” a song that has been called “one of the great Bob Dylan songs,”141 “a masterpiece.”142 Though technically an outtake, “Blind Willie McTell” represents a pivotal moment in Dylan’s career. On the one hand, it indicates Dylan’s persistent interest in folk and blues music, not only by paying homage to the eponymous Georgia bluesman, but also by taking up subject matter long-favored in these musical traditions—life on the Mississippi Delta, the lingering specter of slavery, the watchful eye of the poet-singer, whose task is to conjure up the world’s terrible beauty. On the other hand, the song’s closing verse evokes Dylan’s gospel period and its apocalyptic expectations: “Well, God is in heaven / And we all want what’s his,” Dylan hisses. Sean Wilentz notes that these lines invoke poems by Robert Browning (“Pippa’s Song,” 1841) and Herman Melville (“The Fall of Richmond,” 1866), but the meaning is thoroughly biblical: “As rendered in Dylan’s official book of lyrics . . . the lines echo the Bible and convey a darker message. ‘God is in heaven, and thou upon earth,’ reads Ecclesiastes 5:2. [Dylan] describes a yearning for life everlasting—but also humankind’s blasphemous disregard for the separation of heaven and earth.”143 Moreover, as Dylan observes, this

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disregard can lead to disastrous consequences. When human beings mistake earthly desires for heavenly bliss, the upshot is catastrophic: “But power and greed and corruptible seed / Seem to be all that there is.” Ultimately, then, “Blind Willie McTell” shows Dylan approaching the concerns of the gospel period in different fashion. If gospel music is a kind of folk music—as indeed it is—there are other kinds of folk music as well, many of which are also rooted in religious life and expressive of religious themes.144 Dylan, of course, already knew this lesson; “Blind Willie McTell” reveals that, even if suppressed, it had not been forgotten. “MY HEART’S IN THE HIGHLANDS”: DYLAN’S LATER CAREER In July 1984, Dylan began recording the follow-up to Infidels. His music career was now more than two decades old, but, amazingly, he was not yet to its midpoint. From Empire Burlesque (1985) to Triplicate (2017), Dylan has issued 16 studio albums. Moreover, since 1988, Dylan has toured with unprecedented regularity, playing over 3,000 shows in 30 years—or almost two shows per week. Often referred to as the Never Ending Tour, it has added to Dylan’s mystique as a wandering poet or preacher, though Dylan has cast it in different terms: “Anybody with a trade can work as long as they want. A welder, a carpenter, an electrician. They don’t necessarily need to retire. . . . Every man should learn a trade. It’s different than a job.”145 Dylan has stayed active in other ways as well, co-writing and starring in the offbeat drama Masked and Anonymous in 2003, publishing his memoir Chronicles: Volume One in 2004, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, and even developing a line of whiskeys—conspicuously named Heaven’s Door— in 2018.146 While it may be true that Dylan is best remembered for his work in the 1960s and 1970s, his subsequent career has been anything but uneventful. One might even argue that, despite its ups and downs, this latter period represents a crystallization of Dylan’s artistic capacity. The overarching goal of this chapter has been to demonstrate that religion constitutes an essential piece of Dylan’s life and work. In other words, one cannot fully understand Dylan if one does not account for his intensive and extensive engagement with religious questions and themes. While the preceding survey of Dylan’s upbringing and oeuvre is not comprehensive, it is substantial enough to bear out this chapter’s thesis. For that reason, it is not necessary to delineate the last few decades of Dylan’s career; instead, the task is to highlight a handful of key developments and ongoing questions. First, not only did the mid- to late-1980s represent the nadir of Dylan’s critical and popular standing, but it was a period of personal crisis as well. In

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short, as the gospel period began to fade, Dylan doubted his next step. Empire Burlesque was “produced to attract radio listeners and MTV viewers,” while Knocked Out Loaded (1986) exemplified “a musical melting pot,” with Dylan recording “over several months in a number of different studios with different teams of musicians from very different backgrounds.”147 “Blind Willie McTell” charted a way forward—one that Dylan would ultimately take—but he did not see it yet. As he explains in retrospect: I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. Whatever was there to begin with had all vanished and shrunk. . . . Everything was smashed. My own songs had become strangers to me, I didn’t have the skill to touch their raw nerves, couldn’t penetrate the surfaces. It wasn’t my moment of history anymore. There was a hollow singing in my heart and I couldn’t wait to retire and fold the tent.148

The trouble had more to do with the proper vehicle for Dylan’s music than with the music itself. Dylan collaborated with artists and producers from a host of genres, including synth-pop (Arthur Baker and Dave A. Stewart), psychedelia (Grateful Dead), and heartland rock (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), not to mention his participation in supergroups USA for Africa and the Traveling Wilburys. None of it seemed to work. While on the Temples in Flames Tour in 1987, Dylan performed gospel-period songs such as “In the Garden” and “Dead Man, Dead Man” and, in Tel Aviv, even covered the traditional spiritual “Go Down Moses.” Yet, backed by Petty and playing in front of mass audiences, he felt indifferent to the material: “Night after night it was like I was on cruise control. . . . Even at the Petty shows I’d see the people in the crowd and they’d look like cutouts from a shooting gallery.”149 What he needed was a new way of approaching his music, and the answer turned out to be the Never Ending Tour—an idea that Dylan has likened to “start[ing] up again” and “put[ting] myself in the service of the public.”150 Almost constant touring would liberate Dylan from the pressures of being a rock star and put the emphasis back on the songs themselves, which, moreover, he was now committed to playing in a different musical style—one that he claims to have borrowed from blues greats Lonnie Johnson and Robert Johnson.151 This last point denotes the next major development in Dylan’s career: long hailed as an artistic trailblazer and rugged individualist, he would immerse himself in the accomplishment and ethos of past masters. Dylan had been toying with this idea at least since Down in the Groove (1988), which covers several tracks by other artists, including R&B singer Wilbert Harrison and pop songsmith Richard A. Whiting. But the trend became unmistakable with Good as I Been to You (1992) and World Gone Wrong (1993), back-to-back collections comprised entirely of covers from the folk and blues traditions. In one sense, Dylan was revisiting his own musical origins: “This was, to

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some extent, a return to the beginning, meaning Dylan’s first albums from Bob Dylan to Another Side of Bob Dylan.”152 But it was also a commentary on Dylan’s understanding of the contemporary music scene and of his place in it. Whatever had been deemed fashionable by record-label executives and pop-music gurus—and, in the 1990s, that especially meant grunge and hip-hop—Dylan was not interested. Even his own songcraft would “take inspiration from his glorious predecessors, Charley Patton and Slim Harpo,” exhibiting the “enormous artistic debt contemporary musical artists owe to the pioneers of American popular music.”153 Indeed, with this in mind, Dylan would release a string of revisionist blues-rock albums, each with a different personality—the melancholy Time Out of Mind (1997), the impish Love and Theft (2001), the mystical Modern Times (2006), the mercurial Together Through Life (2009), and the foreboding Tempest (2012). For many critics, this is one of the strongest sequences in Dylan’s career, rivaling (if not besting) his run of classic albums in the 1960s. Dylan’s success during the late 1990s and the first decades of the twentyfirst century fostered a third major late-career development, namely, his status as an ambassador for classic Americana. It is, indeed, a kind of paradox: the man whose creative genius would not be bound by folk music has used the twilight of his career to stress its timeless validity. He has even stepped outside of his presumptive wheelhouse—the songs of a Woody Guthrie or a Huddie Ledbetter (“Lead Belly”)—to promote the canon of pop and jazz standards that dominated American radio from the 1920s to the 1950s. Often referred to as the “Great American Songbook,” this was the soundtrack of Dylan’s parents’ generation, including orchestral pieces by composers such as George Gershwin and Duke Ellington and enduring vocal interpretations by crooners such as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Ella Fitzgerald. Dylan’s efforts to revive interest in classic Americana have been varied. From May 2006 to April 2009, he hosted a weekly satellite radio show called Theme Time Radio Hour. There were 101 episodes in all, each centered on an overarching subject such as “Baseball” and “War.” For his part, Dylan played the role of disc jockey, not only selecting songs but also serving as “instructor of music appreciation, biographer, comedian, commentator, and dispenser of recipes, household hints, and other bits of useful information.”154 The show has been categorized as an American version of Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779–81),155 and, in some ways, Dylan does take his duties as DJ seriously, offering interesting background information and occasionally tendering his own critical appraisal of an artist or song. Still, the essence of Theme Time Radio Hour is that of “an old-time radio show,” which highlights “a great deal of music that one doesn’t hear on the radio anymore.”156 Sure, Dylan mixes in the odd contemporary tune, but most of the tracks are culled from traditional sources—folk, blues, country, western

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swing, garage rock, gospel, “various crooners from the 1930s through the 1950s,” and so on. Apart from its own merits, Theme Time Radio Hour was the impetus for additional Dylan projects. The show had consistently demonstrated that Judeo-Christian themes infused popular American music: there were episodes on overt theological topics such as “The Devil,” “The Bible,” “Christmas and New Year’s,” and “Noah’s Ark,” as well as several installments that educed religious questions and sources such as “Wedding,” “Time,” and “Death and Taxes.” Airing on December 20, 2006, Dylan’s Christmas episode was particularly notable, not only due to its extended running time and apparent popularity (it would be re-aired on Christmas Eve, 2008), but also because it would precipitate Dylan’s own contribution to the Christmas music genre— the 2009 album Christmas in the Heart. Blending “traditional carols (roughly one-quarter of the album) with Tin Pan Alley holiday songs,” and evoking “the benign spirit of Bing Crosby,”157 Christmas in the Heart nonplussed the music press, who oddly failed to see its connections to Dylan’s musical and religious proclivities. As Sean Wilentz puts it, “The album contains not a single ironic or parodic note. It is a sincere, croaky-voiced homage to a particular vintage of popular American Christmas music, as well as testimony to Dylan’s abiding faith: hence, its title.”158 Much of Dylan’s work over the last decade can be aptly summed up as “homage.” Taken from the Old French omage, it originally indicated the allegiance shown by a vassal to a feudal lord. The one who does homage, then, is one who declares obligation and gratitude. Dating back to his early folk years, when he was known as a disciple of Woody Guthrie, Dylan has never shied away from showing respect to his artistic touchstones. Still, if nods to the Great American Songbook were unassuming on Theme Time Radio Hour, sprinkled as they were among songs from other genres and traditions, Dylan has recently paid direct homage to pop standards and, in particular, to the most celebrated representative of that tradition, Frank Sinatra. As of this writing, Dylan’s last three studio albums have consisted entirely of interpretations of the Great American Songbook. The first two of these recordings, Shadows in the Night (2015) and Fallen Angels (2016), showcase songs once performed by and oft-associated with Sinatra. The third album, aptly named Triplicate (2017), displays a more wide-ranging interest in the tradition, featuring 30 songs across a trio of discs. As with Christmas in the Heart, there was some public bewilderment as to why Dylan would return to the “musical world . . . [that] rock ’n’ roll was born to abolish.”159 But Dylan had been interested in such projects for decades: “Ever since Willie Nelson’s album Stardust, released in 1978, Bob Dylan had the idea of making an album of ten romantic pop standards that had been recorded and sung by Frank Sinatra.”160 Moreover, in November 1995, Dylan was a guest

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performer at a televised concert held in honor of Sinatra’s 80th birthday. He played “Restless Farewell,” the final track on The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1963). On the surface, it seems an odd choice: “Restless Farewell” stems from Dylan’s early folk period, and he rarely performed it live.161 Yet the song’s final stanza, now delivered in the voice of a weathered icon rather than an immaculate newcomer, intimates both admiration and identification. “Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time,” Dylan sings, “To disgrace, distract, and bother me.” Yet, his response is not to give up but, rather, to steel himself in the face of adversity: “So I’ll make my stand . . . / And bid farewell and not give a damn.” In selecting this song, Dylan may have been gesturing toward its uncanny resemblance to Sinatra’s 1969 hit “My Way.” Still, Dylan’s appreciation of Sinatra was not a late-career discovery. As he recalls in Chronicles, he had always had an affinity for the Great American Songbook, including classics such as “Ol’ Man River” and “Stardust,” both written in 1927.162 And as for Sinatra in particular, Dylan adds, “I could hear everything in his voice—death, God and the universe, everything.”163 Of course, “death, God and the universe” is a fitting précis of Dylan’s own lyrical interests, which have remained true to form during the latter part of his career. While metaphysical and mystical themes are consonant with Dylan’s mining of traditional American music,164 it is illuminating that, prior to the release of Tempest, he confessed an ongoing desire to focus on “specifically religious songs.”165 A collection of such music has yet to materialize, but, according to some commentators, this aspiration has been implicit in much of Dylan’s output from Time Out of Mind to Tempest: Many of Dylan’s albums recently have had the theme of God’s judgment and the apocalypse and the possibility of salvation. . . . Dylan has jibed at us for being surprised about this: “I was sitting in church / on an old wooden chair / I know nobody would look for me there (“Marchin’ to the City,” Tell Tale Signs). But he is preoccupied with the apocalypse, religion and God, no matter how we might see the world.166

In recent interviews, Dylan has remained coy about such concerns, though he has left no doubt as to the abiding influence of faith on his work. “[It is] all instilled in me. I wouldn’t know to get rid of it,” he told Jann Wenner in 2007. In short, Dylan’s later career can be seen as a movement ad fontes, in which he returned to his musical roots in blues, folk, gospel, and jazz. Moreover, in the process, he authored new songs of rich lyrical texture, interweaving themes of judgment, love, mortality, and spirituality, all with an eye to the mysteries of divine revelation.167 Perhaps no song better sums up this approach than “Highlands,” the 16-minute opus that concludes Time Out of Mind. Drawing on a guitar riff from Mississippi bluesman Charley Patton,

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and taking lyrical inspiration from Scottish poet Robert Burns, “Highlands” meanders through many of Dylan’s most personal concerns—the thoughtless squandering of youth, the steely resignation of old age, the evanescent comedy of quotidian life. And yet, despite it all, the song’s refrain suggests that Dylan’s hope remains focused on a distant country, far removed from earthly care and sorrow: Well my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam That’s where I’ll be when I get called home The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme Well my heart’s in the Highlands I can only get there one step at a time

Here, as ever, Dylan returns to the transcendent, as if it were beckoning his creativity from beyond—the lodestar of a life’s calling. CONCLUSION: WHAT DOES DYLAN’S RELIGIOUS ENGAGEMENT MEAN? The overarching purpose of this chapter has been to demonstrate (i) that religious sources and themes can be detected throughout Dylan’s corpus and (ii) that this religious component is so central that one cannot rightly come to grips with Dylan’s work without taking it into account. In and of themselves, these are not groundbreaking theses. That is to say, even if casual fans continue to view Dylan as a figurehead of 1960s counterculture, and even if secular-minded critics prefer to dismiss or ignore Dylan’s religious interests, it is nevertheless the case that many commentators have called attention to this aspect of his life and career. A number of studies have examined Dylan’s appropriation of Scripture. In 1985, Bert Cartwright issued The Bible in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan—a brief but meticulous study, which remains an important point of entry into the topic.168 Recently, Michael Gilmour has expanded on Cartwright’s efforts, penning a pair of books that address Dylan’s explicit and implicit use of both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.169 Others have chosen to concentrate on how Dylan personifies the habits and practices of a particular religious tradition. Seth Rogovoy treats Dylan as a kind of badkhn, a Jewish folk artist who entertains with jokes, riddles, and tales.170 In contrast, Scott Marshall submits that Dylan is best understood as a committed (if somewhat unorthodox) evangelical Christian.171 Francis Beckwith, meanwhile, presents Dylan as a proponent of Aristotelian-cumCatholic notions of natural law and virtue ethics.172 All make good cases, but none can claim the final word. For Dylan draws “on multiple religious

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traditions and attitudes” and colors them with his “marvelously syncretistic imagination.”173 If, then, it is impracticable to locate Dylan in a specific religious tradition or to reduce the meaning of his art to a single theological Weltanschauung, would it be possible to find a vantage point from which to make sense of his religious interests? Two such inquiries immediately come to mind. The first is Christopher Ricks’ Dylan’s Visions of Sin (2003), which groups Dylan’s songs into three overarching categories: (i) “The Sins,” (ii) “The Virtues,” and (iii) “The Heavenly Graces.” A knighted literary critic, not to mention an avowed atheist,174 Ricks is less interested in Dylan’s theology than in finding “the right way to take hold of the bundle.”175 For Ricks, in other words, theological concepts provide an organizational scaffolding whereby Dylan’s art, especially his lyrical virtuosity, can be analyzed. As he puts it, “The seven deadly sins, the four cardinal virtues (harder to remember?), and the three heavenly graces: these make up everybody’s world—but Dylan’s in particular. Or rather, his worlds, since human dealings of every kind are his for the artistic seizing.”176 Ricks scrutinizes dozens of Dylan tracks, even obscurities such as “Precious Angel” and “Handy Dandy.” The upshot is that Dylan emerges as one of the titans of Western letters—a figure whom Ricks compares to poets such as John Milton and T. S. Eliot. Less ambitious, but more accessible, than Ricks’ tome is Sean Wilentz’s Bob Dylan in America (2010). Wilentz is a longtime professor of American History at Princeton, and so it is not surprising that he views Dylan against the backdrop of American culture. Wilentz’s Dylan is a “masked, shape-changing American alchemist,” whose true genius lies in “absorbing, transmuting, and renewing and improving American art forms long thought to be trapped in formal conventions.”177 It is in this connection Wilentz touches on Dylan’s interest in religion. The centrality of religion to the American story means that Dylan’s art, too, is unavoidably religious. Here Wilentz is not just referring to Dylan’s gospel period. In fact, the gospel period itself, rooted in “the Deep South, the South of black gospel and rhythm and blues,”178 is seen as confirmation of Wilentz’s larger thesis. The same is true of Dylan’s affinity for folk music. When Dylan covers a traditional song such as “Lone Pilgrim,” as he did on World Gone Wrong, he is tapping into the theology of American Christianity. “Lone Pilgrim” is among the songs collected in The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion (1835) and The Sacred Harp (1844), popular early American hymnbooks.179 For Wilentz, then, it is a mistake to view Dylan as a private, entrepreneurial songsmith. His art belongs to a line of succession, stretching, in the case of “Lone Pilgrim,” to long-forgotten Americans such as Brother John Ellis and Joseph Thomas—itinerant nineteenth-century preachers, who respectively were the author and the subject of “Lone Pilgrim.”180

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The aim of the present study is to synthesize and deepen the respective approaches of Ricks and Wilentz. The former hardly explores the theoretical background of concepts such as “sin” and “virtue”; the latter effectively treats Dylan’s attentiveness to religion as an inheritance of American folk traditions. More can and should be done. This study will expand Ricks’ schema by showing that religion lies at the heart of Dylan’s oeuvre, not in monolithic or univocal fashion, but precisely in and through the equivocity highlighted by Wilentz. As an American folk artist, Dylan does indeed absorb a plurality of interests and life-views, albeit not as a matter of indifference. The centrality of religion to his life and art suggests that, even if he respects the integrity of each existential perspective, he nevertheless orders them in terms of spiritual depth and meaning, from the alluring volatility of sensuous desire to timeless questions about the good life, culminating in the quest for God. The great Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard will help flesh out this point. One of the focal points of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre is the nature and the purpose of the self. As he sees it, the human being is a synthesis of dialectical elements—infinitude and finitude, possibility and necessity, eternality and temporality. Each person relates to these elements based on the existential “sphere” to which she belongs. Kierkegaard theorizes that there are three such spheres, which he tends to situate in ascending order: the aesthetic involves a preference for immediate experience (construed in various ways); the ethical has to do with achieving a sense of personal identity by way of living for enduring commitments and values; the religious initially concerns the immanent human quest for eternal life but, according to Kierkegaard, ultimately comes to rest in God’s transcendent self-revelation in Jesus Christ. More will be said about Kierkegaard’s thought in the following chapters. In particular, I will argue that Kierkegaard’s theory of existential spheres gives us an illuminating way of approaching Dylan’s art. If, as Ricks observes, the interpreter of Dylan is faced with the question of how “to take hold of the bundle,” it is my contention that Kierkegaard’s thought can help us do precisely that. Just as Kierkegaard’s existential spheres “provide a kind of conceptual ‘map’ of the possibilities that confront a human exister,”181 so do Dylan’s songs explore the same possibilities. That is not to say that Dylan consciously applied Kierkegaard’s theory to his songwriting or that Dylan should be considered a “Kierkegaardian.” Rather, it is to say that the complex nature of Dylan’s work can be illuminated by Kierkegaard’s existentialist anthropology. The latter offers a hermeneutical key that can unlock the former.

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NOTES 1. This quotation and all others from the Bible are from the Authorized King James Version, unless otherwise noted. 2. Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michael Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2015), 24. 3. Unless otherwise noted, all song lyrics by Bob Dylan are taken from: Bob Dylan, bobdylan.com, http:​//​www​.bobdylan​.com​/songs​/. 4. Peter Vernezze and Paul Lulewicz, “‘I Got My Bob Dylan Mask On’: Bob Dylan and Personal Identity,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 132–33. 5. R. Clifton Spargo and Anne K. Ream, “Bob Dylan and Religion,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan, ed. Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 88. 6. David E. Kaufman, Jewhooing the Sixties: American Celebrity and Jewish Identity (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012), 162. 7. Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New York: Grove Press, 2011), 21. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid., 23. 10. Ibid., 23–24. 11. Ibid., 25. 12. Kaufman, Jewhooing the Sixties, 162. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15. Sounes, Down the Highway, 28. 16. Seth Rogovoy, Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (New York: Scribner, 2009), 7–8. 17. Sounes, Down the Highway, 28. 18. These remarks came from an interview: Scott Cohen, “‘Don’t Ask Me Nothin’ About Nothin,’ I Might Just Tell You the Truth: Bob Dylan Revisited,” Spin (December 1985). 19. Robert Shelton, No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan (Milwaukee: Backbeat Books, 2011), 36. 20. Rogovoy, Bob Dylan, 8. In a recent interview, Louie Kemp claims that he and Dylan actually spent five summers at Herzl Camp. See Nadine Epstein, “My Adventures with Bob Dylan: An Interview with Louie Kemp,” Moment, May 24, 2019, https:​ //​momentmag​.com​/my​-adventures​-with​-bob​-dylan​-an​-interview​-with​-louie​-kemp​/. 21. Epstein, “My Adventures with Bob Dylan: An Interview with Louie Kemp,” https:​//​momentmag​.com​/my​-adventures​-with​-bob​-dylan​-an​-interview​-with​-louie​ -kemp​/. 22. Sounes, Down the Highway, 32. 23. Ibid., 27. Curiously, Beatty’s brother Lewis Stone later reflected that musicianship did not come as easy to Dylan as to his younger brother David. And yet, Dylan

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had a passion that would not be stifled: he taught himself how to play the family’s Gulbranson spinet piano, and he later picked up trumpet, saxophone, and acoustic guitar, teaching himself the latter by using the Nick Manoloff Basic Spanish Guitar Manual (ibid.). 24. Ibid., 32. 25. Ibid., 32. 26. Ibid., 34–35. 27. Ibid., 44. In August 1962, Dylan made his new name official at the New York City Supreme Court (ibid., 126). 28. Ibid., 50. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., 51. 31. Ibid., 56. 32. Quoted in ibid., 58. 33. Ibid., 58. 34. Ibid., 59. 35. Bob Scroggins, “Dylan, Spider John, and the Purple Onion,” Saint Paul Almanac, October 28, 2014, https:​//​saintpaulalmanac​.org​/2014​/10​/28​/dylan​-spider​-john​ -and​-the​-purple​-onion​/. 36. Sounes, Down the Highway, 70–71. 37. Ibid., 79. 38. Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 1–3. 39. Ibid., 1. 40. Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 9. 41. Ibid., 9. 42. Ibid., 16. 43. Ibid., 17. 44. Ibid., 18. 45. Ibid., 18. 46. Ibid., 19. 47. Ibid., 18. 48. Ibid., 27. 49. Kip Lornell, Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States, 3rd edition (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 13. 50. Ibid., emphasis in original. 51. Ibid., 14. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid., 6. 54. Dylan, Chronicles, 34. 55. Scott M. Marshall, Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life (Washington, D.C.: BP Books, 2017), 8. 56. W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1994), 157.

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57. Ibid., 163. 58. Quoted in Marshall, Dylan: A Spiritual Life, 7. 59. Quoted in ibid., 10. 60. Ibid. 61. Quoted in Colbert S. Cartwright, “The Times They Are a-Changin’: The Time-Wearied Troubadour Turns 50,” Sojourners (June 1991), 40. 62. Ralph J. Gleason, “Bob Dylan: The Children’s Crusade,” Ramparts (March 1966), 28. 63. Ibid., 33. 64. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 180. 65. Quoted in ibid. 66. Of course, as Dylan well knew, this understanding itself is central to the blues tradition. In “Cross Road Blues” (1936), Mississippi singer-songwriter Robert Johnson suggests that the highway is a site of hierophany: “I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees / Asked the Lord above, ‘Have mercy, now, save poor Bob if you please.’” Famously, such lines, which recur in Johnson’s catalog, have been interpreted as indicating that Johnson once made a Faustian bargain—a rumor that seemed to gain eerie confirmation when Johnson vanished in August 1938. Notably, Dylan discusses Johnson at length in Chronicles, stating that when he first encountered Johnson’s music, he “listened to it repeatedly, cut after cut . . . sitting staring at the record player. Whenever I did, it felt like a ghost had come into the room, a fearsome apparition” (Dylan, Chronicles, 282–87). 67. Quoted in Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 212. 68. Ibid., 222. 69. Ibid., 223. 70. See also, e.g., 2 Sam. 7:17, Isa. 1:1, Ezek. 1:1, Dan. 8:1–2, Dan. 10:7, Lk. 1:22, Acts 9:10–12, Acts 22:17–18. 71. On the morning of July 29, 1966, Dylan crashed his Triumph 500 motorcycle on a road outside Woodstock, New York. To this day, the extent of Dylan’s injuries are unclear; what is clear is that Dylan’s recovery lasted over a year, during which time remained out of the public eye. 72. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 212. 73. Quoted in ibid., 246. 74. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2019), 36. 75. Colin Wilson, The Outsider: The Classic Exploration of Rebellion and Creativity (New York: TarcherPerigree, 2016), 18. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Sounes, Down the Highway, 181. 79. Dylan married Sara Lownds on November 22, 1965, and their first child Jesse was born less than two months later. While Dylan shrouded his marriage in secrecy prior to the motorcycle accident, he “settled down to a relatively quiet domestic life” after that, with Sara giving birth to three children from 1967–69 (Sounes, Down the Highway, 195, 201, 209–10, 223, 237, 256). 80. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 248.

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81. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 161. 82. Sounes, Down the Highway, 230. 83. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 248. 84. Greil Marcus, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes (London: Picador, 1997), 125. 85. Ibid. 86. Tyler Wilcox, “The Strangest (and Funniest) Moments from Bob Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes Sessions,” Pitchfork, August 28, 2014, https:​//​pitchfork​.com​ /thepitch​/468​-the​-strangest​-and​-funniest​-moments​-from​-bob​-dylan​-and​-the​-bands​ -basement​-tapes​-sessions​/. 87. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 276. 88. Ibid., 276, 280. 89. Ibid., 276. 90. Cott (ed.), The Essential Interviews, 276. 91. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 362–63. 92. Ibid., 363. 93. Ibid., 381. 94. Sounes, Down the Highway, 274–75, 278. 95. Ibid., 277. 96. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 403–4. 97. Sounes, Down the Highway, 281–82. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid., 283. 100. Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 138. 101. Ibid., 139. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid., 140. 105. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 441. 106. Sounes, Down the Highway, 292. 107. Ibid., 297–98. 108. See, e.g., Christopher B. Barnett and Clark J. Elliston (eds.), Scorsese and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2019). 109. Sounes, Down the Highway, 304. 110. Ibid., 308–13. 111. Ibid., 319. 112. Ibid., 323. 113. Ibid., 319. 114. Ibid., 325. 115. Marshall, Dylan: A Spiritual Life, 3. 116. Ibid., 6. 117. Joel Selvin, “Bob Dylan’s God-Awful Gospel,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 3, 1979. 118. Sounes, Down the Highway, 324.

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119. Ibid., 325. It is worth adding, however, that Dylan retrospectively claimed that he “was doing fine” and “was relatively content” around the time of his Christian conversion. See Cott (ed.), The Essential Interviews, 296. 120. Richard A. Bustraan, The Jesus People Movement: A Story of Spiritual Revolution among the Hippies (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 64. 121. Sounes, Down the Highway, 325. 122. Cott (ed.), The Essential Interviews, 296. 123. Ibid., 298. 124. Ibid. 125. Clinton Heylin, Trouble in Mind: Bob Dylan’s Gospel Years: What Really Happened (New York: Lesser Gods, 2017), 16. 126. Quoted in ibid., 17. 127. Quoted in ibid., 28. 128. Ibid., 28. 129. Quoted in ibid., 30. 130. See, i.e., Gen 2:19: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” 131. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 477. 132. Heylin, Trouble in Mind, 207–9. 133. Ibid., 208. 134. See, e.g., Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 510. 135. Quoted in Heylin, Trouble in Mind, 281. 136. Heylin, Trouble in Mind, 281. 137. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 581. 138. Quoted in Heylin, Trouble in Mind, 282. 139. Quoted in ibid. 140. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 510. 141. Ibid., 521. 142. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 199. 143. Ibid., 201. 144. See, e.g., Lornell, Exploring American Folk Music, 143–201. 145. Cott (ed.), The Essential Interviews, 500. 146. Joseph Hudak, “Bob Dylan Whiskey Distillery, Center for the Arts to Open in Nashville in 2020,” Rolling Stone, April 9, 2019, https:​//​www​.rollingstone​.com​/music​ /music​-country​/bob​-dylan​-whiskey​-distillery​-nashville​-820062​/. 147. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 526, 538. 148. Dylan, Chronicles, 148. 149. Ibid., 152. 150. Ibid., 154. 151. Ibid., 157–61. 152. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 588. 153. Ibid., 614, 632.

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154. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 321. Nevertheless, I agree with Wilentz that comparisons to the Lives of the Poets is “a little too high-minded” (ibid.). 155. Ibid. 156. Ibid., 322. 157. Ibid., 332. 158. Ibid. 159. Michael Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia: Updated and Revised Edition (New York: Continuum, 2008), 624. 160. Margotin and Guesdon, Dylan: All the Songs, 693. 161. Gray, Dylan Encyclopedia, 624. 162. Dylan, Chronicles, 80–81. 163. Ibid., 81. 164. In 2007, Dylan was asked about the use of “religious imagery” in his songs. He replied, “That kind of imagery is just as natural to me as breathing, because the world of folk songs has enveloped me for so long. . . . It doesn’t come from the radio or TV or computers or any of that stuff. It’s embedded in the folk music of the English language” (Cott [ed.], The Essential Interviews, 488). 165. Quoted in Marshall, Dylan: A Spiritual Life, 218. 166. Quoted in ibid. The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006 (2008) is a compilation album, gathering alternate versions, demos, live cuts, and outtakes from a variety of late-period contexts. “Marchin’ to the City” is a previously unreleased track from the Time Out of Mind sessions. 167. Cott [ed.], The Essential Interviews, 489. 168. Bert Cartwright, The Bible in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan (Lancashire: Wanted Man, 1985). Cartwright issued a revised edition in 1992. 169. Michael J. Gilmour, Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan and Scripture (New York: Continuum, 2004) and The Gospel According to Bob Dylan: The Old, Old Story for Modern Times (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011). 170. Rogovoy, Bob Dylan, 1–4. 171. Marshall, Dylan: A Spiritual Life, 254: “When Bob Dylan penned [the gospel song] ‘Saving Grace’ in 1979, he plainly wrote that after the death of life comes the resurrection—and wherever he is welcome is where he will be. Why bet against Dylan having a place at that heavenly welcome table? He’s been hungry as a horse for a good long while.” 172. Francis J. Beckwith, “Busy Being Born Again: Bob Dylan’s Christian Philosophy,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 145–55. 173. Spargo and Ream, “Bob Dylan and Religion,” 88. 174. Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (New York: Ecco, 2003), 378–79. 175. Ibid., 6. 176. Ibid., 2. 177. Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America, 334–35. 178. Ibid., 181. 179. Ibid., 245.

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180. Ibid., 246–53. 181. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 69.

Chapter 2

Dylan as Poet of the Aesthetic

The terms “aesthetic” and “aesthetics” have become part of our common parlance. For example, a critic may analyze the “aesthetic” favored by a certain filmmaker or musician, or an architect may study the “aesthetics” of a certain city. But what do such expressions mean? The word “aesthetic” can be traced back to the Greek verb aisthanesthai, which means “to perceive or to feel, whether by the senses or by the mind.” Yet, in the eighteenth century, this ordinary term acquired new philosophical significance. Spearheaded by German thinker Alexander Baumgarten (1714–62), who sought to analyze the nature of artistic taste, “aesthetics” eventually emerged as a proper branch of Western philosophy. The philosophical aesthetics expounded in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790) proved especially influential. For Kant, aesthetically beautiful phenomena and productions are valuable precisely to the extent that their form arouses and intensifies “the free play of the cognitive faculties.”1 For Kant, in other words, the purpose of art is to bring pleasure, rather than to discharge any practical function. Subsequent movements and theorists would bring out the implications of Kant’s rationalistic aesthetics. Key in this connection is Romanticism. Kant’s emphasis on “the conditions of perception for the perceiving subject”—in particular, his famous epistemological distinction between objects as we know them (“phenomena”) and objects as they are in themselves (“noumena”)—is that which “creates the very possibility of Romanticism.”2 This is because “Romantic writers and artists uniformly emphasized the position that the outside world is an imaginative construction, and that whether we are awake or dreaming, we are self-producing; the world’s characteristics are ultimately of our own making.”3 With this in mind, leading Romantic figures such as English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) and German painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) came to stress that genuine art is primarily a matter of original inspiration and emotional power. As Friedrich once put it, “The artist’s feeling is his law.”4 39

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It is against the backdrop of these developments that Kierkegaard worked out his concept of “the aesthetic” (det Æstetiske). In the first section of this chapter, I will survey Kierkegaard’s place in modern debates about aesthetics, paying particular attention to his concerns about Romanticism. Next, I will probe Kierkegaard’s notion of an aesthetic existential sphere, detailing why he believes a life dedicated to the satisfaction of immediate desire is at once instinctively alluring and perilously deficient. Third, and most importantly, I will examine Bob Dylan’s oeuvre, identifying a number of songs that correspond to Kierkegaard’s understanding of the aesthetic. Some of these compositions capture the raw appeal of the aesthetic, while others indicate its reflective and even dismal side. And yet, as will be seen, many of Dylan’s most accomplished tracks bear a notable resemblance to Kierkegaard’s analysis, sketching out how a life dedicated to aesthetic pursuits, while enticing, is bound to terminate in unhappiness. Thus Dylan, one of the great artists of the last century, points his audience beyond the notion of art for art’s sake. KIERKEGAARD AND MODERN AESTHETICS Despite his unmistakable interest in aesthetics, Kierkegaard did not systematically approach the subject in the manner of Kant or Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). That should not imply, however, that Kierkegaard’s thought is divorced from critical analysis of the purpose and significance of art. As George Pattison puts it, “Kierkegaard’s authorship belongs to a powerful stream of modern European reflection on art and the artist that situates the crisis of modern art in a wider crisis of meaning and value.”5 As with “Romantics and Hegelians alike,” Kierkegaard understands art “in an idealistic framework.”6 What this means, in short, is that art and reality are at odds. Whereas the intricacy of the latter thwarts the satisfaction of human desire, the former elicits pleasure by presenting an “ideal unity,” whereby a “single, cohesive whole” is able to emerge out of a plethora of elements.7 In such a scenario, both artist and audience are united in the idea, and “the disparities and contradictions of life are reconciled.”8 But precisely herein lies the difficulty. The gratification and refreshment afforded by art is rarely, if ever, found in real life. Kierkegaard likens this conundrum to the relationship between Moses and Joshua in the Bible: the great prophet Moses, who is only allowed to see the Promised Land (Deut. 32:52), ultimately falls short of his ostensive subordinate (Josh. 3–4). As Kierkegaard puts it in an 1837 journal entry: “It is always the Moses in our life (our whole, full, poetic life-power) who does not enter the Promised Land; it is only the Joshua in our life who enters; as Moses is related to Joshua, so the poetic morning-dream of our life is related to its actuality.”9 The solace provided by art, then, is chimerical and

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the one who seeks it ultimately unhappy. The “motto for all poetic existence,” Kierkegaard concludes, is that it “necessarily must be unhappy.”10 For Pattison, Kierkegaard thereby owes a great deal to what he terms the “Hegelian consensus” on aesthetics, namely, that art is at best a halfway house on the path toward the highest “standpoint of absolute self-reflection and freedom.”11 Instead of achieving “authentic conscious existence,” the aesthete comes to a developmental standstill, as if a “flower woven in damask cloth.”12 But there is another side to Kierkegaard’s understanding of aesthetics. In his response to Romanticism, Kierkegaard registers an ethical concern. While displaying a degree of sympathy for the movement, particularly in his early student years, Kierkegaard came to question the existential implications of Romantic aesthetics. Insofar as “the romantic itself [is] a continual grasping after something which eludes,”13 it remains locked within the subjunctive mood, dreaming of what might be rather than realizing what is. At its best, this disposition of wistful yearning can spark creativity and wonder. Thus Kierkegaard cites the Danish hymnist Hans Adolph Brorson (1694–1764): “When the heart is most oppressed / Then the harp of joy is tuned.”14 Indeed, even the pains of death can be beautiful if they are given the right aesthetic vehicle. Writing as an aesthete known only as “A,” Kierkegaard translates Brorson’s insight into one of his most memorable passages: What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. It is with him as with the poor wretches in Phalaris’s bronze bull, who were slowly tortured over a slow fire; their screams could not reach the tyrant’s ears to terrify him; to him they sounded like sweet music.15

In this way, Kierkegaard underscores that Romanticism is fundamentally ironic: the artist’s vitality comes from his negation of the real world. Such an approach may yield exquisite art, but it also renders “the whole of existence to be inadequate, meaningless, and boring.”16 The Romantic emphasis on creative self-determination—the notion that “one is able to create oneself, to become whatever one wills”—issues in a radically poetic worldview that puts others at risk.17 Drawing on Kierkegaard’s doctoral dissertation The Concept of Irony (1841), which pays sustained attention to this topic and thereby lays the groundwork for later treatments, Sylvia Walsh sums up Kierkegaard’s critique of Romantic artists in this way: “Free from cares and responsibilities, making no commitments, and admitting no claims upon themselves, they abandon themselves to reckless play.”18 Thus the “crisis of meaning and value” alluded to earlier is indeed bound up with various turns in modern aesthetics. Romantic notions of creativity and feeling were the flip side of the Enlightenment’s redefinition of

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critical reason and its role in adjudicating sociopolitical affairs. Amid this tension “Kierkegaard did not merely describe [but] lived what Heidegger has called ‘the raging discordance between art and truth.’”19 That is to say, as Kierkegaard’s authorship unfolded, he both theorized about and poetically illustrated what it would mean to live as one devoted to aesthetics rather than another form of life. Ultimately, this combination of concept and picture helped construct a key part of Kierkegaard’s three “spheres” or “stages” of existence, which describe different and often competing standpoints on life’s meaning and purpose. The following section will explore the first of these stages—labelled det Æstetiske by Kierkegaard—and thereby pave the way for a discussion of how a number of Dylan’s songs epitomize an aesthetic worldview. KIERKEGAARD AND DET ÆSTETISKE When we observe how people live, it is pretty clear that they have different interests and passions. These influences, in turn, give shape to their lives. For example, one person cares a great deal about environmental sustainability, and so her life choices—from her college major to her line of employment— reflect her preoccupation. Another person desires to be a great athlete and organizes his thoughts and activities in accordance with this aspiration. A third person has an abiding religious faith and, longing to know God more deeply, adopts a lifestyle dedicated to doing so. In each case, one’s inner concerns give one’s outer life a certain form. But are these Lebensformen—to adopt the term favored by Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein—of equal import and significance? Or are some preferable to others? If the latter, what is the basis by which we discriminate between them? Kierkegaard’s theory of existential “spheres” or “stages” addresses these concerns. In anticipation of developmental psychologists such as Erik Erikson (1902–94), Kierkegaard sketches a model of existential maturation in which “it is natural for human beings to begin as children in the aesthetic stage and progress to the ethical and eventually the religious stages.”20 At the same time, however, Kierkegaard recognizes that “persons are partially self-determining beings who freely participate in their own development.”21 For that reason, it is by no means certain that they will advance from stage to stage in the cyclic manner of vegetative life. Human beings can oscillate or stall in their psycho-spiritual development, whether by conscious choice or through unconscious factors such as cultural norms. Hence, what Kierkegaard understood to be “natural” in terms of “God’s intentions for his human creation”22 turns out to be fairly unpredictable. With this in mind, Kierkegaard’s schema of aesthetic-ethical-religious can also be seen as a description of

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competing spheres, whereby a “conceptual ‘map’ of the possibilities that confront a human exister”23 is tendered for existential reflection. Whether one thinks in terms of stages or spheres, “Kierkegaard believes the majority of people live their lives as aesthetes.”24 That is not to suggest that all such aesthetes are “immature” in the common sense of the word. Some of history’s most influential figures, from artists to politicians to thinkers, might very well categorized as “aesthetes.” How is this possible? For Kierkegaard, at the core of the aesthetic sphere lies a desire to prioritize immediate gratification over other potential goods. According to this mindset, the self is viewed “as a given, complete with a set of wants to satisfy,” and so the goal of life is “to satisfy as many desires as possible.”25 The aesthete, in other words, lives to get what he wants. As “A” puts it: If I had in my service a submissive spirit who, when I asked for a glass of water, would bring me all the world’s costliest wines, deliciously blended in a goblet, I would dismiss him until he learned that enjoyment does not consist in what I enjoy but in getting my own way.26

Still, just how one gets one’s way is significant. As Kierkegaard sees it, there are as many aesthetes as there are desires. One person may crave nothing but bodily gratification, while another may have more sophisticated tastes in mind. What unites such disparate examples, however, is that they both give priority to self-gratification at the expense of an ethico-spiritual view of “life as a task.”27 Sophisticated aesthetes may be meticulous in conducting their worldly affairs, but, lacking in “emotional and passional involvement,”28 their intellectual prowess is merely a tool for self-aggrandizement. Indeed, inasmuch as Kierkegaard proposes “A” as the “prime representative of the aesthetic life,” it stands to reason that, in a certain sense, the sophisticated aesthete is superior to and even “more appealing” than the immediate one.29 Whereas the latter erupts with urgent desire—and thus can all too easily burn out—the former is capable of cultivating a life of detached egoism. But what, exactly, is the wellspring of an aesthetic form of life? Are some persons just “born aesthetes,” or are they motivated by an underlying philosophy, however inchoately articulated? Kierkegaard addresses this complex issue in a sequence of pseudonymous books, especially Either/Or (1843), Repetition (1843), and Stages on Life’s Way (1845). Still, the most fundamental explanation of det Æstetiske is presented by “A” in the first part of Either/ Or. According to “A,” anyone who has cared for children knows that the first rule of thumb is to keep them entertained. This is because children are naturally and, to an extent, innocently inclined toward the aesthetic: not yet mature enough to discharge ethical duties or to understand religious self-abnegation, children run from amusement to amusement, seeking to ward off boredom.

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Adults caught up in the aesthetic are little different. Their primary motivation is not for the good but away from boredom, and, insofar as this enterprise is successful, they are happy. Citing the social panacea of “bread and circuses” in ancient Rome, “A” argues that entertainment is precisely what forestalled the empire’s dissolution. It is when boredom sets in that disaster ensues. With this in mind, “A” tenders his underlying philosophical premise: “Boredom (Kjedsommelighed) is the root of all evil.”30 “A” presents his case with waggish irony, but his point is no joke. One need only consider laws against loitering and sociopolitical concerns about unemployment to recognize that boredom is generally perceived as a threat. Now, from an aesthetic point of view, one might deal with boredom by identifying a source of pleasure, exhausting it, and then moving on to another source—indeed, not unlike a child switching from one toy to the next. And yet, since resources are limited and the pursuit of them taxing, “A” proffers a different approach. As he sees it, one must learn to nurture aesthetic experience through a method of calculated alternation—what he calls “the rotation of crops” (Vexel-Driften). Just as a farmer may harvest beans in September and broccoli in November, so must the discerning aesthete realize that each pleasure has its “season.” For example, there is a time for the sweet joys of love and a time for the untamed ardor of lust, but too much of either will create fatigue. Balance is needed, and it can only be established through the capacities of imagination and reflection. On this reading, the cultivation of aesthetic existence is itself a work of art, though, as any artist will attest, it comes with a cost. As “A” puts it, “From the beginning one puts a limit on the enjoyment and does not hoist full sail for any decision; one indulges with a certain mistrust.”31 Such limits extend into one’s interpersonal life as well, since, after all, other persons are merely sensuous phenomena drawn into the aesthete’s project of creative self-determination. For that reason, the aesthete must “guard against permanent commitments, such as friendship and marriage, that limit artistic freedom and make it impossible to do what the aesthete desires.”32 This is not necessarily a license to abuse others—what oenophile would squander a vintage bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild—but it does place human relations outside of an ethical framework. It is hardly an accident, then, that the first part of Either/Or concludes with “The Seducer’s Diary,” which carries det Æstetiske to its logical conclusion. This epistolary novella, which was a cause célèbre in Danish letters upon its release, traces the cunning manner in which a reflective aesthete seduces a young woman. The goal for this seducer is not sex per se; it is the titillation produced by watching another slowly bend to his will. Hence, when the young woman finally succumbs to his machinations and consummates their affair, the seducer is not elated but disheartened: “It is beautiful to love only so long as resistance is present; as soon as it ceases, love is weakness and habit.”33

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In the second part of Either/Or, and as will be discussed in chapter 3, Kierkegaard develops a number of criticisms of “A’s” philosophy of the aesthetic, but here cracks already begin to emerge. Most obvious is the fact that the satisfaction of the aesthete’s desire does not produce delight, still less than anything like genuine happiness. As the seducer protests, “Why cannot such a night last longer? If Alectryon could forget himself, why cannot the sun be sympathetic enough for this?”34 Aesthetic pleasure, precisely because it is earthly pleasure, subject to the conditions of finitude and temporality, is ipso facto contingent and evanescent. Even the sophisticated aesthete’s painstaking effort to “rotate” his aesthetic experiences must, in the end, terminate in disappointment. This brute fact is not lost on “A,” who embraces it as both a sign of spiritual depth and creative inspiration. “My melancholy is the most faithful lover I have known,” he notes, “no wonder, then, that I love in return.”35 The more one reflects on the conditions of det Æstetiske, the more one falls into a kind of depression—a sense that such a life is bound to end in tragedy. As William Shakespeare puts it in Sonnet XII: Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake, And die as fast as they see others grow.36

One can try to escape this fate, but, for “A,” the better path is to meet it head-on and to wrench poetry from it. In this way, he suggests that the specter of meaningless “is given a kind of meaning and is no longer pointless,” even “without appeal to any doctrine of life after death.”37 Such an aesthete, as Friedrich Nietzsche would recognize in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), is cast as a tragic hero. In theory, then, the aesthetic has its own version of immortality, and “A” suggests that it vindicates the aesthete’s embrace of existential tragedy. However, “A” also seems to assume that this process is automatic—that a sophisticated aesthete will produce great art, that a well-planned “rotation of crops” will yield an abundance of aesthetic pleasure. Whether or not these assumptions are valid is a different matter. After all, as the “Preface” to Either/Or explains, “A’s” papers are found on accident, concealed (and otherwise forgotten) in the drawer of a second-hand escritoire. Whatever else this detail may signify, it is clear that “A’s” quest for artistic renown was a failure. One might wonder if his fate resembled that of the seducer, whose diary, as C. Stephen Evans has argued, registers a flagging interest in his carefully cultivated brand of aestheticism. In other words, far from relishing in his activity, the seducer seeks periodic boosts of immediate pleasure to ward off tedium. “The disengagement and reflection that he wishes to enjoy themselves,”

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Evans concludes, “undermine the immediacy that is still required as the basis for a life of satisfaction.”38 In the same way, perhaps “A” lost interest in his literary aspirations, casting them aside in favor of wanton debauchery. Though a mere survey of Kierkegaard’s philosophy of det Æstetiske, this précis has highlighted a number of important features of this existential sphere. First, aesthetes give priority to self-gratification, though they may frame this pursuit in different terms: some may rush headlong into hedonistic desire, while others may craft a shrewder approach to achieving sensuous pleasure. Second, according to Kierkegaard’s pseudonym “A,” it is the shrewd or sophisticated approach that offers the best chance for a life devoted to the aesthetic, since it promotes a balanced economy of satisfaction. Finally, while this scheme may maximize aesthetic pleasure in the long run, it also comes with drawbacks. The sophisticated aesthete must eventually run up against the impossibility of perfect fulfillment and so, at best, must try to salvage beauty from existential failure. More likely, though, this quest too will prove disappointing, thereby bringing the aesthete full circle—back to a life of self-indulgent degeneracy. Now that the basic attributes of Kierkegaard’s aesthetic sphere have been established, it is time to turn to Dylan’s work. The goal will be to identify and to analyze a number of Dylan songs that exhibit one or more aspects of Kierkegaard’s det Æstetiske. As will be seen, even if Dylan does not theoretically postulate this existential sphere, he is every bit as masterful as Kierkegaard in depicting it. THE AESTHETIC IN DYLAN’S SONGS Throughout his career, Bob Dylan has denied that his songs are meant to convey a particular message. “If your mind is intellectually in the way,” he observed in a 1995 interview, “it will stop you. You’ve got to program your brain not to think too much.”39 Instead, Dylan insists that his art proceeds from feeling, instinct. When discussing the composition of “Highlands,” the epic final track on Time Out of Mind (1997), he describes his creative process in this way: It starts off as a stream of consciousness thing and you add things to it. I take things from all parts of life and then I see if there is a connection, and if there’s a connection I connect them. . . . I don’t give too much thought to individual lines. If I thought about them in any kind of deep way, maybe I wouldn’t use them because I’d always be second-guessing myself. I learned a long time ago to trust my intuition.40

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This remark calls to mind the aesthetics of Romanticism: authentic art is a spontaneous effort “to capture a vague mood or some surreal series of fleeting images.”41 The artist’s concern is not with philosophies or theories; it is with trying to “say” one’s inner life—a project of creative self-expression. On the other hand, Dylan has also identified certain songs or even entire albums with philosophical-cum-theological concepts. “Tangled Up in Blue,” the opening song on Blood on the Tracks, was meant to be an experiment with the concepts of identity and temporality: “I was just trying to make it like a painting,” Dylan once explained, “where you can see the different parts but then you also see the whole of it.”42 Thus the listener is never quite sure who is talking or when the narrated events took place, but, argues Dylan, “as you look at the whole thing it doesn’t really matter.”43 On a more straightforward level, many of the songs from Dylan’s “gospel period” are intended to convey the soteriological and eschatological claims of evangelical Christianity. Indeed, during the Gospel Tour of 1979–80, Dylan went so far as to preach from the stage. As he later put it, “I was saying stuff I figured people needed to know. I thought I was giving people an idea of what was behind the songs.”44 For example, in January 1980, Dylan explicated the theological background of his song “Solid Rock” to an audience in Portland: “You know, the enemy is powerful. But God is more powerful. . . . And as this present world we know is coming to a close, you need something strong to hang on to, like a solid rock.”45 Of course, this song is not reducible to its evangelical intentions— after all, its most distinctive features are the propulsive guitar playing of Fred Tackett and the impassioned supporting vocals of Dylan’s gospel band—but it is fair to say that Dylan framed its musical form around its lyrical content. In a 2015 interview, Dylan confirmed that his songwriting process typically unfolds in this fashion: “[The idea] is usually the key to the whole song. It’s the idea that matters. The idea is floating around long before me.”46 With regard to the present discussion, the operative point here is that, even though Dylan’s compositions express personal feelings and intuitions, they also explore concepts and themes. Hence, in identifying songs from Dylan’s oeuvre that display an interest in what Kierkegaard terms det Æstetiske, it is essentially impossible to say whether this affinity is accidental or intentional. Dylan himself has given no indication of his familiarity with the Dane, and, whatever his private values, Dylan has not tendered a public defense of the notion that human existence can be ordered according to spheres or stages. And yet, the reverse is also true. Dylan has never denied reading Kierkegaard’s writings, and his lyrics “do offer evidence of his familiarity with many philosophers and poets.”47 Moreover, Dylan has admitted that his interest in theology borders on the professional: “If I had to do it all over again, I’d be a schoolteacher—probably teach Roman history or theology.”48 Even if this comment is meant in jest, it suggests that Dylan is familiar with

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some of the key issues and figures in theology. This conclusion, in fact, is supported by a lengthy section in Dylan’s memoir Chronicles: Volume One (2004). Dylan catalogs an assortment of thinkers that he read while living in New York City in the early 1960s; a number of these figures are theologians, including Doctoris Ecclesiae Albertus Magnus, martyrologist John Foxe, and Mormon founder Joseph Smith.49 Some of the novelists and poets he mentions are also frequently associated with spirituality and theology, including John Milton, Edgar Allan Poe, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.50 It is the last personage who seems particularly important in this connection, since he is often identified as an “existentialist” and thus as a successor to Kierkegaard.51 With a wink, Dylan even likens the vicissitudes of his own career to that of the Russian master: “[Dostoevsky] wrote stories to ward off his creditors. Just like in the early ’70s I wrote albums to ward off mine.”52 In short: Dylan may write songs about various existential Weltanschauungen out of a visceral “feel” for such material, or he may intend to articulate philosophical concepts; Dylan may be unacquainted with Kierkegaard’s work, or he may be familiar with the Dane’s thought in one way or another. In the end, these matters are undecidable and of passing interest. What is essential is that dozens of Dylan songs reflect various aspects of Kierkegaard’s theory of existential spheres. As noted, the goal of this chapter is to examine a number of tracks that manifest Kierkegaard’s concept of det Æstetiske. Given the breadth and depth of Dylan’s oeuvre, it will hardly be possible to scrutinize each and every song that might be classified as such. Instead, I will introduce a representative sample of this material, moving from tracks that evoke the immediate end of the aesthetic to those that depict its more sophisticated expression and, finally, its downfall. That these two poles will occasionally overlap is to be expected. After all, even Either/Or’s cunning seducer cannot finally resist the pull of sensual pleasure. Nevertheless, the theme that unites the following Dylan songs is the same theme that unites Kierkegaard’s treatment of the aesthetic, namely, that the pursuit of self-gratification is an enduring existential possibility, inveigling people with the promise of worldly satisfaction while, at the same time, posing insuperable dangers. Songs of Aesthetic Immediacy According to Kierkegaard, the person characterized by aesthetic “immediacy” (Umiddelbarhed) seeks a direct connection to feeling and instinct. Whereas reflective persons relate their lives to their former circumstances or to their future goals, the immediate aesthete flees (or wants to flee) consciousness of all but the present. Intriguingly, particularly given the present study, Kierkegaard sees music as the ideal expression of this kind of immediacy. If words mediate ideas, music conveys sensuality; if words produce thought,

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music stimulates emotion. In Either/Or, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym “A” elaborates on this thesis in a lengthy essay entitled “The Immediate Erotic Stages or The Musical-Erotic.” As “A” argues, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787) stands as “the perfect unity of [the sensuous] and its corresponding form.”53 This triumph is not only due to Mozart’s composition itself, but also due to its union with “a subject matter that is intrinsically altogether musical,”54 namely, the legendary story of the rake and seducer Don Juan (or, in Italian, Don Giovanni). What Mozart did, then, was marry a sensuous “idea” (that of Don Giovanni’s insatiable voluptuousness) to a musical sequence that flawlessly reflects it. With this accomplishment, “A” concludes, “Mozart with his Don Giovanni stands highest among those immortals [of music history].”55 If “A” were to listen to Bob Dylan, perhaps he would reconsider Mozart’s singularity. As will be seen, a number of Dylan’s songs convey raw aesthetic immediacy, highlighting, in various ways, how it tends toward the “momentary . . . [and] seeks momentary satisfaction.”56 Not unlike “A,” Dylan often identifies this type of aestheticism with sexual pleasure, especially when it is pursued as an end in itself, irrespective of any higher considerations. That such one-sided passion is beguiling yet dangerous surfaces in these songs. And yet, equally significant is Dylan’s suggestion that the one caught up in aesthetic immediacy just wants to “forget about today until tomorrow,” a lyric that condenses his overall treatment of the subject. “Mr. Tambourine Man” It is fitting that Dylan began composing “Mr. Tambourine Man” in February 1964, not long after partaking in Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans.57 A popular yet “rowdy rite of reversal,”58 where normally verboten behavior is temporarily sanctioned, Mardi Gras traditionally marks a period of excess in advance of the Christian penitential season of Lent. But the transgressiveness of Mardi Gras involves more than simply drinking and eating too much. Inasmuch as revelers don costumes and masks, Mardi Gras also concerns an aesthetic transgression of one’s own identity—a retreat to “a sort of cocoon [that] provides a cover for the changes occurring in the real self underneath.”59 In other words, Mardi Gras gives people momentary permission to obscure their “normal” selves and, in the guise of others, to indulge in sensual pleasure. Arguably the most well-known track on Dylan’s 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, “Mr. Tambourine Man” certainly taps into the mythos of Mardi Gras, albeit with help from other cultural influences. The titular character seems to be a kind of street performer (perhaps a busker on Rue Bourbon?), engaged by the song’s narrator for entertainment: “Hey! Mr.

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Tambourine Man, play a song for me / I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.” It appears to be very early in the morning: the “ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.” And yet, the narrator does not want to go home—quite the opposite. He wants to abscond with Mr. Tambourine Man, whose music he likens to magic. Indeed, the musical accompaniment on “Mr. Tambourine Man” is suitably enchanting, with Dylan’s acoustic guitar complemented by Bruce Langhorne’s part on electric guitar. The tone is pleasant, almost like a lullaby. But precisely herein lies the song’s dark underbelly. Commentators have noted that “Mr. Tambourine Man” bears a notable resemblance to the tale of the “Pied Piper of Hamelin” (Rattenfänger von Hameln).60 According to legend, the town of Hamelin faced an infestation of rats, and its citizens hired a musician—a mysterious piper, dressed in colorful (“pied”) garments—to draw the rats away with song. The Pied Piper was successful: he lured the rats out of town and into the Weser River, where they drowned. Yet, when the town failed to pay for his services, the musician exacted revenge by enticing the local children to follow him out of town. They were never seen again. As an allegory, the “Pied Piper of Hamelin” addresses, among other things, the dangers of artistic influence. The children of Hamelin, spellbound by the piper’s sumptuous clothing and melodious tune, are willing to take leave of their hometown and even their own agency. Engrossed in the aesthetic, they are drawn away from the past, yet cut off from the future. With this in mind, one interpretation of the legend understands the piper as a symbol of death itself. Though Dylan has balked at identifying “Mr. Tambourine Man” with a particular meaning, the song’s allusions to intoxication, to being under the influence of something dangerous,61 are hard to miss. As Dylan sings in the song’s second verse: Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip My toes too numb to step Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’ I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way I promise to go under it

Stanzas such as this one have led many to assume that “Mr. Tambourine Man” is an ode to acid or heroin. Absorbed in the moment, the narrator wants nothing more than “to fade,” “to go under” the “dancing spell” of Mr. Tambourine Man, who, like the Pied Piper, entices him with the free and easy “jingle jangle” of music. Dylan himself has denied that the song is about drug

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use,62 but, in all likelihood, his concern is with overly reductive interpretations. The narrator’s intoxication is not just physical; it is also spiritual. For Dylan, as for Kierkegaard, aesthetic immediacy promises a kind of freedom, and that is precisely why it is alluring. The narrator is able to disappear “[d]own the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves / The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach / Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.” On this shoreline, “all memory and fate” are cast into the billowing surf. But at what cost? As Dylan portrays it, the follower of Mr. Tambourine Man does not (to borrow a Kierkegaardian phrase) “become a self.”63 Rather, he loses himself. Indeed, the narrator concludes by describing himself as a “ragged clown,” “a shadow.” His pursuit of immediacy has rendered him grotesque, not unlike a costumed reveler at Mardi Gras. Thus he does not seek to redeem time but to abandon it. “Let me forget about today,” he sings, “until tomorrow.” “Mr. Tambourine Man” was, quite literally, a song penned in transition. Dylan was now interested in exploring the motifs of self-expression found in Beat literature, especially Jack Kerouac’s roman à clef On the Road (1957). Moreover, he would continue to deviate from the ethically-minded songs that had made him a folk icon. Even Dylan’s arrival at Mardi Gras was part of a Kerouac-like journey of self-discovery. Traveling with his attendant Victor Maymudes and two other companions, Dylan was en route to California from New York City, albeit with a long detour through the Deep South. The four men crashed in a single hotel room in New Orleans, and, as one member of the group recalled, “‘there was a good deal of drugs and booze.’”64 “Mr. Tambourine Man” was an outgrowth of this experience, “inspired by the wild scenes they had witnessed at Mardi Gras,”65 and it can indeed be read as an early expression of psychedelic rock. Still, the song itself “had a particularly long and difficult gestation,”66 and this detail lends final credence to the analysis above. Dylan did not just want to capture the lure of the aesthetic. He also took pains to show its shadow side—a theme to which he would return throughout his career. “Lay, Lady, Lay” Although a successful single, charting in the top-ten in both the USA and the UK, “Lay, Lady, Lay” is a curious song. Unlike Dylan’s other hits from the 1960s, “Lay, Lady, Lay” was written during a period of quiet domesticity. In the wake of his July 1966 motorcycle accident, Dylan retreated from the limelight of pop stardom, finding sanctuary with his wife and children in their home in the Catskill Mountains. Seclusion, however, did not impair Dylan’s productivity. His old backing group—then called the Hawks, but later (and more famously) known as The Band—also moved to the area, and

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they began writing and recording songs together in the basement of a rental house in West Saugerties, New York. During these sessions, Dylan sought to take a path “distinct from contemporary artists,” eschewing psychedelia in favor of “shorter, simpler, down-to-earth songs, which were in the folk and country tradition.”67 The upshot was one of the most fertile periods of Dylan’s career, spawning classic albums such John Wesley Harding (1967) and The Basement Tapes (recorded in 1967 but not officially released until 1975). Dylan’s next album Nashville Skyline (1969) would mark a further evolution. As the titular reference to the city of Nashville suggests, Dylan was intent on making a country-music LP, one in which “the influence of Hank Williams [would be] felt throughout.”68 Predictably, then, the album contains plenty of pedal steel guitar and dobro, not to mention lyrical themes of love (“To Be Alone with You”) and love lost (“I Threw It All Way”). And yet, as mentioned, the standout track on Nashville Skyline is “Lay, Lady, Lay,” and it is conspicuously rawer than much of Williams’ work. To be sure, Williams occasionally dallied with risqué lyrics in song, but, likely due to the mores of the era, he tended to sidestep expressions of primal lust. For example, in “Baby, We’re Really in Love” (1951), Williams croons that he and his beloved “fit like a glove,” only to add that “there’s nothin’ wrong with me / That weddin’ bells won’t cure.”69 By way of contrast, “Lay, Lady, Lay” has been stripped of all pretensions to the ethical. It is not a song about “true love,” much less marriage. On the contrary, for a Dylan song, its lyrics “are unusually suggestive, even erotic, describing a night of love, full of promises and desires.”70 From a Kierkegaardian perspective, what is immediately striking is that the male narrator is in charge: “Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed / Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.” These lines open the song in the imperative mood, indicating that the narrator is directing his beloved to submit to him—a point accentuated by the repetition of the couplet. The narrator is not suggesting; he’s commanding. The effect would be repulsive, if not for the backing music. During the recording session, Dylan asked drummer Kenneth Buttrey to use bongos for his part.71 It was an inspired choice, imbuing the song with an exotic, soothing rhythm. Pete Drake’s sinuous pedal steel guitar and Bob Wilson’s shimmering organ enhance the atmosphere, rendering what looks forceful on paper into something with “dreamy touch” and “a mysterious floating feel.”72 Dylan’s voice adds to this impression. For Nashville Skyline, he adopted a buttery baritone singing-style, not unlike that of country-music legend Jimmie Rodgers. “Lay, Lady, Lay” puts it to good use, displaying “an unusual intonation, warm and low sounding, conferring a nostalgic and moving aspect to the song.”73 In this way, Dylan underscores that the song’s narrator is not a rapacious bully but, rather, a seductive Don Juan.

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As discussed, from a Kierkegaardian standpoint, the figure of the seducer is frequently associated with the aesthetic. The Danish word for “seduction” (Forførelse) stems from the verb forføre, which can be rendered “to lead astray.” The seducer, then, leads someone or something toward a pleasant experience that harbors destruction. The narrator of “Lay, Lady, Lay” personifies this meaning. First, he tempts with grandiose promises, singing to his objet du désir: “Whatever colors you have in your mind / I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.” This couplet—which vaguely recalls the Tantric notion that the human body has various nodes of spiritual energy called chakras, each of which is identified with a given color—suggests that the narrator is not there for himself but for his lover. He is, ingratiatingly, just the occasion for her own self-discovery. In the second verse, however, the narrator changes tack. Describing himself from two points of view (first and third person), he casts himself as a rugged, virile fellow (“your man”), who has come to spend the night with his beloved: Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen

Here the narrator aims to flatter his lover. His motives, it seems, are uncomplicated: he is only a hard-working guy, who, after a long day, can hardly resist the charms of his beloved. After all, she is “the best thing that he’s ever seen.” Thus it is her, and not him, who is doing the seducing—a sly form of gaslighting, in which he takes control precisely by pretending that he has no control. Yet, in the next verse, the narrator takes a third and final approach. Whereas before his focus was on the beauty and the wants of his lover, now he makes an appeal to “the moment,” to the very nature of aesthetic experience. Perhaps his beloved has raised some objections, and he feels the need to make an apology. Of course, there has never been any doubt that the narrator is proposing an evanescent pleasure. He has not asked for a long-term commitment, just that his lover remain with him “[u]ntil the break of day.” As he repeatedly pleads with her, “Stay with your man awhile.” Notably, the Old English word “while” (hwile) does a great deal of work in “Lay, Lady, Lay.” In one form or another, “while” turns up in every stanza but the first, underscoring that the narrator is only looking for a “period of time” with his beloved. When she seems to offer resistance, he becomes more assertive: Why wait any longer for the world to begin

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You can have your cake and eat it too Why wait any longer for the one you love When he’s standing in front of you

Here Dylan’s voice rises, and Buttrey, who has switched over to a more imposing drumkit, increases the song’s tempo. The narrator is no longer coaxing his beloved; he is now imploring. He wants her to see that the choice between doing the right thing and achieving self-gratification is a false one. In fact, a night of sensual pleasure, even if it is only a night, is the right thing. Thus he turns the old proverb—“you can’t have your cake and eat it too”—on its head. The one who lives for the moment of aesthetic pleasure, he insists, is precisely the one who can have her cake and eat it too. Intriguingly, “Lay, Lady, Lay” never discloses whether or not the lady succumbs to the charms of the seducer. The final stanza, which twice repeats the line “Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead,” implies that the matter remains undecided. Will she yield to the immediacy of the present (“the night”), or will she reject the tragic ephemerality of the narrator’s overture? In a sense, the song puts the same question to the audience, making it a somewhat uncomfortable track to listen to, if one is able to get past its musical charms. Perhaps that is why Dylan has tended to distance himself from “Lay, Lady, Lay.” Artists ranging from synth-pop band Duran Duran to blues legend Buddy Guy have covered the song over the years. And yet, in a remarkable observation, Dylan once noted: “I never . . . thought [‘Lay, Lady, Lay’] was representative of anything I do.”74 Songs of Reflective Aestheticism If Dylan songs such as “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Lay, Lady, Lay” evoke Kierkegaard’s analysis of aesthetic immediacy, it is worth reiterating that, for Kierkegaard, det Æstetiske is a nuanced phenomenon. It has its own stages and types. Hence, if Don Juan represents the immediate, musical aspect of the aesthetic, the figure of Faust epitomizes its reflective expression. Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–1540) was a Swabian alchemist and magician, to whom several sixteenth-century grimoires were ascribed. Even during his own lifetime, Faust was treated with a mixture of fascination and suspicion by ecclesiastical and political authorities. In 1519–20, Catholic officials in the Bavarian town of Bamberg noted that Faust was a professional astrologer, and, in Switzerland, the Reformed pastor Johannes Gast (c. 1500–52) described Faust as an itinerant necromancer.75 Such references indicate that Faust “was not only a topic of public discussion, but of ever-growing infamy.”76 By the late sixteenth-century, Faust’s reputation and the mysterious circumstances of his death—some said that he was a casualty of an alchemical mishap, others

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that the devil had come to collect his soul—made him into a legend. The English dramatist Christopher Marlowe, drawing on nascent Faustian literature, wrote The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus—a play that, after Marlowe’s death in 1593, was staged and published with significant controversy. This was just the tip of the iceberg. By the time Johann Wolfgang von Goethe issued Part One of his renowned closet drama Faust: A Tragedy (Faust: Eine Tragödie) in 1808, there had already been over a dozen artistic productions of the tale, from etchings to puppet shows to ballets.77 Thus Kierkegaard’s interest in Faust was, in and of itself, hardly unusual. It was his approach to the material that was distinctive. Previous treatments tended to emphasize the supernatural aspect of Faust’s story: Marlowe’s play concludes with Faust carried off to hell, Goethe’s with Faust fetched to heaven, on account of his constant if flawed striving to understand the meaning of existence. Though critical of the Goethean reading, which he took to be a modern dilution of the legend’s significance,78 Kierkegaard did not want to villainize Faust either. Instead, Kierkegaard maintains that Faust represents an archetype of life “outside of religion,”79 whose quest to know the world’s “kingdom of incalculable possibilities”80 marks a particular kind of aestheticism. Faust is “the man of doubt, the man who, unlike Don Giovanni, possesses ‘the power of words.’”81 But what does Faust doubt? What is the essence of his rhetorical power? In an 1837 journal passage, Kierkegaard posits that Faust symbolizes “the individual after the abrogation of the Church, severed from its guidance and abandoned to himself.”82 In this sense, Faust is a “parody of the Reformation.”83 He has detached himself from ecclesial tradition in order to determine right and wrong, true and false, on his own terms. Faust does not hate God; he wants to usurp the place of God. Thus the Faustian aesthete is fundamentally an intellectual figure, caught up in a quest to understand and to control his environment. In romantic matters, this tendency is not communicated by the raw sexual desire of Don Juan, but by the pleasure of manipulating a lover: Faust, in wooing Margarete, pays “extreme attention . . . to the ‘how’ of an experience in which the ‘what’ or the content seems to vanish.”84 Meanwhile, in the realm of ideas, Faust (especially Goethe’s Faust) is a kind of proto-Hegelian, taking modern skepticism for granted while seeking, yet failing, to find a higher philosophical unity. In both cases, Kierkegaard sees Faust as a figure of existential “hopelessness,” who does not quite grasp “the depths of his own despair.”85 Curiously, Bob Dylan’s career features a notable and direct intersection with the Faust legend. In 1968, the American homme de lettres Archibald MacLeish asked Dylan to write songs for his upcoming play Scratch (1971). MacLeish had become an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and he wanted to offer a parable about the choice facing Americans—to stand for moral rectitude or to yield to political pressure. With this in mind, he penned a

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dramatic adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (1936), which frames American history itself as a Faustian exchange of principle for power. Aware of Dylan’s reputation as a “protest singer,” but oblivious to “how much Dylan’s artistic interests had shifted and developed,”86 MacLeish was disappointed when Dylan did not want to write songs with Mephistophelean titles such as “Red Hands” and “Lower World.”87 In the end, as Dylan recalls in Chronicles, “Deep down, I knew that I couldn’t have anything to add to the message of his play.”88 There is evident irony in this misunderstanding: MacLeish’s sense that Dylan’s protest songs tapped into the Faustian myth was perceptive. The problem was that, by the late 1960s, Dylan was ready to move on from such diabolical themes. Nevertheless, Dylan possessed genuine insight into the reflective aestheticism of Faust, and later in his career, years after Scratch had come and gone, he would return to its mythos again. “Masters of War” On the morning of October 16, 1962, President John F. Kennedy was notified that reconnaissance planes had detected nuclear-capable weapons in Cuba. Over the next two weeks, an international political and military crisis unfolded, which, in retrospect, “was the closest the two Cold War superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, ever came to full-scale nuclear war.”89 Indeed, tensions came to a head on October 27, when Soviet missiles shot down an American U-2 plane over Banes, Cuba, killing pilot Rudolf Anderson Jr.90 “War hawks” in Washington, D.C., and in Moscow argued that combat was now inevitable, but Kennedy and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev managed to negotiate a settlement, albeit with dire political consequences for both leaders.91 All-out military conflict had been averted, but, in the aftermath of the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet officials ordered an “expensive major nuclear buildup to achieve parity with the United States.”92 The Cold War would persist for nearly three more decades. Early in 1963, Bob Dylan debuted a song inspired by these events. Entitled “Masters of War,” Dylan published the lyrics in the February 1963 issue of Broadside—a mimeographed magazine that played a key role in the folk revival of the early 1960s.93 “Masters of War” made an immediate impression: “When the readers of Broadside read the lyrics and when the public at large discovered it, the repercussions were considerable. Very rarely—perhaps never—had Americans ever heard such a bitter and determined condemnation of war.”94 Or so it seemed. As Dylan has clarified over the years, “Masters of War” is “not an ode to pacifism,”95 nor is it (to use Dylan’s own language) “an antiwar song.”96 Rather, in the wake of the events of October 1962, it was meant to evoke and to expound the warnings of Kennedy’s

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predecessor, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose televised farewell address on January 17, 1961, ominously presaged the tumult of the coming decade.97 According to Eisenhower, the American way of life was being warped by the pressures of the Cold War: This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new to the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.98

Famous for coining the phrase “military-industrial complex,” Eisenhower’s speech suggests that war is but a manifestation of a deeper and indeed spiritual crisis. The world has undergone a profound “technological revolution,” which has led to the replacement of the “solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop” with “task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields.”99 The venerable pursuit of wisdom, Eisenhower concludes, has yielded to “the prospect of domination.”100 According to Dylan, “Masters of War” is an attempt to speak “against what Eisenhower was calling a military-industrial complex.”101 Thus the song’s principal concern is not war in general, still less the Vietnam War in particular, but the rising techno-scientific impulse to dominate, especially through military means. This theme is palpable in the version of “Masters of War” issued in Broadside. Accompanying the song’s lyrics and musical notation are a few sketches by Suze Rotolo—Dylan’s girlfriend at the time, who, famously, was pictured alongside him on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963). Rotolo’s most striking drawing sits on the upper right-hand corner of the first page. It depicts a man—his face cold and angular à la Pablo Picasso’s Cubist period—towering over the earth. His left hand clutches a fork, his right a knife, and a bib appears to dangle from his shirt collar. The message seems clear: the world, for this man, is not something to be preserved but consumed. Even worse, it is there for the taking, an inert mass, subservient to his appetites. This is, indeed, a Faustian image. Just as, for Kierkegaard, Faust represents humanity’s attempt to seize God-like power over the world, so does Rotolo visualize the “masters of war” as human beings poised to use and to devour the planet. Rotolo’s image accurately sums up “Masters of War.” The song’s first stanza makes clear that Dylan’s ire is directed neither at soldiers nor field commanders. While such military figures lapse into error and even commit atrocities, they at least subject themselves to the ravages of combat. This is not the case with the “masters of war,” who relate to battle in abstract fashion.

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For them, war is not a matter of life and death but a problem to conquered through science and technology: Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks

Though they work in prestigious institutions, ostensibly enjoying plush offices and designer desks, the “masters of war” are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They “lie and deceive”; they “build to destroy.” Their knowledge is not for the benefit of humankind but for the advancement of their own interests. While they get to dwell in “mansion[s],” somewhere far away “the death count gets higher.” Dylan set the words of “Masters of War” to the melody from “Nottamun Town,” an American folk song dating from the eighteenth century. Popularized by Kentucky folk singer Jean Ritchie in the 1950s, “Nottamun Town” features a discomfiting, minor-key tune, which Dylan puts to great effect on “Masters of War.” Indeed, during the recording sessions of April 1963, Dylan elected to play the song without any accompaniment, using only his voice and an acoustic guitar. Thus the music “has an austerity that efficiently underscores its awful purpose.”102 The lyrics are correspondingly grim, stressing the devilish intentions of these Faustian executives. The song’s second verse suggests that, just as Satan’s “power and signs” (2 Thess. 2:9) lead to the world’s destruction, so do the “masters of war” enjoy a selfish dominance over creation: “You play with my world / Like it’s your little toy.” And yet, though the guise of the “masters of war” is new, Dylan acknowledges that they fall in a long line of persons who have fallen under the sway of evil. They are “[l]ike Judas of old,” a reference to one of Jesus Christ’s original disciples, who was said to be possessed by Satan (Luke 22:3) and who later betrayed Jesus (Matt. 26:14–16). In Canto XXXIV of Dante’s Inferno, Judas is depicted as humankind’s greatest sinner, who, now beyond forgiveness, is eternally subject to the devil’s torments.103 Likewise, Dylan claims that, in their desecration of life, the “masters of war” have made themselves unredeemable. As he sings with a vitriolic snarl, “Even Jesus would never / Forgive what you do.” That is not to suggest, however, that the “masters of war” are seeking forgiveness. Like Kierkegaard’s Faust, they have chosen the world over God:

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Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul

Here Dylan again paraphrases the New Testament: in gaining the world, the “masters of war” have lost their souls (Matt. 16:26). The last stanza of “Masters of War” is notoriously coldblooded. “And I hope that you’ll die,” Dylan sings, “And your death’ll come soon.” In the liner notes to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Dylan almost expresses embarrassment about these lyrics, implying that they were written out of a sense of feeble desperation.104 This explanation may be true, but the song’s last line adds a curious twist. After picturing himself at the graveside of the “masters of war,” Dylan chooses to end on a skeptical note: “I’ll stand o’er your grave / ’Til I’m sure that you’re dead.” Whether or not this surety arrives is left unsaid. It is as if the narrator doubts the mortality of the “masters of war,” as if they are not flesh and blood but, in fact, evil spirits—a final way that Dylan speaks to the reflective aestheticism of the Faust legend. For Dylan, as for Kierkegaard, the notion that knowledge is power, sought in order to control others, is not the problem of a particular era, much less that of an individual person. On the contrary, it remains a timeless existential possibility, whose outer form may vary but whose inner content amounts to a deal with the devil. “Jokerman” In March 1984, Bob Dylan met with Larry Sloman and George Lois at a restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood. The three men were already friends—most notably, Sloman was the author of On the Road with Bob Dylan (1978), a quirky recounting of his experiences as a guest on Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder tour—but on this night they found themselves at cross-purposes. Sloman and Lois wanted to arrange a video shoot for Dylan’s upcoming single “Jokerman,” but Dylan was unconvinced.105 His previous video in support of “Sweetheart Like You” (1983) had been gauche, leaving some to conclude that the folk icon may be too old to find an audience on the emerging cable channel MTV. But Sloman and Lois argued that they would do a better job showcasing “Jokerman.” As Sloman recalled years later: This guy is one of the greatest poets that we have working in contemporary music, so we were going to take his words and put them in your face. The

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second thing was we would use great artworks to illuminate his art. And third, we would shoot Bob and make him look as heroic as these artworks.106

The last objective proved to be a challenge—Dylan had trouble lip-synching the chorus—but otherwise the video was a triumph. Interspersing a hodgepodge of photographs, including pictures of Muhammad Ali, Adolf Hitler, John F. Kennedy, and Dylan himself, along with an equally miscellaneous collection of paintings and cultural icons, from Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait (1500) to Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1893) to a religious idol (ca. 2700 BCE) from ancient civilization of Sumer, the video for “Jokerman” is both visually rich and intellectually intriguing. The superimposition of Dylan’s lyrics over these images only enhances the effect, encouraging the viewer to seek out the crimson thread connecting figure, poetry, and sound in the video. Based on this description, one might assume that “Jokerman” is staid and ponderous, but, in fact, it is a reggae-inflected pop song. Dylan brought in arguably the most prominent rhythm section working in reggae—percussionist Sly Dunbar and bassist Robbie Shakespeare, both from Kingston, Jamaica—and paired them with virtuoso guitarist Mark Knopfler, who had made essential contributions to Dylan’s 1979 gospel album Slow Train Coming. The combination of a “laid-back reggae groove” with Dylan’s catchy and harmonic vocals seemed to herald “a new era for the songwriter.”107 As noted in chapter 1, many critics associate “Jokerman” and its accompanying album Infidels with the end of Dylan’s “gospel period.” After a trilogy of Christian-themed releases, Infidels was said to represent a “stunning recovery of the lyric and melodic powers that seemed to have all but deserted Dylan.”108 But there are reasons to question this thesis. For one thing, Knopfler’s presence suggests that Dylan was looking to return to, rather than leave behind, the creative frisson that had distinguished Slow Train Coming. Moreover, like its immediate predecessors, Infidels “remains marked by biblical references and religious imagery.”109 Even the Caribbean influence on “Jokerman” is reminiscent of Slow Train Coming, whose eighth track “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” also opted for a “reggae inspired”110 sound. Nevertheless, there is one key sense in which the material on Infidels is distinct from that on Slow Train Coming. Whereas the latter was a brazen declaration of Dylan’s faith in Jesus Christ, the former is less personal and more character-driven. Infidels is not so much about Dylan’s own religiousness as about the various ways—not all of them good—that one encounters religion in the world. Despite its euphonious sound, “Jokerman” is an excellent example of this perspectival shift. In a June 1984 interview with Rolling Stone, Dylan divulged that he had been spending a great deal of time “down in the Caribbean,”111 where he kept a boat. It was there that he conceived of

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“Jokerman.” As he explains, “‘Jokerman’ kinda came to me in the islands. It’s very mystical. The shapes there, and shadows, seem to be so ancient. The song was sorta inspired by these spirits they call jumbis.”112 This quote is at once misleading and revealing. The generic reference to the “mystical” may seem to evoke either the numinous Other or stages of contemplative prayer, but Dylan’s reference to jumbis (or jumbies) provides an important qualification. According to Caribbean folklore, a “jumbie” is the “spirit of a dead person,” often taken to be a bad omen or a malevolent force, so much so that it must be warded off by special tokens.113 Moreover, the word “jumbie” is often used as a compound noun, “indicating that something that appears to be all right or even attractive is actually poisonous . . . dangerous, connected with death”; thus people talk of “jumbie beads or jumbie-dances.”114 That Dylan associates “Jokerman” with jumbies is illuminating. It implies, at the very least, that whoever or whatever the titular figure is meant to represent, it certainly is nothing good. Of course, commentators have not been content to stop there. Some have argued that “Jokerman” could be about “the Antichrist, the son of perdition, ‘manipulator of crowds,’ man of ‘Sodom and Gomorrah.’”115 Others understand the song as autobiographical—a recantation of Dylan’s bygone attempt to evangelize crowds in the manner of Christ. Indeed, according to Michael Gray, “Jokerman” underlines that “chaos is everywhere . . . with Dylan not just mocking himself for the preaching phase but, far more courageously, examining how the things inside which drive us can drive us to the wrong places.”116 A third interpretation is that the song is catchy but ultimately incoherent—a discordant combination of vibrant music and sinister lyrics.117 According to this argument, Dylan himself once admitted that “Jokerman” is “a song that got away from me.”118 But what if these various readings are not in opposition? In other words, might there be a larger theme capable of encompassing and, in a sense, unifying these different approaches to “Jokerman”? It is here that Kierkegaard’s conception of Faust becomes relevant. Recall that, for Kierkegaard, Faust is an archetype of modern disbelief—a figure who, in seeking to explore the world’s multifarious possibilities, breaks from the guidance of Christianity, sells his soul to the devil, and embraces a demonic form of self-aggrandizement. Similarly, the titular figure in “Jokerman” seems to be a kind of Mephistopheles—a name that is etymologically linked to the Hebrew words for “destroyer” (mephitz) and “liar” (tophel). And yet, the song also seems to be about how one can be tempted by such a destructive figure, who deceives not so much through sensual pleasure as through signs and wonders. Here Dylan might be alluding to people who have led him astray, but, as Gray argues, he may also be referring to his own Mephistophelean instincts. Either way, the song is narrated from the point of view of a Faust, that is to

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say, of a person who has been effectively haunted and possessed by a demon. “Jokerman” is, as it turns out, a jumbie-song. To be sure, the opening stanza of “Jokerman” shrouds its antihero in diabolical mystery: Standing on the waters casting your bread While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing Distant ships sailing into the mist You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing Freedom just around the corner for you But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?

Immediately, Dylan presents Jokerman as one who transcends (or seems to transcend) the natural order. Like Christ (Matt. 14:22–33), he is able to stand on water; like Hercules, he is able to subjugate wild and dangerous serpents, even in a state of ostensible vulnerability. Nevertheless, the verse ends by posing a question: are such powers liberating if they are based on falsehood? Can an “idol” actually save? This reservation is tabled for the time being. Instead, Dylan returns to the character of Jokerman. He is like a chameleon, constantly “shedding one more layer of skin.” In the video for “Jokerman,” this lyric is accompanied by a rapid succession of 16 pictures of Dylan, each featuring a different style and expression—a sequence that again recalls Gray’s contention that the song is a form of self-critique. Indeed, the song’s chorus presents Jokerman as a kind of rock god, whose swagger and poetry cast a spell on others: “Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune / Bird fly high by the light of the moon / Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.” Perhaps these lines are self-reflexive, indicating the way Dylan sees himself as a performer. Or perhaps they are meant to reflect the way Dylan appears to his audience. Whatever the case, Jokerman appears to be unencumbered by anyone or anything; he is shadowy, feral, and beguiling. Yet, it would be a mistake to reduce the song’s meaning to Dylan’s own self-perception. After all, rock stardom is but one instantiation of a more general principle—that of human beings falling under the sway of false gods. As Dylan sings in the third stanza: “You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds / Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister / You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah / But what do you care?” Notably, the “Jokerman” video pairs these lines with images that underscore the relationship between deification and violence. Initially, it shows a closeup of the features of the Charioteer of Delphi, a bronze sculpture discovered at the sanctuary of Delphi in Greece. An inscription on the statue’s base reveals that Polyzalus, a despot who controlled the Greek colony of Gela in Sicily, had dedicated

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the Charioteer to the Olympian deity Apollo in 470 BCE. Thus it is implied that, while great art seems sublime (“you can walk on the clouds”), it often emerges from the savagery of earthly politics. This point is broadened by the video’s next image—a photograph of Adolf Hitler, whose face is juxtaposed with the phrases “manipulator of crowds” and “dream twister.” Once revered by many Germans as “the Guide” (der Führer), Hitler eventually orchestrated the systematic genocide of nearly six million Jews. Yet, if Hitler coordinated “hell on earth,” the last lines of the stanza point to Hell itself: “You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.” Again, the video proves instructive. It displays the right panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s surrealistic triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1490–1510 CE), zooming in on Bosch’s rendering of the “Prince of Hell,” depicted as a bony, bird-like creature who consumes people head-first. Here the combination of image and word underscores Dylan’s larger point: Jokerman is “a figure of domination,” who initially “cuts a romantic figure” but ultimately “seems to be the Antichrist.”119 The rest of the song builds on this disclosure and, moving forward, interlinks a string of dystopian images. Jokerman is not beholden to the biblical laws of “Leviticus and Deuteronomy”; he is only subservient to “the law of the jungle and the sea.” Bedlam and carnage follow in his wake. Both the “rifleman” and the “preacherman” hunt “the sick and the lame.” “False-hearted judges” spin “webs” of dishonesty, and riots break out in the streets: “Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks / Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain.” When one falls under the sway of Jokerman, things do not end well: “Only a matter of time ’til night comes steppin’ in,” Dylan growls. The song’s final stanza presents a Felliniesque vision of the Apocalypse: It’s a shadowy world, skies are slippery grey A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet He’ll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat Take the motherless children off the street and place them at the feet of a harlot Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants Oh, Jokerman, you don’t show any response

Jokerman has played the ultimate trick, robbing the world of higher meaning and purpose yet incapable of making it better. In an album called Infidels, Jokerman stands as the arch-infidel. As Timothy Hampton puts it, “Everything we have been led to admire about the Jokerman, his beauty, his vibrancy, his mythical strength, is revealed by the last lines to have been an illusion.”120

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Hence, in conclusion, the listener is left in the position of Marlowe’s Faust, whose last testimony is a confession of being taken in by Mephistopheles: “Faustus, curse thyself. Curse Lucifer, / That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.”121 Pledging to burn his books—totems of earthly majesty and power that, alas, cannot bring eternal happiness—Faustus is dragged offstage by demons. His last words are “Ah, Mephistopheles!,”122 which one cannot help but notice sound eerily similar to Dylan’s “Oh, Jokerman.” Songs of Aesthetic Ruin In a number of journal entries from the mid-1830s, Kierkegaard registers an interest in the story of Ahasverus, also known as “the Wandering Jew” (den evige Jøde). According to legend, Ahasverus was a Jewish shoemaker, who encountered Jesus Christ on his Via Dolorosa (Jn. 19:16–18) through the Old City of Jerusalem. Weary from carrying his cross, Jesus stopped to rest in front of Ahasverus’ house, but the shoemaker refused to grant him respite. As a result, Ahasverus was cursed with the fate of restlessness—an eternity of wandering of the earth without a home. As with Faust, the tale of Ahasverus eventually found its way into print and gained a wide circulation during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Doubtless one reason for its popularity was the rising tide of antisemitism in Germany and in other parts of northern Europe. For some, Ahasverus represented the Jewish Diaspora, whose “exilic wandering” was thought to be a sign of divine punishment.123 And yet, also like Faust, the legend of the Wandering Jew came to transcend its original meaning. A number of influential Romantic authors transformed Ahasverus into a figure of fierce independence and poetic longing, including Goethe, August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845), and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). As Shelley wrote in “Fragment: A Wanderer”: He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wilderness of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.124

Kierkegaard was familiar with this Romantic approach to Ahasverus, and he even considered the legend one of the “three great ideas” of life outside of religion—the other two being Don Juan and Faust respectively.125 Thus he stresses that the Wandering Jew represents the completion of the aesthetic stage,126 rather than a metaphor for the Jewish Diaspora. But what does it mean to bring det Æstetiske to its completion? George Pattison notes that Kierkegaard’s interest in the Wandering Jew was likely

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sparked by his academic mentor Poul Martin Møller (1794–1838), who understood Ahasverus to represent “utter world-weariness,” a figure “longing only for extinction, for the cessation of this unending death in life.”127 In his unfinished book Ahasverus, Møller imagines the title character saying: “[You] believe that there is an absolute difference between good and evil, but . . . do not observe that I stand precisely at the zero-point on life’s thermometer.”128 Indeed, according to Pattison, “It is this ‘zero-point’ which Kierkegaard saw coming to expression in the aesthetic nihilism of his generation.”129 Put more directly, Kierkegaard believed that modernity was “the age of despair, the age of the wandering Jew,”130 precisely because modernity’s rejection of traditional standards and its newfound emphasis on free self-creation renders the individual the sole arbiter of meaning, thereby dissolving human experience “into a sequence of wildly capricious moods.”131 The one who goes down this path—the path of the aesthetic—is ultimately on a “journey into nothingness.”132 It is in the “new idea” of aesthetic despair, represented by Ahasverus, that Faust “must complete himself.”133 The notion that Faustian self-aggrandizement terminates in a state of existential misery is thematized in Kierkegaard’s 1849 work The Sickness unto Death. Attributed to the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, this work might be described as a phenomenology of psycho-spiritual possibility, describing the essential structures of happiness on the one hand and, with far greater detail, those of “despair” (Fortvivelse) on the other. According to Anti-Climacus, despair occurs when the self slips into an inner misrelation, failing to bring its contrary elements—finitude and infinitude, necessity and freedom, temporality and eternality—into “equilibrium and rest.”134 As a spiritual sickness, despair does not kill the body but the soul, and the one who despairs is akin to a “mortally ill person when he lies struggling with death and yet cannot die.”135 In other words, the one in despair is already dead spiritually and longs to be extinguished by a physical death that seems as if it will never come. When one is “dying of death” (at døe Døden),136 no place on earth can provide “shelter from the storm” (to cite one of the best songs on Dylan’s 1975 album Blood on the Tracks). Drifting, dispossessed, and thereby patently recalling the figure of Ahasverus, the despairing person agonizes over the fact that “he cannot consume himself, cannot get rid of himself, cannot reduce himself to nothing.”137 Over the course of his long career, Bob Dylan has frequently mused on despair. He has not tied his compositions to Kierkegaard’s theory of det Æstetiske, much less to the legend of the Wandering Jew. And yet, a number of Dylan’s songs seem to almost preternaturally grasp these ideas. It is not that the singer-songwriter theorizes that aesthetic immediacy culminates in spiritual desperation; rather, as was discussed in chapter 1, he has witnessed

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this dissolution himself, both in terms of his relationships with others and, more to the point, in terms of his own trials and tribulations. “Like a Rolling Stone” One would be hard-pressed to dispute that Dylan’s preeminent song is “Like a Rolling Stone.” After all, the venerable Rolling Stone magazine—whose name was partly inspired by Dylan’s song—has deemed it the greatest song in the history of popular music.138 Given Dylan’s reputation as a master wordsmith, it would make sense to link the import of “Like a Rolling Stone” to its lyrical depth, but Rolling Stone focuses more on its musical excellence: The most stunning thing about “Like a Rolling Stone” is how unprecedented it was: the impressionist voltage of Dylan’s language, the intensely personal accusation in his voice (“Ho-o-o-ow does it fe-e-e-el?”), the apocalyptic charge of Kooper’s garage-gospel organ and Mike Bloomfield’s stiletto-sharp spirals of Telecaster guitar, the defiant six-minute length of the June 16th master take. No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time.139

And yet, it is not just that professional critics esteem “Like a Rolling Stone.” For over four decades, it was Dylan’s most successful single, peaking at number-two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1965—a figure that, improbably, would not be bested until 2020, when “Murder Most Foul” debuted at number-one. Still, whereas the latter song is too long (nearly 17 minutes!) and delicate to become a bona fide Dylan classic, “Like a Rolling Stone” was almost immediately hailed as a tipping point in popular music. Featuring “a brilliant arrangement between organ chords and guitar licks wrapping perfectly around Dylan’s vocal,”140 “Like a Rolling Stone” fuses blues, rock, and poetry in indelible fashion. Record producer Paul Rothchild remembered the song as America’s answer to the popularity of British rock music: “What I realized . . . was that one of us was making music that could compete with them—the Beatles, and the Stones, and the Dave Clark Five—without sacrificing any of the integrity of folk music or the power of rock’n’roll.”141 Such ebullient praise, however, belies the darker meaning of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Indeed, the song has been seen as expressing the “resentment of and desire for revenge”142 on a beautiful yet troubled woman, whom the narrator identifies only as “Miss Lonely.” Allegedly, this figure is based on Edie Sedgwick, a California socialite who moved to New York City in the mid-1960s to pursue a modeling career but emerged as the muse of avant-garde pop artist Andy Warhol. Not all commentators endorse the thesis that “Miss Lonely” was inspired by Sedgwick,143 but thematically the idea has merit. Sedgwick came from a moneyed family with roots in colonial

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New England, but, despite her privilege, she battled addiction and eating disorders—a consequence, it was rumored, of a decadent upbringing. After meeting Warhol at a party, Sedgwick became a regular cast member in his underground films such as Vinyl (1965) and Poor Little Rich Girl (1965). However, the duo soon had a falling out, and Sedgwick attempted to establish herself in mainstream cinema. A string of troubled relationships—including one with folksinger Bob Neuwirth, who was part of Dylan’s inner circle— and an addiction to barbiturates slowly but surely led to the deterioration of Sedgwick’s health. In November 1971, she died after overdosing on a combination of drugs and alcohol. That Dylan did not know about Sedgwick’s demise when he wrote “Like a Rolling Stone” goes without saying. Yet, from a Kierkegaardian perspective, the mark of aesthetic despair is not physical death but spiritual dispossession—a sense of aimlessness that no amount of material satisfaction can assuage. With this in mind, Sedgwick’s decline from high-society “it girl” to desperate burnout exemplifies many of Kierkegaard’s concerns about a life devoted to det Æstetiske—concerns that Dylan likewise evokes on “Like a Rolling Stone.” With admirable economy, Dylan opens the song with a depiction of Miss Lonely’s former life, when she enjoyed life and its material comforts: Once upon a time you dressed so fine You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you? People’d call, say, “Beware doll, you’re bound to fall” You thought they were all kiddin’ you

Indeed, it was as if Miss Lonely felt “that life is but a joke,” to quote Dylan’s 1968 song “All Along the Watchtower.” She went “to the finest school all right,” but she “only used to get juiced in it.” With her education wasted on parties and booze, she failed to perceive the danger she was in. There were “frowns on the jugglers and the clowns” who kept her entertained, and the élites with whom she consorted captivated her with exotica: “You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat / Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat.” Everything in her life was devoted to the diversionary and to the stylish, to the immediate self-gratification that characterizes det Æstetiske. But then something happened. Dylan does not specify how or when Miss Lonely began to understand that she was indeed alone, but, like Kierkegaard, he seems to assume that such an aesthetic path makes one “bound to fall.” And fall Miss Lonely does. She finds herself without a home, “scrounging for [her] next meal.” The people she thought were friends have abandoned her, not least her “diplomat,” alternately referred to as “the mystery tramp” and “Napoleon in rags.” A kind of Mephistopheles, whose eyes are akin

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to a “vacuum,” this figure exercises a coercive power over Miss Lonely, taking from her “everything he could steal.” As a result, she is stripped of her self-worth and her former vivacity: “Now you don’t talk so loud / Now you don’t seem so proud.” Lured down the path of the aesthetic, Miss Lonely has now “got nothing” and “nothing to lose.” She has become “invisible,” a ghost who haunts the coteries of glitterati who revel oblivious to their own transience: Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things But you’d better lift your diamond ring, you’d better pawn it babe.

On the other side of her exile, this is a reality that Miss Lonely knows all too well. Thus Christopher Ricks, paraphrasing a 1906 letter by the American philosopher William James (1842–1910), writes that the “woman in Like a Rolling Stone has been down upon her knees before the bitch-goddess [of success], the goddess that failed and that made her fail. Fail, fall, feel.”144 And how does it feel? How does it feel? Famously, these are Dylan’s key questions. His interest is not in the simple fact that Miss Lonely has fallen; he wants to explore the consequences of her fall. She has been banished from what was her Eden, rendered solitary, nomadic, and homeless. Here Dylan sings with an almost palpable sneer: How does it feel How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone?

Some commentators, it seems, believe that this is not such dreadful fate. For example, Ricks notes that “being without a home . . . could be, even if far short of terrific, at least freed from certain pressures or oppressions.”145 In fact, Ricks seems to think that, if “Miss Lonely bridles at the thought of being taught a lesson . . . she may not be above learning her lesson.”146 Cast out on her own, “like a complete unknown,” perhaps she has finally learned how to be independent. For Ricks, the musical setting of “Like a Rolling Stone” suggests as such: “the dynamics in the rhythm” is “the source of the song’s delight,” and “since delight often overflows its bounds, then if the Princess is indeed like a rolling stone, some of this sense of delight just might roll her way.”147

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As has been seen, however, there are other ways to understand the fate of wandering—a point that Ricks himself concedes. “I am not convinced,” he adds, as if in passing, “that [‘Like a Rolling Stone’] rises quite as high (or would be the better for rising quite as high) above its ugly truthful feelings. . . . Ill-will is there, for sure.”148 Here Ricks seems to presuppose that the song also has a malicious or “vindictive”149 side, but this reading, too, risks being overly simplistic. Might not the principal interest of “Like a Rolling Stone” lie in exploring a certain form of life (“How does it feel?”) rather than in condemning or glorifying it? On such a phenomenological reading, “Like a Rolling Stone” is, at bottom, a portrait of a drifter, cut off from worldly pleasure, desperate either to return home or to be extinguished . . . but seemingly attaining neither. This is a familiar trope in literature—from Homer’s Odyssey (ca. eighth century BCE) to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)—and Dylan replicates it with admirable aplomb. Yet, in the end, his reluctance to resolve the predicament of Miss Lonely recalls Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the Ahasverus legend. We leave her not as a conquering heroine but as the object of a question, a question, moreover, that seems to have no answer. She continues to wander, knowing only that salvation does not lie in her former life. “Not Dark Yet” First demoed in 1996, “Not Dark Yet” has been called “the aesthetic and poetic pinnacle”150 of Dylan’s 1997 album Time Out of Mind. This is high praise, given that Time Out of Mind contains some of Dylan’s finest late-period work, from the Grammy-winning “Cold Irons Bound” to the oft-covered “Make You Feel My Love.” Nevertheless, it is true that “Not Dark Yet” can be seen as the literal and figurative heart of Time Out of Mind, appearing at roughly the album’s midpoint and encapsulating its themes of “love and life at a time when options and expectations have been greatly lowered.”151 For many commentators, Time Out of Mind is a record about “looming mortality”152 and, in point of fact, reflects Dylan’s hospitalization in May 1997 for histoplasmosis—an infection caused by the inhalation of the soil fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. For his own part, Dylan has conceded that the album resonates with old age’s encroaching awareness of decline and failure: “The days of tender youth are gone. I think you can be delirious in your youth, but as you get older, things happen.”153 Yet, if Time Out of Mind constitutes an artistic memento mori, it is also true that mori can occur in different forms. As Anti-Climacus points out, there is both physical death and spiritual death, and the two are not always (or even usually) coincident. Moreover, despite popular opinion, Time Out of Mind seems to have far greater interest in a spiritual “sickness unto death” than in its bodily counterpart. The album’s opener, aptly titled “Love Sick,” fuses the

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“gloomy atmosphere” of Daniel Lanois’ production with lyrics “filled with feeling and pain.”154 In “Tryin’ To Get to Heaven,” Dylan laments that life seems “hollow,” marked, above all, by loss: “When you think that you’ve lost everything / You find out you can always lose a little more.” “Cold Irons Bound” features a narrator who, apparently betrayed by his lover, catalogs feelings of self-alienation and hopelessness: “I’m all used up,” he groans “It’s such a sad thing to see beauty decay.” Yet, in the midst of this general sense of despair, “Not Dark Yet” still stands out. According to Christopher Ricks, the song should be compared John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819), in which the poet explores the tension between nature’s beauty and his own inexorable mortality. As Keats writes in the poem’s sixth stanza: Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy!155

For Ricks, the parallels between Keats’ poem and Dylan’s song are manifest in language itself. Similar turns of phrase crop up in each work, tallying up to “too many likenesses for it to be likely that they are coincidences.”156 The effect is to “set Dylan among the poets, there with Keats.”157 Indeed, since both are modern artists, they can be understood in psychoanalytical terms, giving distinct expression to the Freudian “death drive” (Todestrieb) that offsets poetry’s erotic tendencies. As Ricks concludes, “Not Dark Yet seeks—in the great phrase from Freud—to make friends with the necessity of dying. . . . Like Keats in the Ode, Dylan . . . is willing to be—as human beings sometimes should be—half in love with easeful death.”158 For all of its charm and insight, however, Rick’s case fails to do justice to the pervasive melancholy of “Not Dark Yet.” Carried along by the “heavy, haunting tempo” provided by drummers Brian Blade and Jim Keltner, Dylan sings in a voice “touched with sincerity and resignation,”159 augmented by the keening organ of Augie Meyers. The overall effect is indeed “dreamlike,”160 albeit in the sense of a nightmare. The song’s narrator, far from making friends with his own mortality, seems to be undergoing a trial of spiritual exhaustion and insouciance: Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away

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Feel like my soul has turned into steel I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal There’s not even room enough to be anywhere It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

The narrator does not welcome these encroaching shadows; he is oppressed by them. The reference to being “too hot” even evokes a kind of hell. Just as author Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote that “Hell is other people” (L’enfer, c’est les autres),161 so does Dylan confess that he no longer knows how to love. “My sense of humanity has gone down the drain,” he rasps, “I ain’t looking for nothing in anyone’s eyes.” In each of these cases, the threat does not lie in the impending arrival of physical death. It lies in something worse—the continuance of life when it no longer has meaning or purpose. As Dylan laments in the song’s final stanza. I was born here and I’ll die here against my will I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standing still Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from Don’t even hear a murmur of a prayer It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

The narrator is wandering, but making no headway. It is as if he were cursed, thrown into the world (to draw on the language of Martin Heidegger)162 and now forced to wait on death. Devoid of any teleological orientation—unsure of where he has been and where he is going—the narrator has grown “vacant and numb.” For some, the “death of God” is an act of rage, but here it is a desertion—an act of quiet despair. Even prayer, the last resort of human will, has been muted by the ever intruding shadow. This is, indeed, a picture of life’s “zero-point.” It is the tragedy of Ahasverus set to music. For Kierkegaard, this sort of sickness represents the terminus ad quem of the aesthetic stage: what started out as the pursuit of sensuous self-gratification concludes in utter world-weariness. “Not Dark Yet” tracks the same sequence. The song’s narrator is hardly a homebound depressive. “Well, I’ve been to London and I’ve been to gay Paree,” Dylan intones with an almost palpable smirk, “I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea.” Further, he suggests that he has experienced the romantic love of a “kind” woman. The narrator’s “burden,” then, is not that he has been deprived of worldly satisfaction, still less it is a fear of bodily death. The burden is that he has “been down on the bottom of a world full of lies.” The pleasures of life, so alluring, have been unmasked as sources of spiritual agony: “Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain,” Dylan wails.

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If “Not Dark Yet” represents the spiritual nadir of Time Out of Mind, the album concludes, quite literally, by gazing upon a faraway peak. Its final song “Highlands,” to which this study will return, signifies an eschatological hope otherwise suppressed on Time Out of Mind. As Dylan sings in the song’s (and the album’s) closing verse: Well, my heart’s in the Highlands at the break of day Over the hills and far away There’s a way to get there and I’ll figure it out somehow But I’m already there in my mind And that’s good enough for now

So, the wanderer’s sojourn continues. And yet, according to Dylan, there are existential dimensions beyond det Æstetiske, “over the hills and far away” from the dogged pursuit of self-gratification. The impinging night of “Not Dark Yet” has at last surrendered to the first light of dawn. CONCLUSION This chapter has established the core thesis of the present study—that Kierkegaard’s thought is capable of shedding light on Dylan’s songwriting. In particular, it has shown that the Dane’s multidimensional notion of the aesthetic finds corroboration in Dylan’s work. Both authors exhibit a debt to Romanticism, even as they suggest that an existence committed to sensuous self-gratification is bound to terminate in despair. In this way, they each point beyond det Æstetiske to something else—but to what? In the next chapter, we will consider the second of Kierkegaard’s three existential spheres, namely, “the ethical” (det Ethiske). For Kierkegaard, as for Dylan, this sphere marks an advance on the aesthetic, though, as will be seen, the extent to which it can secure human happiness remains a vexed question. NOTES 1. Jerrold Levinson, “Philosophical Aesthetics: An Overview,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, ed. Jerrold Levinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 5. 2. Brad Prager, Aesthetic Vision and German Romanticism: Writing Images (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2007), 5. 3. Ibid., 3. 4. Quoted in Fritz Novotny, Painting and Sculpture in Europe 1780–1880 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1960), 95.

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5. George Pattison, “Art in Age of Reflection,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 77. 6. Ibid., 78. 7. Ibid., 79. 8. Ibid. 9. SKS 17, DD:57 / JP 1, 859. 10. SKS 27, Papir 264:12 / JP 1, 800. 11. Pattison, “Art in Age of Reflection,” 80. 12. SKS 18, EE:100 / JP 4, 3890. 13. SKS 18, FF:29 / JP 3, 3816. 14. SKS 27, Papir 264:12 / JP 1, 800. Kierkegaard is quoting from the sixth stanza of Brorson’s 1732 hymn “In This Sweet Christmastime” (“I denne søde Juletid”). 15. SKS 2, 27 / EO1, 19. 16. Sylvia Walsh, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 51. 17. Ibid., 51. 18. Ibid. 19. Pattison, “Art in Age of Reflection,” 98. 20. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 68. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid., 69. 24. Ibid., 68. 25. Ibid., 71. 26. SKS 2, 40 / EO1, 31. 27. Evans, Kierkegaard, 73. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., 74. 30. SKS 2, 276 / EO1, 285. 31. SKS 2, 283 / EO1, 293. 32. Evans, Kierkegaard, 79. 33. SKS 2, 432 / EO1, 445. 34. SKS 2, 432 / EO1, 445. 35. SKS 2, 29 / EO1, 20. 36. William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets (London: The De la More Press, 1904), 12. 37. Evans, Kierkegaard, 84. 38. Ibid., 87. 39. Edna Gundersen, “Dylan on Dylan: ‘Unplugged’ and the Birth of a Song,” in The Dylan Companion, ed. Elizabeth Thomson and David Gutman (Boston: Da Capo, 2001), 225. 40. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 424.

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41. Kevin L. Stoehr, “You Who Philosophize Dylan: The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry in the Songs of Bob Dylan,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 186. 42. Quoted in ibid., 187. 43. Ibid. 44. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 300. 45. Quoted in Clinton Heylin, Trouble in Mind: Bob Dylan’s Gospel Years: What Really Happened (New York: Lesser Gods, 2017), 303. 46. Robert Love, “Bob Dylan Uncut,” AARP The Magazine, February/March 2015, accessed May 8, 2020, https:​//​www​.aarp​.org​/entertainment​/celebrities​/info​-2015​/bob​ -dylan​-magazine​-interview​.html. 47. Jamie A. Lorentzen, “Kierkegaard, Dylan, and Masked Anonymous Neighbor Love,” in Kierkegaard, Literature, and the Arts, ed. Eric Ziolkowski (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018). 48. Quoted in Richard F. Thomas, Why Bob Dylan Matters (New York: Dey Street Books, 2017), 129, 328. 49. Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 36–39. 50. Ibid. 51. Fore more on how Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky can be linked as religious existentialists, see, e.g., George Pattison, Anxious Angels: A Retrospective View of Religious Existentialism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999). 52. Ibid., 38–39. 53. SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 57. 54. SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 57. 55. SKS 2, 65 / EO1, 57. 56. SKS 3, 30 / EO2, 21–22. 57. Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michael Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2015), 167. 58. Rocky L. Sexton, “Ritualized Inebriation, Violence, and Social Control in Cajun Mardi Gras,” Anthropological Quarterly 74, no. 1 (2001): 28–38. doi:10.1353/ anq.2001.0010. 59. Barry Jean Ancelet, Capitaine, Voyage Ton Flag: The Traditional Cajun Country Mardi Gras (Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1989), 2. 60. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 167. 61. The word “intoxicate” is derived from the Latin verb toxicare (“to poison”). Thus the one who is intoxicated is “poisoned within.” 62. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 167–68. 63. See, e.g., Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self: A Reading of Kierkegaard’s “Concluding Unscientific Postscript” (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996). 64. Quoted in Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 152.

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65. Sounes, Down the Highway, 152. 66. Ibid., 153. 67. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 248–49. 68. Ibid., 302. 69. Hank Williams, “Baby, We’re Really in Love,” Genius, https:​//​genius​.com​/ Hank​-williams​-baby​-were​-really​-in​-love​-lyrics, accessed June 5, 2020. 70. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 314. 71. Ibid., 315. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Quoted in ibid., 314. 75. J. M. van der Laan, Seeking Meaning for Goethe’s “Faust” (London: Continuum, 2007), 9. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid., 165–66. 78. See, e.g., SKS 27, Papir 112 / JP 2, 1178. 79. SKS 27, Papir 140 / JP 1, 795. 80. SKS 18, FF:43 / JP 2, 1185. 81. Darío González, “Existence and the Aesthetic Forms,” in A Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Jon Stewart (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 364. 82. SKS 17, AA:41 / JP 2, 1968. 83. SKS 17, AA:41 / JP 2, 1968. 84. González, “Existence and the Aesthetic Forms,” 364. 85. James Daniel Collins, The Mind of Kierkegaard (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 61–62. 86. Michael Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (New York: Continuum, 2006), 442. 87. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 355. 88. Dylan, Chronicles, 130. 89. Priscilla Roberts (ed.), Cuban Missile Crisis: The Essential Reference Guide (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012), xi. 90. Ibid., xvi. 91. Ibid., xvii–xviii. 92. Ibid., xvii. 93. Bob Dylan, “Masters of War,” Broadside 20 (1963): 1–2. 94. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 56. 95. Ibid. 96. Quoted in ibid. 97. Ibid. 98. Quoted in Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (New York: Random House, 2012), 760. 99. “Transcript of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961),” Our Documents, https:​//​www​.ourdocuments​.gov​/doc​.php​?flash​=false​&doc​=90​&page​ =transcript, accessed July 5, 2020. 100. Ibid.

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101. Quoted in Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 56. 102. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 58. 103. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: 1: Inferno, trans. John D. Sinclair (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939), 423. 104. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 58. 105. Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, 367. 106. Quoted in ibid. 107. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 515. 108. Christopher Connelly, “Review of Infidels,” Rolling Stone, November 24, 1983. 109. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 510. 110. Ibid., 476. 111. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 323. 112. Ibid. 113. Lise Winer, Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago: On Historical Principles (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 474. 114. Ibid., 474–76. 115. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 514. 116. Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, 366. 117. See, e.g., Tony Attwood, “Jokerman: The Meaning of the Lyrics and the Music,” Untold Dylan, November 23, 2008, https:​//​bob​-dylan​.org​.uk​/archives​/25. 118. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 401. 119. Timothy Hampton, Bob Dylan’s Poetics: How the Songs Work (New York: Zone Books, 2019), 183–84. 120. Hampton, Bob Dylan’s Poetics, 185. 121. Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus: A- and B- Texts (1604, 1616), ed. David Bevington and Eric Rasmussen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 197. 122. Ibid. 123. Robert Chazan, Reassessing Jewish Life in Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 87. 124. Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Fragment: A Wanderer,” in The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (New York: Modern Library, 1994), 697. 125. SKS 27, Papir 140 / JP 1, 795. 126. SKS 17, AA: 44 / JP 2, 1184. 127. George Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith: An Introduction to His Thought (London: SPCK, 1997), 80. 128. Quoted in ibid. 129. Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith, 80. 130. SKS 27, Papir 257:3 / JP 1, 737. 131. Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith, 81. 132. Ibid., 82. 133. SKS 17, AA:44 / JP 2, 1184. 134. SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14. 135. SKS 11, 133 / SUD, 18.

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136. SKS 11, 135 / SUD, 18. The standard English interpretation of Kierkegaard’s writings renders this phrase “to die death,” but, in my view, the added preposition (“of”) gives it a more contemporary and affecting ring. A modern physician—and, in a sense, that is what Anti-Climacus purports to be—would not say “to die cancer” but “dying of cancer.” 137. SKS 11, 134 / SUD, 19. 138. “500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Rolling Stone’s Definitive List of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” Rolling Stone, April 7, 2011, https:​//​www​.rollingstone​ .com​/music​/music​-lists​/500​-greatest​-songs​-of​-all​-time​-151127​/. 139. Ibid. 140. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 187. 141. Quoted in Greil Marcus, Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), 144–45. 142. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 186. 143. See, e.g., Gray, The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, 613. Curiously, however, Gray concedes that “there’s no doubting the ghost of Edie Sedgwick hangs around [Dylan’s next album] Blonde on Blonde” (ibid.). 144. Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (New York: Ecco, 2003), 181. Also see William James, The Letters of William James (New York: Cosimo, 2008), 260. 145. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 183. 146. Ibid., 184. 147. Ibid., 186. 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid., 187. 150. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 622. 151. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 421. 152. Ibid., 416. 153. Ibid., 423. 154. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 618. 155. John Keats, The Complete Poems (London: Penguin, 1988), 347. 156. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 367. 157. Ibid., 369. 158. Ibid., 370. 159. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 623. 160. Ibid. 161. See, e.g., Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit and Three Other Plays (New York: Vintage, 1989), 45. 162. See, e.g., Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 424–48.

Chapter 3

Dylan as Poet of the Ethical

In chapter 2, it was said that there is a thematic consonance between Søren Kierkegaard’s conception of an aesthetic sphere of existence and a number of Bob Dylan’s songs. Whether or not Dylan intends his songs to mirror Kierkegaard’s theory is difficult to ascertain and, in any case, irrelevant. The point, rather, is that Kierkegaard’s insights help to illumine Dylan’s genius, even as Dylan’s songs give form to Kierkegaard’s ideas. For example, Kierkegaard’s argument that det Æstetiske can take on diverse and escalating expressions is illustrated by Dylan songs such as “Lay, Lady, Lay,” “Jokerman,” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” Ultimately, both figures suggest that a lifestyle dedicated to the pursuit of sensuous pleasure will end in spiritual degradation. The goal of the present chapter is to expand and to deepen this line of reasoning, now focusing on Kierkegaard’s second existential sphere—“the ethical” (det Ethiske). After providing a synopsis of Kierkegaard’s conception of the ethical, it will be shown that Dylan’s oeuvre exhorts the listener to live ethically, even as it raises questions about this very call. Does the proper discharge of ethical obligations constitute the summum bonum of human existence, or, as with aesthetic interests, does the ethical ultimately collide with a number of vexing aporias? After all, what if one’s ethical commitments reflect a variety of historically conditioned presuppositions, which, rather than guaranteeing the truthfulness of one’s activity, serve as means of self-justification and even self-aggrandizement? And yet, if this is true, what does it say about the human quest for happiness? Is it doomed to fail, or is there hope beyond the ethical? It is in broaching this question that Dylan, no less than Kierkegaard, opens the door to a concluding religious sphere—the subject of chapter 4.

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KIERKEGAARD’S CONCEPTION OF DET ETHISKE Derived from the Greek noun ēthos, meaning “moral character,” the word “ethics” has two distinct meanings. First, it refers to a manner of comportment that characterizes a given polity or society. Second, it denotes an intellectual discipline that analyzes human behavior, seeking to ascertain which actions and values are right and which wrong, which are permissible and which impermissible. Of course, in many cases, these two meanings overlap. For example, a prominent organization may require its members to act in accordance with a given ethical code, and commentators may debate the sources and the consequences of this corporate ethic. This, however, would only be a microcosm of a larger phenomenon. Since the dawn of human history, there has been a marked concern for how people are to act and why they are to act in one way rather than another. The Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac (ca. 1700 BCE) contains a series of “precepts and instructions,”1 some of which include the treatment of other people, that should be followed if crops are to flourish. The Hebrew Bible’s Ten Commandments were “a central element of Israelite religion from about 950 to 550 BCE,”2 though the Decalogue tradition itself is even older. As with the Sumerian Farmer’s Almanac, the Ten Commandments were meant to guide an early agricultural civilization.3 Centuries later, Plato cast such ethical concerns in a different register, subjecting them to dialectical analysis—an interest preeminently exemplified in his work Republic (ca. 375 BCE), which interrogates the nature and benefits of “justice” (δικαιοσύνη). In this way, Plato established “ethics” as an enduring subject of human reflection. Hence, by Kierkegaard’s day, ethical theory had already undergone a number of developments. In the preceding decades, German philosophers Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770– 1831) had furnished new ways of approaching ethical questions. For Kant, the time had come for past reliance on ecclesiastical and royal authority to yield to a trust “in the power of reason, believing that reason would create a future of unending progress in the human condition.”4 For Hegel, however, Kant’s turn away from tradition and toward “the individual’s moral life” required supplementation in the form of a rational reconciliation with “the world, comprehending a divine reason, akin to our own, immanent in it.”5 In particular, whereas Kant’s well-known “categorical imperative” (kategorischer Imperativ) sought to ground ethics in a formal and universalizable principle of duty, Hegel understood morality in terms of the shared norms provided by an already existing community.6 The former places greater emphasis on abstract rules about what is right and what is wrong; the latter stresses that ethical decision-making is driven by concrete customs and institutions that,

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in turn, incline one to act appropriately. The former is more oriented toward the individual, the latter toward society. Kierkegaard was familiar with these points of tension, not to mention the way that the Bible inflects various ethical questions. Thus his depiction of an ethical sphere of existence “gives somewhat different accounts of the ethical life in different contexts and for different purposes.”7 The first account comes by way of Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Judge William, who is the principal figure of the second part of Either/Or. An epistolary interlocutor with the young man known as “A,” who is responsible for the series of aesthetic writings that comprise Either/Or’s first part, the Judge is cast as a spokesman for an ethical point of view. In particular, the Judge represents a life dedicated to civil society and, above all, to family. In his letters to “A,” William argues that it is a mistake to assume that the life of a married person is humdrum and unrewarding. On the contrary, marriage is the condition for the very endurance of love and passion. Consider, after all, the alternative. As discussed in chapter 2, aesthetes such as “A” view sources of self-gratification in the manner that children view toys: they are to be used, discarded, and then replaced. This approach may work out fine for a time, but, as every child knows, good toys are scarce and ultimately expensive. In other words, the process of procuring new and enjoyable sources of pleasure is bound to frustrate, though what is frustration for the child becomes despair for the adult. That is why the Judge argues that the aesthetic wants to find completion in the ethical: it wants to continually enjoy happiness, but this permanent state of contentment is only possible if love is transformed by an enduring ethical commitment—indeed, as is found in marriage, which binds two lovers before God. As William tells “A”: You talk so much about the erotic embrace—what is that compared with the marital embrace? How much more richness of modulation there is in the marital “mine” than in the erotic. It resonates not only in the eternity of the seductive moment . . . but in the eternity of consciousness, in the eternity of eternity.8

This sense of eternal security is paradigmatically reflected in religious wedding ceremonies, but, argues the Judge, such sacred observances should not be seen as alien impositions by ecclesiastical authorities. In the absence of formal ritual, lovers will nevertheless swear their mutual fidelity “to each other by the moon, the stars, by the ashes of their fathers, by their honor, etc.”9 Thus there is a deep “need to let love transfigure itself in a higher sphere.”10 While William devotes a great deal of attention to discussing the importance of marital life, it would be a mistake to suggest that he views happiness as an epiphenomenon of marriage. Rather, the dynamic that drives romantic love toward the eternal is rooted in the structure of the human self. The life

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of det Æstetiske, precisely because it is dependent on fortunate (and therefore unpredictable) external conditions, ultimately terminates in “depression,” whereas the life of det Ethiske presents the way out of this dilemma, since it moves one away from concern for immediate self-gratification and toward a state of unconditional integrity. As the Judge explains: There comes a moment in a person’s life when immediacy is ripe, so to speak, and when the spirit requires a higher form, when it wants to lay hold of itself as spirit. As immediate spirit, a person is bound up with all the earthly life, and now spirit wants to gather itself together out of this dispersion, so to speak, and to transfigure itself in itself; the personality wants to become conscious in its eternal validity. If this does not happen, if the movement is halted, if it is repressed, then depression sets in.11

Hence, just as romantic love is made complete by eternal vows, so do “genuine happiness and satisfaction require responsible commitment.”12 For the Judge, the choice to live in accordance with ethical obligations overcomes the self-alienation of the aesthetic. In framing morality in terms of a personal decision between the two existential spheres, William has been accused of evacuating the ethical life of rational justification.13 But it should already be clear that that is incorrect. Not only does the Judge make an “Aristotelian assumption” that “human nature has fixed parameters that can be developmentally violated,” but he also insists that ethical decision-making “is motivated by the veneration, the esteem, we might say the love of the good that has been instilled in one through one’s upbringing.”14 In other words, there is a strong social character to William’s understanding of ethics, albeit one paired with the modern notion that, “through significant decisions, what was before merely an inheritance from others becomes gradually more deeply integrated into one’s self as agent.”15 The Judge, in short, is a supporter of aretaic ethics: he maintains that virtue (or, in the language of Aristotle, arete) precedes right action. Morality is not an abstract matter but, rather, something rooted in concrete habits and practices. It could be argued, then, that the Judge seeks to unite Kantian and Hegelian conceptions of ethics. In a Kantian vein, he treats the choice of det Ethiske as universally true: it applies to all persons in all cases. And yet, in a Hegelian vein, he views ethics not as a matter of “autonomous self-legislation . . . but [as] the way in which the laws and customs of a concrete community, a people, satisfy the demands of reason.”16 On this reading, ethics is both the key to human happiness and also the key to belonging to a society. Later in this chapter, it will be shown that Kierkegaard was by no means uncritical of the Judge’s conception of the ethical, not least because it risks

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deifying the moral norms of a given community. The ethical sphere, it turns out, is capable of engulfing the individual and thereby foreclosing on a free relationship with God and neighbor. For now, however, it is enough to reiterate that Kierkegaard’s writings generally recommend det Ethiske as an advance on an aesthetic life view: the former provides unity and purpose where the latter occasions dissolution and nihilism. Moreover, as has been seen, Kierkegaard’s insights find corroboration in the work of Bob Dylan. Indeed, a number of Dylan’s songs convey the importance of the ethical, both as a universal human responsibility and as a communally oriented way of life. In the next section, an assortment of these songs will be examined, including some of Dylan’s most illustrious tracks such as “The Times They Are a-Changin” (1964). And yet, the final section of this chapter will show that, much like Kierkegaard, Dylan harbors reservations, both creative and philosophical, about whether or not the ethical is the highest a human being can attain. THE ETHICAL IN BOB DYLAN’S SONGS There was a time when, first and foremost, Bob Dylan was thought of as an ethical songwriter. As Howard Sounes notes, Dylan’s career began precisely as “America entered a period of enormous upheaval and social change,” and, on the strength of tracks such as “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1963), Dylan emerged as “the artist who had captured the zeitgeist in song.”17 Significantly, a number of Dylan’s early tracks “became anthems of the civil rights movement,” and, on August 28, 1963, Dylan performed with fellow folksinger (and then lover) Joan Baez at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—an event that was intended to promote the civic welfare of black Americans and that featured, in one of the landmark moments of American history, the “I Have a Dream” speech of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–68). As a matter of fact, Dylan was just “feet away” from Dr. King during his keynote talk, and “Bob appeared as one of the leaders of the struggle for social justice.”18 In other words, Dylan was seen as more than a writer of ethical songs; he was even viewed as the ethical songwriter par excellence or, as he himself has put it, “the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation.”19 In time, Dylan would come to abjure such labels. He did not want to serve as “the Prince of Protest” for a plethora of “unaccountable-looking characters, gargoyle-looking gals, scarecrows, stragglers looking to party, [or] raid the pantry.”20 Nevertheless, in considering the ethical in Dylan’s oeuvre, it makes sense to begin with some of his best work from this period. For only in seeing where Dylan’s approach to the ethical started can we understand how it evolved over time.

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Dylan and the Ethics of “Protest” Over the course of the 2010s, “social justice warrior” (often abbreviated SJW) has become a popular tag for people who promote the tenets and viewpoints of progressivism. It originated as a term of endearment, but, in recent years, it has assumed more depreciatory connotations. On social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, “SJW” is often used as shorthand for reformist political stances held with pious, yet arguably duplicitous, conviction. An SJW, in other words, is one who claims to embody strong ethical values but, in reality, is more invested in image than actuality. Whether or not this is a fair and comprehensive description of “social justice warrior” is not relevant in this context. The point, rather, is that the SJW phenomenon, as well as and the controversies surrounding it, bear a number of similarities to the situation of Dylan’s early career. As has been noted, Dylan was viewed as one of the SJWs of his own era. He “had sympathy for the great social issues of the day,”21 and he “was associating with a lot of [the] New York radicals”22 who would help establish the progressive agenda of the 1960s. And yet, not everyone was convinced that Dylan was dedicated to the causes championed by his songs. Dylan’s meteoric rise on the Greenwich Village folk scene—he had just arrived in New York City in January 1961—stemmed above all from a “drive for success [that was] allimportant.”23 According to Baez, Dylan only “rarely took part in rallies or demonstrations,” and he was congenitally “uninterested in party politics.”24 There were even rumors that he penned some, if not all, of his protest songs “simply because he thought [they] would sell.”25 And this is to say nothing of Dylan’s personal life, which was in turmoil due to broken relationships and drug abuse.26 “Bobby at that time was a very fucked-up person,” recalled Carla Rotolo, sister of Dylan’s onetime girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Thus Dylan was, in a sense, a proto-SJW. He promoted ethical ideals but was not personally attached to them. For that reason, it is not surprising that there is a palpable Kantian streak in Dylan’s early protest songs. Just as Kant’s ethics finds expression in abstract principles independent from the contexts or desires of individual human beings—to wit, Kant’s so-called “humanity formulation” decrees that human beings, qua rational beings, should always be treated as ends rather than as means27—so does the early Dylan treat questions about social justice in general, almost impersonal terms. To be fair, there was a degree of poetic license in this approach. Sounes cites “When the Ship Comes In” (1964) as an example of Dylan using “fable and scripture,” not to mention “exuberant imagination,” as a way of alluding to, but never explicitly citing, “the social concerns of 1963.”28 But there was something else too—an attempt to frame ethical issues in the broadest possible terms, so as to engage the widest possible audience. Dylan was more interested in changing the

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world than in changing himself. This tendency is clear in a number of Dylan’s early anthems, a few of which will be discussed below, albeit with particular focus on “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Still, as this section comes to a close, it will be argued that “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (1964) is actually Dylan’s most effective protest song, precisely because it eschews abstraction in favor of the vivid rendering of systemic inequality. “The Times They Are a-Changin” In order to understand “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” Dylan’s paean to the zeitgeist of the 1960s, it is important to note that the song represents both a continuation and an evolution for the artist. As the lead track on the eponymous 1964 album, it serves as a bridge between Dylan’s emergence as a songwriter of note on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) and his arrival as a social-justice icon on The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964). The former album is actually quite varied, containing love songs such as “Girl from the North Country,” Delta-blues dirges such as “Down the Highway,” and folk adaptations such as “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance.” The latter album, by way of contrast, offers “no comic relief that could lighten up the bleak atmosphere,” yielding ten tracks that, in one way or another, respond “to injustice in American society” and, in turn, “call for a new world.”29 One is a creative masterpiece, the other a political statement. At the same time, however, it would be impossible to deny that the most famous songs from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan bear political import, especially “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Masters of War,” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” “Blowin’ in the Wind” was immediately hailed as an “anthem of hope and peace” by the cognoscenti of Greenwich Village, despite the fact that, far from providing answers, the song only “poses a series of rhetorical questions: three stanzas of eight lines each, each line asking a question for which the answer (always the same) is contained in the chorus.”30 As Dylan sings in the second verse: How many years can a mountain exist Before it’s washed to the sea? Yes, ’n’ how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes, ’n’ how many times can a man turn his head Pretending he just doesn’t see? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind

Here Dylan’s lyrics evoke an anguished yet “profound spirituality,”31 so much so that the song’s religious element almost overshadows its political

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significance. “Blowin’ in the Wind” is as much a biblical lamentation as an ethical prophecy. A related point could be made about “Masters of War” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” As discussed in chapter 2, “Masters of War” is a portrait of Faustian aestheticism, not an anti-war song. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” though often associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, was actually written months earlier. Thus its “uninterrupted flow of dark, apocalyptic images”32 (“I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it / I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it”) is more akin to the Book of Daniel or to the work of English artist William Blake (1757– 1827) than a direct political statement. In short, while The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan does not discourage ethical readings, particularly those favored by the antiestablishment Left, the album is hardly reducible to such interpretations. It opens a door that it does not fully enter. Dylan’s subsequent effort, however, would break down the door. Confidently entitled The Times They Are a-Changin’, it is “a work of protest songs in which [Dylan] imposed his own worldview.”33 The album was recorded in two clusters of sessions—August 1963 and October 1963—but released in January 1964. In between President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and “the whole world was still reeling from”34 this tragedy. Thus the album’s cover reflects both its collective ethos and the nation’s mood: featuring a black-and-white photograph of Dylan, whose angular, scowling face dominates the frame, the cover suggests that Dylan is no frivolous artist but, rather, a leader or even a savior: “At the age of twenty-two, Dylan already seemed to be carrying a cross, this heavy burden of the violence and injustice he witnessed every day and of which he was sometimes the victim.”35 It is hardly an accident, then, that The Times They Are a-Changin’ begins with a song of the same name, invoking “a feeling, a shared hope that the sixties would transform society.”36 The song, like the album, was received as a call to usher in a new and more just social order. Dylan recorded “The Times They Are a-Changin’” in October 1963 at Columbia Studios in Manhattan; it took eight takes before he and producer Tom Wilson were satisfied. And yet, the song is simple at its core. Introducing a “much clearer and more aggressive sound” than on previous albums, Dylan sings over a “three-beat rhythm signature” that is “almost hypnotic.”37 This minimalism reflects Dylan’s aim to make sure that the music conveys, rather than eclipses, the message: “This was definitely a song with a purpose,”38 he later noted. With a melody and structure borrowed from the folk ballads of the British Isles, Dylan begins by summoning his listeners: “Come gather ’round people / Wherever you roam.” Though this may seem like a hackneyed line— Dylan himself has noted that it recalls the opening of a number of old folk songs, including the Appalachian traditional “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies” (also known as “Tiny Sparrow”)39—it nevertheless announces the

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earnestness and catholicity of the singer’s intentions. The words that follow, Dylan implies, are not pitched at a particular land or party (“wherever you roam”); they bear universal import. Indeed, so all-inclusive is Dylan’s message that it is not even his own. As Christopher Ricks has pointed out, “The Times They Are a-Changin’” does not profess to reveal truths to the listener; it suggests “that you already know the truth that is being pressed upon you.”40 Thus Dylan concludes the first verse: And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’

Ricks links Dylan’s invocation of rising “waters” to the Bible, particularly to the story of the Exodus, which crests with the drowning of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea: “Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath [the LORD] cast into the sea: / his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea. / The depths have covered them: / they sank into the bottom as a stone” (Exod. 15:4–5). This was a motif that was on Dylan’s mind at the time. “When the Ship Comes In,” the eighth track on The Times They Are a-Changin,’ makes an even more explicit reference to the Exodus narrative: “And like Pharaoh’s tribe / They’ll be drownded in the tide.” Such allusions to miraculous events from Scripture might indicate that Dylan is operating within a mythical or mystical framework, but, on The Times They Are a-Changin’, his intent is fundamentally political. This approach was consistent with Dylan’s interest in African American folk music. His debut album Bob Dylan (1962) demonstrated his familiarity with black gospel and spiritual songs: “In My Time of Dying” had already been popularized by “guitar evangelists”41 Blind Willie Johnson (1897–1945) and Dock Reed (1898–1979), and “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” was one of the most famous compositions of Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893–1929). Though “among the earliest sacred folk songs attributable to black culture,”42 spirituals came to transcend their theological origins and to take on political import: “Particularly during the most recent civil rights movement that began in the 1950s, spirituals were sung to protest economic and social conditions in the South with refrains about ‘crossing the River of Jordan’ and creating a new vision of America.”43 According to David Kling, “no other group has appropriated the exodus theme so often and in so many

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diverse ways as African American Christians,” and it was a particularly prominent motif during the 1960s, appearing in the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as in the shocking novel Manchild in the Promised Land (1965), written by Harlem-native Claude Brown.44 Such a political appropriation of black folk music was not lost on Dylan, who, as has been seen, indicates that he is tapping into this tradition at the outset of The Times They Are a-Changin’. His “waters” are indeed the waters of justice (Amos 5:24), which are set to inundate those who refuse to align with the times. As a song about justice, “The Times They Are a-Changin’” is also a song about judgment. After all, these notions are closely related. The English words “justice” and “judgment” are both derived from the Latin noun ius, meaning “law” or “right.” To judge is to pronounce what is right, and justice is the state of rightness or, even better, righteousness. If, then, one is to bring about justice, one has to judge wisely, discriminating between right and wrong. In other words, injustice has to be identified and eliminated, so that justice may come to reign. With this in mind, it makes sense that “The Times They Are a-Changin’” next turns to “writers and critics” as well as “senators and congressman.” These are the dignitaries to whom prudent judgment and the administration of justice have been entrusted. But they have failed, albeit in different ways. The writers and critics, far from prophesying a future of peace and harmony, merely “prophesize,” a word that “gets and whets its sardonic edge from what the suffix -ize often implies, that the whole thing has become a predictable formula or an empty abstraction, complacently explaining away.”45 In the past, such commentators have closed their eyes to injustice, but now they must “keep [their] eyes wide,” lest history turn and expose them as charlatans and hypocrites: “And don’t speak too soon / For the wheel’s still in spin / And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ / For the loser now will be later to win / For the times they are a-changin’.”46 Yet, if writers and critics are guilty of sins of omission, senators and congressmen are responsible for sins of commission. They have actively prevented the realization of justice and will ultimately be held accountable: Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don’t stand in the doorway Don’t block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’ It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin’

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Here Dylan makes a thinly veiled reference to former Alabama governor George Wallace (1919–98), who, on June 11, 1963, stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium on the campus of the University of Alabama, refusing to let black students complete their registration for classes. Yet, Dylan’s larger point is that politicians such as Wallace cannot stop the advent of a more just society. The sensible political move, then, is to “heed the call” of progress. It is not that the times may change; no, “the times they are a-changin’.” After conveying a similar message to “mothers and fathers / Throughout the land,” whose “old road is rapidly agin’,” Dylan drives home the song’s point with doughty finality. As he sees it, the events of 1963 are not mere coincidences. They are part of a providential plan almost divine in nature. The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is rapidly fadin’ And the first one now will later be last For the times they are a-changin’

Here, again, Dylan draws on the language of Scripture to underline his position. In describing the coming Kingdom of God, in and through which the earth will experience “regeneration,” Jesus explains that this new order will not be for those who currently enjoy worldly power: “But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Mt. 19: 28–30). Dylan thus imbues the social justice movements of the 1960s with biblical significance, even going so far as to mimic the structure of the passage from Matthew. As Ricks points out, “This is the last verse of the [Gospel] chapter, even as it is the last admonition of the song.”47 And yet, there is a key contextual difference between Jesus’ words and those of Dylan. The former’s expectancy is eschatological in nature, pointing toward a day in which God will bring about a just world; the latter’s is temporal in nature, calling for a grassroots reform of the American political system. In later years, Dylan would come to see his hope in worldly politics as naïve and possibly even sinful—a topic that will be explored in due course. For now, suffice it to say that Dylan’s eventual repudiation of protest anthems has marred the ongoing reception of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Ricks suggests that the song is a token of baby-boomer gullibility: “Children of the sixties still thrill to The Times They Are a-Changin’, kidding themselves that what the song proclaimed was that at last the times were about to

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cease to change, for the first and last time in history. Was not enlightenment dawning, once and for all?”48 Others see “The Times They Are a-Changin’” as a reminder of Dylan’s failed promise, arguing that he abandoned the song’s revolutionary vision for the sake of personal gain—a point that was allegedly corroborated when Dylan did not sing it on tour of communist China in April 2011.49 In truth, despite its initial reception, “The Times They Are a-Changin’” is ultimately too abstract to be limited to a particular era or party. When revealing the first Macintosh personal computer in 1984, Apple CEO Steve Jobs (1955–2011) recited the song’s second verse for a group of stockholders.50 Decades later, the DC Comics superhero film Watchmen (2009) featured the track during its opening credits. Such elasticity is both the strength and the weakness of “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” It is an ethical song that lacks a determinate ethical object. As it turns out, Dylan would amend this approach on the very same album. “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at a podium on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his now famous “I Have a Dream” speech. On that very day, a Maryland circuit court sentenced William Zantzinger, a moneyed tobacco farmer from Charles County, to six months in prison. The confluence of these two events did not go unnoticed. On a front page dominated by coverage of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Baltimore Afro-American added the headline: “Cane-Killer Gets Off With Six Months.” The New York Times ran a more subdued caption: “Farmer Sentenced in Barmaid’s Death.” Nevertheless, it was the latter story that caught Bob Dylan’s eye.51 As Dylan would learn, the facts of the Zantzinger trial were as appalling as they were poignant. Zantzinger had been convicted of manslaughter in the death of Hattie Carroll, who served drinks at the Emerson Hotel in downtown Baltimore. The crime took place early in the morning on February 9, 1963. Zantzinger and his wife Jane were in town for the Spinsters’ Ball, a “white-tie affair in which passed-over postdebutantes in their late 20s take another try at meeting the right sort of men.”52 Accompanied by the Howard Lanin Orchestra, hundreds of well-heeled guests were in attendance. Both of the Zantzingers arrived at the ball intoxicated, having downed several cocktails at the Eager House restaurant nearby. Moreover, in an ill-fated move, William had managed to pick up a wooden carnival cane, which he was using to flirt with women and to intimidate waitstaff. Things soon got out of hand. Jane was too drunk to dance and, after a fight with her husband, had to be escorted

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to a private room to sober up. William returned to the bar and continued to drink. It was there that he encountered Hattie Carroll: Zantzinger shoved his way through to the bar again, and was calling for more bourbon. Carroll, who was busy serving another customer, asked him to wait for a moment. “Mrs. Carroll was fixing another drink,” [fellow barmaid Marina] Patterson testified. “So she didn’t serve him immediately. He said ‘Nigger, did you hear me ask for a drink?‘ He said ‘I don’t have to take that kind of shit off a nigger.’ He took the cane and struck her on the right shoulder. She leaned against the bar. Mr. Zantzinger stood at the bar for a while, then he picked up his drink and left. She seemed to have been in shock. She said, ‘That man has upset me so, I feel deathly ill.’”53

As a matter of fact, Carroll was not just flustered but had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. An ambulance was called, and she was taken to Baltimore’s Mercy Hospital, where she died later that morning. Word of Carroll’s death was slow getting to Baltimore’s Central Municipal Court, and Zantzinger was already out on bail at the time of her passing.54 He was rearrested, slapped with a murder charge, and released again on bail until his trial in June. In the end, however, a panel of three judges was persuaded that Zantzinger’s behavior was not the direct cause of Carroll’s death, since Carroll was already ailing from a number of preexisting health conditions. As The New York Times recounted: “The court accepted medical testimony that the caning itself was not enough to cause death. But the combination of shock, produced by Zantzinger’s abusive language and the blow with the cane were sufficient to cause a sudden blood pressure increase and fatal brain haemorrhage.”55 The ambiguity of this decision would yield to anger in August, when, as noted, Zantzinger’s sentence proved far less substantial than expected. Still, even before Zantzinger’s sentencing, the story had made ripples among left-wing organizers, many of whom were active in New York City’s folk music scene. Educator and poet Don West (1906–92) published his “Ballad of Hattie Carroll” in a March 1963 issue of Broadside. For West, Carroll’s story serves as a kind of call to arms: She left a family filled with sorrow And to us all a pledge to keep A pledge that we shall end such sadness Brought on by men of powerful name Nor ever forget this honest mother For we must end this awful shame!56

There is no doubt that Dylan was familiar with West’s “Ballad of Hattie Carroll”: the lyrics to Dylan’s unreleased song “Train a-Travelin’” adorn

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the cover of the same issue of Broadside. Moreover, it is likely that Dylan’s understanding of the case was shaped by a news article pasted below West’s poem.57 Entitled “Rich Brute Slays Negro Mother of 10,” this article was excised from an uncredited paper and attributed Roy H. Wood—onetime Chair of the District of Columbia Communist Party.58 Not unlike West’s composition, Wood treats Zantzinger’s crime as an invitation to speak out against racial and socioeconomic inequality, so much so that Wood fudges some of the actual details of the case—mistakes that also crop up in Dylan’s song. For example, Wood claims that Zantzinger “rained blows on the head”59 of Hattie Carroll, and Dylan reports that Baltimore police “booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder.”60 Both statements are false. Notably, however, Dylan’s song does not hang on such inaccuracies, chiefly because it is not written from the perspective of a political organizer. Instead, Dylan imbues Carroll’s story with the sensitivity of a poet and an almost Socratic approach to ethics. As Dylan has noted, the conceit of a poor woman suffering at the hands of an oppressive ruling class is not new: the show tune “Pirate Jenny” (Seeräuber-Jenny), whose lyrics were penned by German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), centers on a hotel maid who dreams of getting revenge on those who abuse her.61 Yet, where Brecht opts for satire, Dylan lets the tragic circumstances of Carroll’s demise speak for them themselves. The music too is appropriately restrained. Featuring an acoustic guitar and a keening harmonica solo between the third and fourth verses, the song was recorded in just four takes in October 1963. Its most notable musical flourish comes in the last verse, around the line “And that even the nobles get properly handled,” when Dylan accelerates and judders the song’s tempo in advance of its anticlimactic resolution—that Zantzinger only receives a six-month sentence for his crime. Such attention to detail rounds out “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” but the song’s lyrics are what make it a classic. As Ricks puts it, “One would need many more words of appreciation than Dylan needed of creation to bring out the living perfection, four square and subtle, of this great song.”62 He subsequently concludes, “Here is a song that could not be written better.”63 To be sure, while Ricks acknowledges that “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” is one of many Dylan compositions that “turn upon justice,” his analysis generally centers on Dylan’s masterful use of language. He observes how Dylan chose to base the song “upon the particular cadence of [Carroll’s and Zantzinger’s] real-life names,” phrasing them in such a way that the final syllable is unstressed.64 In this way, Dylan “naturally evokes a dying fall or courage in the face of death or of loss, something falling poignantly away.”65 Just as Carroll succumbed to Zantzinger’s blow, so does Dylan’s voice suggest “movement, inexorable in its sadness and in its curbed

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indignation.”66 This spell, “duly monotonous,” is broken only in the song’s third verse, when Dylan describes Zantzinger striking Carroll, placing unmistakable stress on the final word of the eighth line—“cane.” Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage And never sat once at the head of the table And didn’t even talk to the people at the table Who just cleaned up all the food from the table And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane That sailed through the air and came down through the room Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger

Thus Dylan is able to make his voice express “an amputation,” a life “cut short, curtailed by brutality.”67 Yet, for Ricks, it is also crucial that Dylan’s account never devolves into diatribe or melodrama. Knowing, unlike Zantzinger, that anger “is always a bad master,” Dylan exemplifies a “cooled control of this incendiary case.”68 Ricks’ analysis, while incisive, nevertheless raises questions. For example, given Dylan’s composed delivery and unembroidered lyrics, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” seems to be a far different protest song than others from that era. It is not, in other words, an anthem for SJWs but something more subtle—an elicitation of “a simple pathos,” a return “to a child’s sense of injustice.”69 This simple pathos is educed precisely by eschewing the rousing yet ultimately hollow grandstanding of tracks such as “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Instead of picking sides in the so-called “culture war,” “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” seeks to spark “ethical consciousness.”70 As a result, the song brings the listener to what Kierkegaard calls the highest expression of ethical life—namely, “repentance.”71 This aim is made clear by the last three lines of each stanza. As in “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” Dylan again employs the word “philosophize,” though here in an attempt to preempt “philosophical excuses for what is simply disgrace.”72 Too often, Dylan suggests, people are inclined to rationalize or to sentimentalize injustice. The first step, then, is to see it for what it is: “But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears / Take the rag away from your face / Now ain’t the time for your tears.” These words serve as a refrain until the fourth and final verse, when Dylan makes a small but crucial modification: “Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears / Bury the rag deep in your face / For now’s the time for your tears.” When one truly confronts depravity (“Take the rag way from your face”), one can

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properly grieve and make amends (“Bury the rag deep in your face”). “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” then, was meant to accomplish what the justice system would not: “And [the judge] spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished / And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance / William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence.” If, following Kierkegaard, ethical consciousness lies in repentance, Zantzinger’s meager punishment is inadequate to the task. The poet must step forward and challenge the sociopolitical structures that suppress repentance and, in turn, allow injustice to endure. Francis Beckwith has observed that “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” passes judgment on those who use an “interpretive grid of complex rationalizations” to conceal the fact that “we live in a moral universe . . . in which moral law is part of the infrastructure of reality.”73 This is an astute observation, but it falls short of explaining why the song (to cite Ricks again) “could not be written better.” The answer lies in the shift in Dylan’s ethical perspective. Instead of relying on moral platitudes, Dylan opts for particularity in “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” He details a case that is manifestly unjust: a poor woman has been verbally and physically abused by a rich man.74 There is no need, he implies, to think about this case in abstractions. It is about right and wrong, not about partisanship or sociology. Moreover, Dylan directly incorporates the listener into the song (“your tears”) and, in this way, prompts a subjective response. Just as Socrates in the Euthydemus (ca. 384 BCE) chides the Sophists for promoting justice without wisdom (phrónēsis),75 so does Dylan here place self-knowledge in the foreground. It is as if he asks: “How can such a thing happen? What have you done (or not done) to allow it to happen?” That “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” ends on this note, without consolation or rationalization, marks it as something more than a protest song. It is a call for transformative self-reflection. Dylan and the Ethics of Family Life Earlier in this chapter, it was noted that Kierkegaard’s Either/Or features a character named Judge William. Though lacking the dash and mystery of Kierkegaard’s most popular pseudonyms, the Judge is nevertheless a key representative of the Dane’s conception of the ethical. In terms of form, William is a civil servant, husband, and father—an ambassador for middle-class, traditional ideals. In terms of content, he is an advocate for “what he calls the ethical—the ‘or,’ which he opposes to the aesthetic ‘either,’” and he argues that “the ethical has its source in a freedom that . . . defines the self’s way of being, its responsibility for the manner of its existence.”76 According to William, the person who lives for aesthetic gratification is allowing her life to be defined by forces extrinsic to her own singular and unrepeatable self.

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Hence, even if she finds pleasure for a time, she lacks self-determination and will ultimately succumb to despair. In contrast, the Judge recommends that a person choose “the absolute,” which he goes on to identify as choosing “myself in my eternal validity.”77 What he means by this is that the self should take ownership of both its past and future, of both its necessity and possibility. No longer an arbitrary accretion of experiences, spinning uncontrollably on life’s wheel of fortune, the self of “ethical self-acceptance” is bound “to the obligations that come his way as a member of a quite concrete social body.”78 This commitment to social order is not mere conformism. On the contrary, as the Judge sees it, responsibilities such as marriage and fatherhood do “not restrict the individual’s freedom but [provide] a support and context for it.”79 Whereas the Judge’s interlocutor, an aesthete known as “A,” views social conventions as curtailing the enjoyment of worldly pleasure, the Judge argues just the opposite: living as a responsible ethical agent elevates the beauty and happiness of life, inasmuch as it binds these pleasures to what is eternal in the self. As detailed in chapter 1, Bob Dylan went through a lengthy period in which his existential life view—and, with it, his songwriting—bore a strong resemblance to that of Judge William. This turn was by no means incidental. By the mid-1960s, Dylan’s private life was in a shambles. Increasingly alienated from the folk movement, which had come to treat him more like a puppet than an artist, Dylan plunged himself into the aesthetic counterculture. Not only did his work slowly but surely move away from protest songs, but his use of drugs went from recreational to abusive. While on tour in early 1966, Dylan declared that he had been using “opium and hash and pot,” since “everybody’s mind should be bent once in a while.”80 In a later interview, he confessed that the pressures of touring necessitated drug use: “It takes a lot of medicine to keep on this pace,” he remarked, “A concert tour like this has almost killed me.”81 Indeed, Dylan had already graduated from hashish—a cannabis concentrate—to much stronger drugs. As Howard Sounes notes, “There is . . . little doubt that Dylan was using pills to keep him going, in one way or another, as well as hallucinogens.”82 The situation was spiraling out of control, when suddenly, and literally, it came to a crashing halt. On July 29, 1966, Dylan lost control of his Triumph 500 motorcycle on a country road near Woodstock, New York. He was thrown to the ground and, according to some accounts, seriously injured. The details of the accident remain murky, but what is certain is that it launched a new stage of Dylan’s life and career. Far removed from the hectic scheduling and frenzied carousing of life on tour, Dylan made a decision of which Judge William doubtless would approve—to forswear the dogged and ultimately vexing pursuit of sensuous indulgence in order to reflect on his life’s context and purpose. As he explained to a reporter in May 1967: “[I am] poring over books by people

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you never heard of, thinking about where I’m going, and why am I running and am I mixed up too much and what am I knowing and what am I giving and what am I taking.”83 And yet, it was not just that Dylan had become more contemplative. His entire lifestyle had changed. Though he married Sara Lownds in November 1965, the couple did not really settle down until after the motorcycle accident. They moved to Woodstock on a permanent basis, bought two dogs (a large poodle and a Saint Bernard),84 and had their first child Jesse Byron in January 1966. Three more children would follow—Anna Lea in July 1967, Samuel Isaac Abram in 1968, and Jakob Luke in 1969. He also adopted Sara’s daughter Maria around this time. In fairly short order, Dylan had gone from doing methedrine in the bathroom of the Savoy Hotel in London85 to walking Maria to the school bus stop in Woodstock.86 When asked in a 1969 interview about his “day-to-day life,” Dylan responded, “Every day is different. Depends on what I’m doing. I may be fiddling around with the car or I may be painting a boat, or . . . possibly washing the windows. I just do what has to be done.”87 And then, as if realizing the banality of this answer, he added, “Boy, I hurried . . . I hurried for a long time. I’m sorry I did. All the time you’re hurrying, you’re not really as aware as you should be.”88 Such existential changes were bound to turn up in Dylan’s music, and they did. Famously, it was during this period that Dylan recorded well over 100 demos with the Hawks (later known as The Band) in the basement of “Big Pink,” a country house in West Saugerties, New York. Though not released until several years later, these songs were a springboard to a series of albums in which Dylan would write and record “shorter, simpler, down-to-earth songs, which were in the folk and country tradition.”89 But it was not just the setting and the form of Dylan’s music that would change. The worldview expressed in his lyrics was similarly revamped. The beatnik ethos and surrealist imagery of albums such as Blonde on Blonde (1966) were replaced by a perspective rooted in the proverbial wisdom of the Bible and the traditional themes of American folk. Songs about saints and sinners, landlords and hobos, fathers and sons largely define this era of Dylan’s career. In turn, Dylan began to approach ethical questions in a new light. Far from a left-wing social-justice activist, he now adopted the persona of pater familias, embarking on a phase in which his ethical point of view bore a striking resemblance to Kierkegaard’s Judge. “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” The longest song on Dylan’s 1968 album John Wesley Harding, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” is generally considered a minor entry in Dylan’s canon. Recorded in a single take in October 1967, it has the quality of

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a throwaway track, featuring a simple three-chord structure and an insouciant performance by Dylan, who delivers the song’s 11 verses with an understated “touch of humor and irony.”90 Such understatement, however, belies the song’s lyrical solemnity. In a May 1967 interview with the New York Daily News, Dylan confessed that his new songs were inspired by the morality tales and wisdom literature of the Bible: “I can’t hope to touch that,” he added, “but I’m going to try.”91 Whatever its shortcomings, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” is clearly one such attempt—a Bunyanesque allegory in which the dangers of sin, and the need to choose the ethical, are brought into focus. The song identifies its principal characters at the outset: “Well, Frankie Lee and Judas Priest / They were the best of friends.” Though this statement is offered without qualification, it appears to be an exaggeration. In the first few stanzas, it becomes clear that the two friends are in a dichotomous relationship. Whereas Frankie Lee lacks money, Judas Priest has an abundance of cash on hand. Moreover, when Frankie Lee hesitates to take Judas Priest’s money, the latter pressures him to “hurry up and choose which of those bills you want.” Since Frankie Lee is later identified as a “gambler,” it thus appears that Judas Priest is a kind of loan shark, who wants to keep Frankie Lee in his debt. The very name “Judas Priest” suggests as much, since it juxtaposes two concepts—that of a leader (the word “priest” is derived from the Greek presbyteros, meaning “elder” or “venerable”) and that of a traitor (the name “Judas,” of course, recalls Judas Iscariot, the disciple of Jesus Christ who ultimately betrayed him).92 At the end of the song’s fourth stanza, Judas Priest leaves Frankie Lee, telling him that he is going to “Eternity” or “Paradise” and encouraging his friend to join him. Frankie Lee initially resists, but, when a “passing stranger” informs him that Judas Priest is “down the road / Stranded in a house,” Frankie Lee hastens to his friend’s rescue. But the stranger’s message appears to have been a ruse. Frankie Lee arrives to find an exultant Judas Priest, who declares that he has found “‘not a house . . . [but] a home.’” The word “home” tends to indicate a place of hospitality and security, where one can take shelter from the hazards of the outside world. Indeed, in an ideal sense, a home is a “paradise,” a word that can be etymologically traced to the Avestan pairidaeza (“enclosure”). It turns out, however, that Judas Priest’s “home” is anything but. The narrator specifies that it is a “big house,” but, in reality, it is a brothel: [Frankie Lee] just stood there staring At that big house as bright as any sun With four and twenty windows And a woman’s face in ev’ry one

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Enthralled, even “foaming at the mouth,” Frankie Lee enters Judas Priest’s “home” with “a soulful, bounding leap.” Any resistance Frankie Lee once had to his older friend, to the lure of the aesthetic, has been overwhelmed: For sixteen nights and days he raved But on the seventeenth he burst Into the arms of Judas Priest Which is where he died of thirst

To die of want amid excess is ostensibly a paradox. Would it not be paradise to abide in a state of constant sensual gratification? That Frankie Lee, then, perishes of abundance seems to manifest an aporia. Perhaps that is why “the little neighbor boy” who buries Frankie Lee concludes the tale with his own cryptic synopsis: “Nothing is revealed.” And yet, the song’s final stanza corrects the boy’s words. The narrator, now adopting a perspective reminiscent of Judge William, attempts to clarify the meaning of his parable: Well, the moral of the story The moral of this song Is simply that one should never be Where one does not belong So when you see your neighbor carryin’ somethin’ Help him with his load And don’t go mistaking Paradise For that home across the road

Once more, “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” returns to the question of paradise. Too often, Dylan’s narrator implies, people assume that paradise is an external something that they lack and thus need to acquire. Under this assumption, they blindly follow others, imagining that one man’s “house” is actually a “home.” But this is a fatal mistake. “Paradise” is not an object for sale, nor is it a fleeting sensual experience. On the contrary, the person who takes ownership of her existence, and who helps others to do the same, is on the true path to paradise. “The moral for Dylan would be for each of us to take charge of our own destiny,”93 and this is another way of articulating Judge William’s counsel to the aesthete—that responsible selfhood consists in choosing oneself in one’s eternal validity. On a personal and professional level, Dylan was committed to this advice during his years in Woodstock. Like Judge William, he was now a family man, whose creative activity was bound up with marriage and fatherhood. With this in mind, it is important to examine a number of songs that expand

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on Dylan’s shift in ethical perspective, indicating a preference for familial happiness and civic duty over political crusading and avant-garde virtuosity. Dylan’s Family Songs: A Selection Rather than focus on a single example of Dylan’s “family songs,” this section will survey several tracks that fit such a description. This broader point of view is preferable for a couple of reasons. First, whereas many people associate Dylan with the protest music of the 1960s, his proclivity for songs about family life is not as celebrated. It is important, then, to establish this trajectory in Dylan’s songwriting, particularly from 1967 to 1974. Second, there is a winsome simplicity to a number of these tracks that needs to be respected as such. Like Judge William, Dylan here eschews irony in favor of earnestness, symbolism in favor of verismo. Thus Dylan’s family songs rarely demand the baroque analysis afforded to aesthetic works such as “Desolation Row” (1965) or religious ones such as “Highlands” (1997). They are best appreciated as a genre, capturing a modest and contented way of life. If John Wesley Harding marks a shift in Dylan’s songwriting, Nashville Skyline bolsters it. Not only does the album showcase “country music,” with “the influence of Hank Williams . . . felt throughout,” but its lyrical style doubles down on the streamlined approach of its predecessor: “No more allusions, parables, metaphors, or philosophical reflections. Dylan wanted to simply sing love songs.”94 Still, as has been seen, this choice itself can be seen as philosophical. Dylan was exchanging the volatility of his previous work for something “highly serene, resolutely optimistic, and nearly carefree.”95 The album’s suggestions of resolute monogamy exemplify this tendency. Apart from “Lay, Lady, Lay,” which Dylan later repudiated,96 the love songs on Nashville Skyline evoke a firm commitment to a single woman. In “To Be Alone with You,” Dylan describes such a relationship in almost deontological terms: To be alone with you Just you and me Now won’t you tell me true Ain’t that the way it oughta be?

But here, as in Judge William’s philosophy of marriage, the duty that inheres in a conjugal relationship does not come at the expense of joy. On the contrary, the love of a devoted spouse is a divine blessing, which brings the kind of satisfaction that cannot be found in sensual promiscuity: I’ll always thank the Lord When my working day’s through

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I get my sweet reward To be alone with you

Dylan returns to this theme in Nashville Skyline’s final track, “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You.” On both a literal and a metaphorical level, it is a song about one who “no longer feels the need to travel” and, in turn, arrives at a newfound “willingness to stay put.”97 The narrator has come to a train station, where he hears “that whistle blowin’” and sees “that stationmaster” making the rounds. He knows that he is wanted back out on the road but refuses to acquiesce. He has chosen his beloved, and, in choosing his beloved, he has chosen himself: Throw my ticket out the window Throw my suitcase out there, too Throw my troubles out the door I don’t need them anymore ’Cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you

Featuring the alternating electric guitars of Charlie Daniels, who himself would become a country-music legend, the song takes “a pop-rock sound”98 and fuses it with a jaunty Nashville twang. This upbeat mood reflects “Dylan’s state of mind in the late 1960s.”99 Just as Dylan “found peace and a sense of fulfillment with Sara and his children,” so is “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” about “happiness regained.”100 In this way, it is a noteworthy attempt “to cast aside [Dylan’s] image as the spokesman of the protest generation.”101 Dylan’s next album Self Portrait (1970) would underline this point. Mostly comprised of covers, including the Davis Sisters’ 1953 country hit “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know” and Simon and Garfunkel’s 1969 single “The Boxer,” Self Portrait’s very existence was a repudiation of “the ideals of the counterculture.”102 Recorded just weeks after the release of Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait’s exploration of ostensibly passé Americana was intended to put Dylan entirely outside of the popular music spotlight. “I had assumed that when critics dismissed my work, the same thing would happen to me, that the public would forget about me,”103 Dylan recalls in his 2004 memoir Chronicles: Volume One. In other words, a mediocre album would only free him to do what he “loved the best . . . the Little League games, birthday parties, taking my kids to school, camping trips, boating, rafting, canoeing, fishing.”104 Dylan’s following album New Morning (1970) would mine the same “bucolic and mundane”105 ground as its predecessor—in fact, Dylan began recording New Morning even before he released Self Portrait—but it would do so with better (or worse?) results. That is to say, while “many songs

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on New Morning were simple descriptions of the wide range of pleasures of country living,”106 the release of 12 new Dylan originals was met with a warmer reception. To be sure, New Morning is a far more effective version of the country-rock ethos Dylan toyed with on Self Portrait, but it doubtless remains within the ambit of the songwriter’s “family songs” era. “These songs wouldn’t make any gory headlines,” Dylan observes, “Message songs? There weren’t any. Anybody listening for them would have to be disappointed. As if I was going to make a career out of that anyway.”107 While New Morning continues to profess the joys of marital life—its opening track “If Not for You” was written for his wife and is a celebration of “domestic tranquility”108—it also begins to emphasize the happiness of fatherhood. The last stanza of “Sign on the Window,” the eighth song on New Morning, has been called a summary of “Bob Dylan’s new philosophy”109: Build me a cabin in Utah Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout Have a bunch of kids who call me “Pa” That must be what it’s all about That must be what it’s all about

Dylan would return to the theme of fatherhood on his next album of original songs, Planet Waves (1974). Indeed, perhaps popular music’s greatest ode to parental love is found on Planet Waves. Called “Forever Young,” Dylan composed the song while on the road: “I wrote [it] in Tucson,” Dylan later recalled, “I wrote it thinking about one of my boys. . . . The lines came to me, they were done in a minute.”110 Though the lyrics came easily, Dylan struggled to find the ideal musical arrangement, ultimately releasing two versions of “Forever Young” on the same album. As it turns out, there was little reason to fret about which rendering was superior: the slower of the two emerged as a bona fide classic. According to Christopher Ricks, “Forever Young” is both “a dedication to hope” and “a prayer” whose “Word is of God.”111 More specifically, however, it is an adaptation of the so-called “priestly blessing” (birkat kohanim) of the Hebrew liturgy, which, according to custom, is also delivered “on every Friday night, in slightly different form . . . by a father to his children, with the placing of his hands on the child’s head.”112 The biblical basis for this prayer is Numbers 6:24–26: “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” Dylan quite clearly echoes these lines in the first stanza of “Forever Young”: May God bless and keep you always

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May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young May you stay forever young

As the song unfolds, Dylan refers to various “channels of spirituality” or “manifestations of godliness” through which he hopes his child will relate to God.113 Indeed, the implicit significance of “Forever Young” is that the role of the father is not only to raise upright children; it is to serve as a conduit for divine blessing and truth. This paean to parental love is a lyrical rendering of what Judge William observes in Either/Or: “Children are a blessing. It is beautiful and good that a man thinks with deep earnestness about the best for his children, but if he does not sometimes remember that . . . they are also a blessing . . . then he has not expanded his heart.”114 “Forever Young” may represent the zenith of Dylan’s collection of family songs, but Planet Waves closes with “Wedding Song,” a song so fervent in its acclamation of marital love that it seems to portend a coming downfall: You gave me babies one, two, three, what is more, you saved my life Eye for eye and tooth for tooth, your love cuts like a knife My thoughts of you don’t ever rest, they’d kill me if I lie I’d sacrifice the world for you and watch my senses die

Recorded in one take, with Dylan alone providing vocals and music, “Wedding Song” casts the domestic satisfaction characteristic of recent albums in a different light. The velvety crooning of Nashville Skyline has given way to a stark, piercing growl, which Dylan later likened to a bloodletting.115 What does it mean for familial happiness, marked by an embrace of the roles of husband and father, to swing toward roiling and aimless passion? In Kierkegaardian terms, it means the return of the aesthetic—the triumph of “A” over the Judge William. Such, indeed, was Dylan’s situation during the second half of the 1970s, when, after several years of contentment, his marriage collapsed. Once again, he took up the mantle of itinerant poet, albeit with an important difference. No longer the voice of protest or a responsible family man, Dylan was now lost, seeking but not finding shelter from the storm around him.

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BY WAY OF CONCLUSION: THE COLLAPSE OF DET ETHISKE AND THE DAWNING OF THE RELIGIOUS Chapter 1 covered the main details of Dylan’s marital breakdown. After several years of relative seclusion, during which he dedicated himself to his wife and children, Dylan returned to touring in 1974 and slowly but surely became estranged from his family. His ensuing albums chronicle this development, albeit in diverse ways. Blood on the Tracks (1975) contains a number of songs about failed relationships, thereby mirroring “Dylan’s breakup with his wife, which resulted in deep emotional turmoil and inner torment.”116 Desire (1976) records the wanderings of a gypsy poet, though its final track “Sara” also offers Dylan’s most agonizing requiem for his marriage. And yet, as the present chapter comes to a close, it is important to note that Dylan’s breakup material is not just autobiographical. It also registers a shift in Weltanschauung. Since the early 1960s, Dylan’s songwriting, for all of its aesthetic rapture, had largely been defined by its ethical commitments—first to social-justice movements and subsequently to domestic life. Indeed, the latter was a direct response to the former. Dylan had lost confidence in the validity of protest movements and pivoted to a life view of individual responsibility and familial love. But to what would he turn if this new perspective were to collapse as well? Dylan’s output during the mid-1970s discloses precisely this conundrum. On Blood on the Tracks, a number of songs indicate an overwhelming sense of emotional and spiritual exhaustion. “When the bottom fell out / I became withdrawn,” Dylan sings on the album’s opening track “Tangled Up in Blue,” “The only thing I knew how to do / Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew / Tangled up in blue.” Resigned to unhappiness, or tangled up in blue, Dylan’s point of view only deteriorates as the album unfolds. On “Buckets of Rain,” the tenth and final song on Blood on the Tracks, Dylan’s pessimism reaches a breaking-point. If the ethical life is devoted to willing and seeking the good of the other, Dylan no longer knows who the other is: “I seen pretty people disappear like smoke / Friends will arrive, friends will disappear.” By the song’s last stanza, the preponderance of failed relationships has led to an inexorable conclusion: “Life is a bust / All ya can do is do what you must.” Though a more diverse album lyrically and musically, Desire does nothing to change this perspective. There are songs about racial injustice (“Hurricane”), the insanity of erotic love (“Isis”), and natural disasters (“Black Diamond Bay”). In the latter track, the narrator vividly describes the last hours of a number of characters trapped on an island amid a volcanic eruption. Dylan would write a similar song decades later, when he ended his album Tempest (2012) with an eponymous ballad about the 1912 sinking of the passenger

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liner RMS Titanic. And yet, the two songs present opposing perspectives on such tragedies. “Tempest” frames the Titanic disaster as a Job-like mystery that underscores the futility of human reason: “There is no understanding / On the judgment of God’s hand.” Yet, this standpoint emerges later in Dylan’s career, after he had transitioned to songs with obvious theological import. In “Black Diamond Bay,” however, an entirely different perspective is offered. In the song’s final verse, Dylan sings that he learned of the devastation while “sittin’ home alone one night in L.A. / Watchin’ old Cronkite on the seven o’clock news.” But in the face of human tragedy, banally mediated through mass media, Dylan expresses a sense of futility, even insouciance. “Seems like every time you turn around / There’s another hard-luck story that you’re gonna hear.” He neither protests in anger nor recoils in terror. He simply turns off the television and goes “to grab another beer.” Solace is found in alcohol, not in sociopolitical movements or familial serenity. When, on Desire’s final track “Sara,” Dylan pleads with his estranged wife “Don’t ever leave me, don’t ever go,” he might as well be singing about his very raison d’être. What does one do when the aesthetic no longer brings pleasure and the ethical has been exposed as corruptible and possibly even corrupting? This dilemma would not have shocked Kierkegaard. While he argued that the ethical is an indispensable component of human existence, he also understood that this stage has its limits. Either/Or ends with a short sermon entitled “The Upbuilding That Lies in the Thought That in Relation to God We Are Always in the Wrong,” which maintains that the very attempt to get on the right side of ethical questions engenders anxiety and doubt, since the relativity of ethical life often clashes with the absolute nature of ethical commands. For example, one can be charged not to covet the property of one’s neighbor (Exod. 20:17), but, amid the ambiguities and pressures of quotidian life, such a decree can suddenly seem confusing. Is it wrong, for example, to desire a better job, a better place to live, a new spouse? Where does one draw the line—and what happens if one should cross it? Moreover, in subsequent works such as Fear and Trembling (1843) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to “Philosophical Fragments” (1846), Kierkegaard suggests that ethical responsibilities are often used to shield persons from life’s ultimate questions. There are fathers who, out of paternal duty, refuse divine commands; there are social-justice warriors who, for the sake of their cause, dismiss the highest claims of morality. For Kierkegaard, such occurrences constitute a category error. After all, the pursuit of infinite happiness is the highest that a human being can hope for, though many people assume that it can be attained via finite deeds. According to Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus, this assumption reverses the appropriate order: “The task

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is to practice one’s relation to one’s absolute τέλος so that one continually has it within while continuing in the relative objectives of existence.”117 Ultimately, then, the person who runs up against the boundaries of the ethical will discover that this sphere alone cannot satisfy life’s deepest desires. The quest for an eternal happiness, for an absolute τέλος, endures as the relativity of life’s activities and ambitions becomes increasingly clear. That some people do not perceive this crisis, imbuing their finite pursuits with infinite significance, only indicates a suppressed sense of despair. In The Sickness unto Death (1849), Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus argues that this suppression can only persist for so long. For “despair . . . lies underneath, and when the enchantment of illusion is over, when existence begins to totter, then despair . . . immediately appears as that which lay underneath.”118 Such was the case with Dylan in the mid-1970s. Deprived of the purposiveness of the ethical, his existence indeed began to totter . . . and despair appeared. Yet, as Anti-Climacus sees it, to become conscious of despair is a precursor to spiritual deepening: There is so much talk about wasting a life, but only that person’s life was wasted who went on living so deceived by life’s joys or its sorrows that he never became decisively and eternally conscious as spirit, as self, or, what amounts to the same thing, never became aware and in the deepest sense never gained the impression that there is a God and that “he,” he himself, his self, exists before this God—an infinite benefaction that is never gained except through despair.119

Hence, from a Kierkegaardian perspective, it was almost inevitable that Dylan’s life and art would move in a religious direction. Still, as will be seen, the religious is hardly a monolithic sphere, and the next period of Dylan’s songwriting—which arguably runs from Street-Legal (1978) to Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)—explores a number of its features. It is to this topic, then, that this study now turns. NOTES 1. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), 224. 2. Michael Coogan, The Ten Commandments: A Short History of an Ancient Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 41. 3. Ibid., 41–42. 4. Roger J. Sullivan, An Introduction to Kant’s Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 6. 5. Allen W. Wood, Hegel’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 7.

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6. The two major texts in question here are Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785) and Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, 1820). Also see, e.g., Ido Geiger, The Founding Act of Modern Ethical Life: Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Moral and Political Philosophy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007). 7. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 90. 8. SKS 3, 64 / EO2, 58. 9. SKS 3, 61–62 / EO2, 56. 10. SKS 3, 62 / EO2, 56. 11. SKS 3, 183 / EO2, 188. 12. Evans, Kierkegaard, 97. 13. See, e.g., Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). 14. Robert C. Roberts, “Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and a Method of ‘Virtue Ethics,’” in Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, ed. Martin J. Matuštík and Merold Westphal (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 149–50. 15. Ibid., 151. 16. Evans, Kierkegaard, 103. 17. Howard Sounes, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (New York: Grove Press, 2011), 126–27. 18. Ibid., 145. 19. Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 115. 20. Ibid., 116. 21. Sounes, Down the Highway, 144–45. 22. Quoted in ibid., 145. 23. Sounes, Down the Highway, 141. 24. Ibid., 144. 25. Ibid., 145. 26. Ibid., 131–32, 141–42, 152. 27. See, e.g., Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A German-English Edition, ed. and trans. Mary Gregor and Jens Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 87. 28. Sounes, Down the Highway, 145. 29. Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michael Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2015), 82. 30. Ibid., 50–51. 31. Ibid., 51. 32. Ibid., 62. 33. Ibid., 82. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 84. 36. Ibid., 87. 37. Ibid., 88.

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38. Quoted in ibid. 39. It is worth adding that Dylan’s 1992 album Good as I Been to You features the traditional English folk ballad “Canadee-I-O,” whose sixth stanza begins with the couplet, “Come, all you fair and tender girls / Wheresoever you may be.” 40. Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (New York: Ecco, 2003), 265. 41. Kip Lornell, Exploring American Folk Music: Ethnic, Grassroots, and Regional Traditions in the United States, Third Edition (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 148, 155. 42. Ibid., 146. 43. Ibid., 149. 44. David W. Kling, The Bible in History: How the Texts Have Shaped the Times (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 196–98. 45. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 267. 46. Dylan’s interplay between “the loser now” and “later to win” is another biblical reference, though this time he appropriates the words of Jesus: “So the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matt. 20:16). 47. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 270. 48. Ibid., 271. 49. See, e.g., Sean Wilentz, Bob Dylan in America (New York: Anchor Books, 2011), 339–40. 50. Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 168. 51. Paul Slade, “True Lies: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” PlanetSlade. com, accessed January 29, 2021, http:​//​www​.planetslade​.com​/hattie​-carroll​.html. 52. “Maryland: The Spinsters’ Ball,” Time, February 22, 1963, http:​//​content​.time​ .com​/time​/subscriber​/article​/0​,33009​,828005​-1​,00​.html. 53. Slade, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” 54. Ibid. 55. Quoted in ibid. 56. Don West, “Ballad of Hattie Carroll,” Broadside 23, late March 1963, https:​//​ singout​.org​/downloads​/broadside​/b023​.pdf. 57. Slade, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” 58. Wood’s actual name was LeRoy H. Wood. He had been arrested in August 1951 and, along with five other Maryland-D.C. area communist leaders, charged under the Smith Act for promoting the overthrow of the American government. Wood himself would ultimately receive a three-year sentence—an incidental but nevertheless striking detail vis-à-vis Zantzinger’s fate years later. 59. Roy H. Wood, “Rich Brute Slays Negro Mother of 10,” in Broadside 23, late March 1963, https:​//​singout​.org​/downloads​/broadside​/b023​.pdf. 60. It is worth adding that, in addition to any factual errors, Dylan also misspells Zantzinger’s surname here and throughout “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” 61. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 103. Also see Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, trans. Ralph Manheim and John Willett (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 62. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 233. 63. Ibid.

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64. Ibid., 222. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid., 223. 67. Ibid., 223–24. 68. Ibid., 227. 69. Ibid., 229. 70. SKS 18, JJ:385 / JP 1, 922. 71. SKS 18, JJ:119 / JP 1, 902. 72. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 231. 73. Francis J. Beckwith, “Busy Being Born Again: Bob Dylan’s Christian Philosophy,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 149. 74. It is striking that Dylan does not refer to race in “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” As Ricks puts it, “The song never says she’s black, and it’s the best civil rights song because it never says she’s black” (Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 231). In other words, Dylan’s poetic rendering of Hattie Carroll is so vivid that he does not need to say that she is black. Moreover, the fact that he does not have to say it heightens the sorrow: “It’s a terrible thing that you know this from the story” (ibid.). 75. See Plato, Euthydemus, trans. Rosamond Kent Sprague (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993). 76. George Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard (Chesham: Acumen, 2005), 91. 77. SKS 3, 205 / EO2, 214. 78. Pattison, The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, 95. 79. Ibid., 96. 80. Quoted in Sounes, Down the Highway, 210. 81. Quoted in ibid., 210. 82. Sounes, Down the Highway, 210. 83. Quoted in Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 246. 84. Sounes, Down the Highway, 223. 85. See, e.g., Marianne Faithfull, Faithfull: An Autobiography (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 42: “[Dylan was] this very cool guy on lots of methedrine. . . . [The people around him] were all so hip, so devastatingly hip. (They were also all so fucking high.) Every five minutes or so someone would go into the bathroom and come out speaking in tongues. Sparks were flying off them. I was scared to death.” 86. Sounes, Down the Highway, 232. 87. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 161–62. 88. Ibid., 162. 89. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 248–49. 90. Ibid., 290. 91. Quoted in Michael Iachetta, “Scarred Bobby Dylan Is Coming Back,” New York Daily News, May 8, 1967. 92. See, e.g., Luke 22:3–6 and John 12:1–6. 93. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 290. 94. Ibid., 302.

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95. Ibid., 306. 96. See chapter 2 for an analysis of “Lay, Lady, Lay.” 97. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 319. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid. 102. Ibid., 322. 103. Dylan, Chronicles, 123. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 348. 107. Dylan, Chronicles, 138. 108. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 352. 109. Ibid., 359. 110. Ibid., 404. 111. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 455. 112. Seth Rogovoy, Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (New York: Scribner, 2009), 154. 113. Ibid., 155. 114. SKS 3, 78 / EO2, 73. 115. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 408. 116. Ibid., 412. 117. SKS 7, 371 / CUP1, 408. 118. SKS 11, 159 / SUD, 44. 119. SKS 11, 142–43 / SUD, 27.

Chapter 4

Dylan as Poet of the Religious

As discussed in chapter 1, Bob Dylan grew up in a Jewish household, later embraced Christianity, and has remained interested in religious issues and themes throughout his career. The task of the present chapter is to explore the manifestation of this interest in Dylan’s songwriting, paying particular attention to how it overlaps with Kierkegaard’s conception of the religious sphere of existence. Just as Dylan’s art evinces a movement between the aesthetic and ethical spheres, so does it bring a transition to the religious into view. In particular, while Dylan’s songs indicate the appeal of both aesthetic and ethical modes of existence, they also register the limitations of these respective life-views. The one who seeks sensuous pleasure cannot avoid anguish and suffering forever: “Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain” (“Not Dark Yet”). The one who is dedicated to ethical concerns, whether of a political or a familial nature, is bound to face some form of betrayal: “[People] push fake morals, insult and stare / While money doesn’t talk, it swears / Obscenity, who really cares / Propaganda, all is phony” (“It’s Alright, Ma [I’m Only Bleeding]”). For Dylan, as for Kierkegaard, such insights drive one to an existential threshold—either nihilistic world-weariness or transcendent faith. Indeed, as has been seen, Dylan found himself at this very crossroads in the latter half of the 1970s. Tired of partisan politics and protest movements, and yet also alienated from his wife and family, he had become indifferent to his calling and, perhaps, to life itself. When asked in a 1980 interview if an emotional breakdown had precipitated his conversion to Christianity, Dylan offered a different interpretation: “No. I had gone so far that I didn’t even think there was anything left. I thought ‘Well, everybody has got their own truth.’ . . . I had given up looking and searching for it.”1 Dylan’s subsequent conversion to Christianity indicates a break from such a Weltanschauung, but this is but a fragment of the story. Dylan’s conception of religion, not to mention the appearance of religious questions and themes in his songs, remains an important area of investigation—an investigation that, given 111

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Dylan’s mid-career “gospel period” and subsequent pilgrimage known as the “Never Ending Tour,” demands to be put in conversation with Kierkegaard’s own theory of “religiousness” (Religieusitet). The task of this chapter, then, is threefold. After an initial survey of Kierkegaard’s religious sphere, three different manifestations of the religious in Dylan’s work will be explored. First, it will be suggested that, for Dylan, human pathos and suffering ineluctably raise religious questions and press a confrontation with the eternal. Second, it will be argued that Dylan’s “gospel period” represents a shift from this immanent form of religiousness to one of transcendence, whereby God reveals himself to humanity, especially through the person of Jesus Christ. Third, and finally, it will be shown that Dylan’s late-career output continues to engage religious issues and themes, albeit with increasing stress on eschatology—the branch of theology that deals with the end (ἔσχατον) of history, especially the so-called four last things of death, judgment, hell, and heaven. KIERKEGAARD’S CONCEPT OF RELIGIEUSITET On the surface, Kierkegaard’s religious and theological background would seem to be fairly monochromatic. A lifelong resident of Copenhagen, and thus a de facto member of the Danish state church, Kierkegaard was catechized2 in a moderate form of Lutheran Christianity. Upon closer examination, however, Kierkegaard’s religious upbringing was variegated, perhaps even unusual. His father Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard (1756–1838) came from peasant stock but, after a series of twists and turns, became one of Copenhagen’s wealthiest merchants. Nevertheless, the evangelical Pietism of Michael Pedersen’s humble beginnings remained a crucial part of the family’s life, fusing the disciplined spirituality of medieval Catholicism with a traditionally Protestant emphasis on individual sinfulness and the need for repentance.3 Interpersonal dynamics, not to mention domestic tragedies, sealed this more radical version of Christianity upon Kierkegaard’s conscience. And yet, his privileged station and first-class education exposed him to some of modernity’s most cutting-edge redescriptions of religious meaning, including the attempt by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) to equate Christian theology with Western philosophy. For Hegel, the latter understands in conceptual-scientific terminology what the former describes in “picture-thinking” (die Vorstellung).4 Hence, with the rise of modern philosophy, Christianity’s profession of the absolute transcendence of God should be replaced by the notion that “God is truly actualized or realized in the world only through human consciousness.”5 Kierkegaard absorbed these various sources, translating them into a unique vision of the nature and purpose of religious life. As I have argued elsewhere,6

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Kierkegaard does not see “religiousness” (Religieusitet) as something one either possesses or lacks; rather, he views it as an existential process that begins with innate human concerns yet culminates in divine charity. To cite a key example, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus argues in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the “Philosophical Fragments” (1846) that all human beings are capable of participating in a form of religiousness elicited by questions of time and meaning. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is true happiness, and how can it be attained? When a person engages such questions in earnest, she proceeds along a path of “inward deepening,”7 marked by intensifying desire and pathos. Climacus calls this “Religiousness A.”8 It has a few fundamental traits. First, according to Climacus, Religiousness A resists individual mastery: the deeper one pursues its questions, the farther one gets from answering them. For instance, if one were to reason that life would be meaningless without an ultimate purpose, it logically follows that this ultimate purpose would become the raison d’être of everything one does. Second, however, it is simply impossible for one to absolutely relate to an absolute end amid the mundane concerns of temporal life. The relative goals of daily existence are finite and ephemeral, ranging from basic physical needs to transitory vocational goals. They may offer happiness for a time, but they cannot do so for an eternity. The person who recognizes this fact suddenly finds herself alienated from her most profound hope. In this way, says Climacus, she suffers under the weight of “essential existential pathos.”9 There are additional layers to Climacus’ development of Religiousness A, but the critical point here is that, in purely philosophical terms, one must come to admit that what one desires in the deepest and most ultimate sense is impossible to attain on one’s own. Thus Religiousness A presents a paradox: the religious life begins with the realization that human beings are fundamentally separated from the transcendent. Climacus believes that no matter one’s creedal commitments, the pathos-filled inward deepening of Religiousness A must serve as one’s religious foundation. Otherwise faith will become insipid, a code to which one casually assents or a habit performed in rote fashion. Yet, if Religiousness A does not vanish with the advent of what Climacus calls Religiousness B, then what exactly is the point of this second, higher form of religion? For Climacus, it has to do with the gift of the impossible: where Religiousness A opens up a resigned, even ironic standpoint on existence, Religiousness B confronts the individual with that which she could neither anticipate nor comprehend—namely, God’s rupture of the immanent frame.10 Now precisely how this happens—or how it might happen—is not a univocal matter among world religions, though the so-called Abrahamic religions (most notably, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) emphasize God’s will

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to reveal Godself to humanity. As a Christian, Kierkegaard is primarily interested in the revelation of God in and through the person of Jesus Christ (ca. 4 BCE–ca. 30 CE), though his authorship considers this issue under different aspects. For Climacus, who addresses the topic most fully in Philosophical Fragments (1844), divine revelation is best understood in contrast to human pedagogy. Even the greatest human teacher “stands in a reciprocal relation” to her student, since “life and its situations are the occasion for him to become a teacher and he in turn the occasion for others to learn something.”11 Such was the case with Socrates (ca. 470–399 BCE), whose pedagogical task was to serve as midwife (maia) to the learner, bringing out the truth that lies dormant in the human mind. It is categorically different with divine revelation. In this case, “the god” (Guden) provides the transcendent condition for receiving the truth that the immanent human learner cannot have. But how can this be accomplished? As Climacus sees it, the god must enter into a relationship with the learner, albeit in such a way that the latter’s free self-actualization is not annulled. Thus it will not do for the god to overwhelm the learner with power and glory. Rather, the god must elevate the learner by denying himself: “He will appear, therefore, as the equal of the lowliest of persons. But the lowliest of all is one who must serve others—consequently, the god will appear in the form of a servant.”12 In this way, the god’s desire to deliver the truth to the learner—which is ipso facto gratuitous, since, in contrast to the human teacher, the god does not reciprocally benefit from his service—is realized. “For this is the boundlessness of love,” Climacus concludes, “that in earnestness and truth and not in jest it wills to be the equal of the beloved, and it is the omnipotence of resolving love to be capable of that.”13 In short, Climacus views Religiousness B as irreducibly dialectical. That is to say, the advent of the god in space and time—an event that is synonymous with Christianity’s proclamation that Jesus Christ embodies the divine nature—confronts human beings with an absolute paradox that necessarily offends reason. As C. Stephen Evans puts it: The claim that Christ is fully God as well as fully human is a claim that a human being as a temporal being can fully embody the perfection of eternity, and that is a claim that all our experience seems to undermine. For all of us experience a constant gap, a never-fully-resolved tension, between the eternal ideals we strive for and the reality of our temporal lives, and it is this experiential evidence that helps explain the tension between reason and belief in the incarnation.14

For this reason, the transition from Religiousness A to Religiousness B requires what is often referred to as a “leap of faith.” For Kierkegaard, the category of “leap” (Spring) involves qualitative changes that, precisely as such, cannot be accounted for by quantitative data. If, for example, one is trying to

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determine the safest vaccine for a communicable disease, it only makes sense to chart a course of action based on numerical facts and projections. But it is different with matters that have to do with feelings and passions: one does not come to love another person based on an accumulation of statistics. The same is true for acceptance of the paradoxical claims of Religiousness B and, therefore, for faith in Jesus Christ. It is not that such claims oppose reason; it is simply that they demand a different kind of reason—one that takes a range of human concerns into account, including the deep-seated human desire for a happiness that will endure for an eternity. Kierkegaard’s understanding of Religieusitet covers a number of additional questions and topics. Perhaps most notably, in the wake of a public feud with the popular satirical paper The Corsair (Corsaren), Kierkegaard’s writings increasingly stress that the religious individual is destined to collide with modern society—an essentially secular force that treats Christianity as a vehicle for social conformity yet otherwise soft-pedals its fundamental truth-claims and existential demands. The real business of modernity, Kierkegaard warns, is bound up with capitalistic expansion and technological progress.15 The age of heroes and martyrs, of oracles and deities, has passed, even as religious ideals remain the highest aspirations of human existence. This is a theme to which the conclusion of this study will return. For now, however, the question is: how does the religious, or different approaches to religiousness, become manifest in Bob Dylan’s art? THE RELIGIOUS IN BOB DYLAN’S SONGS Chapter 1 provided an overview of Dylan’s religious background and interests and, in the process, established religion as a key aspect of the songwriter’s career. If, in that chapter, the focus was principally biographical, the task here is to examine Dylan’s song’s themselves, using Kierkegaard’s twofold schema of Religiousness A and B as a heuristic. The implication is neither that Dylan himself was familiar with Kierkegaard’s understanding of Religieusitet nor that Dylan was independently developing his own theory of religion. Yet, given Dylan’s long-standing interest in God and in the spiritual life, as well as his own study of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, it is hardly surprising that he would write songs bearing diverse theological import. This claim may seem fairly obvious in relation to Dylan’s infamous “gospel period,” which roughly corresponds to Religiousness B. Yet, as will be seen, a number of other songs touch on religious questions and themes, from the human being’s innate awareness of the divine to an indelible conviction and curiosity about the ultimate destiny of creation—topics that approximate the category of Religiousness A.

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Dylan and the Immanence of God During Christmastime 1977, Bob Dylan was interviewed by Jonathan Cott of Rolling Stone. Much of their discussion centered on Dylan’s upcoming film Renaldo and Clara, which was set to be released in January 1978. Yet, Cott queried Dylan on a range of topics, including his relationship with Judaism. Dylan’s answers were generally vague, but he did let some notable insights slip. At one point, Cott asked the songwriter what he thought of the wisdom of a Hasidic rabbi, who claimed that the invention of the telephone revealed “that what you say over here can be heard over there.”16 Dylan responded that this was “a cosmic statement,” which “means you’re never that far away from the ultimate God.”17 Later, after Cott referred to Dylan’s ability to evolve as an artist, Dylan credited this attribute to one of his core principles: “I believe in life,” he observed, “but not this life.” When pressed, Dylan clarified that the life in which he believes is “real life”: “I experience it all the time,” he added, “it’s beyond this life.”18 Even if one is reluctant to treat such statements as personal confessions, they nevertheless indicate that Dylan has familiarity with concepts related to Kierkegaard’s Religiousness A. That the divine is immanent in creation, that God intimate with human beings, that there is an eternal life beyond earthly reality—these are ideas that Dylan most likely gleaned from his Jewish upbringing and his conversion to Christianity, not to mention sources such as African American religious folk music and Beat poetry. The task of this section is to explore how Dylan incorporates such concepts into his songwriting. If one were to compile every such reference in Dylan’s oeuvre, this undertaking would quickly become unwieldy. So, sustained attention will be devoted to two songs in particular, namely, “Every Grain of Sand” and “God Knows.” “Every Grain of Sand” On September 12, 2003, country-music icon Johnny Cash died of complications from diabetes in Nashville. Three days later, over 1,000 people crammed into First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, Tennessee, to celebrate his life and to mourn his passing. One of those in attendance was American singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow, whom the Cash family had asked to perform a song of her choosing at the funeral. As Crow later recalled, she immediately knew what she wanted to play: The first song that popped into my mind . . . was Bob Dylan’s ”Every Grain of Sand.” Those lyrics just nail the human search for the meaning of mortality— particularly the last line about the master’s plan being perfect. I felt like Johnny lived—and died—by that. He had such great faith, but he also epitomized every

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man’s struggles throughout life, and he walked through them gracefully. So that song really resonated. Plus, I knew he loved Bob so much.19

Crow was accompanied by Emmylou Harris, who collaborated with Dylan on his 1976 album Desire and who covered “Every Grain of Sand” on her own 1995 collection Wrecking Ball. When one also considers Dylan’s longtime friendship with Cash himself, Crow’s selection of a Dylan song seems fitting. And yet, as Crow points out, the spiritual and theological significance of “Every Grain of Sand” distinguished it from other possibilities. It is not an anodyne track, meant for the complacently pious. Rather, as she understands it, “Every Grain of Sand” concerns the fundamentally “human search for the meaning of mortality.” Despite such lofty compliments, Dylan has shrugged off personal responsibility for “Every Grain of Sand.” “That was an inspired song that came to me,” he later recalled, “It wasn’t really too difficult. I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else.”20 While Dylan suggests that “Every Grain of Sand” has an ecstatic provenance, others have looked for poetic sources, citing, for example, the work of William Blake (1757–1827). Indeed, Blake’s posthumously published “Auguries of Innocence” (1863) seems to anticipate the overarching conceit of Dylan’s song. As Blake begins “Auguries of Innocence”: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour21

Yet, whereas Blake’s poem ultimately expresses an ominous viewpoint, suggesting that microcosmic injustices (“A dog starvd at his Masters Gate”) portend macrocosmic problems (“Predicts the ruin of the State”),22 “Every Grain of Sand” is a deeply personal and spiritual song. After all, “Auguries of Innocence” does not use the first person whatsoever, while “Every Grain of Sand” employs the first-person singular on almost 20 occasions across six four-line stanzas. In short, both poets invoke the image of the grain of sand but, as it turns out, for quite different reasons. At the root of “Every Grain of Sand” lies a theological claim: God is intimately related to and has a plan for each and every human being. The song begins with a “confession” of the narrator’s weakness and fear. Comparing himself to the biblical figure of Cain—the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, who murdered his brother Abel and subsequently was banished from the paradisical Garden of Eden (Gen. 4:1–15)—Dylan sings of a “voice within me reaching out somewhere.” He is “toiling in the danger and in the morals

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of despair,” when at last he beholds a vision: “In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand / In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.” This insight can be understood on two levels. On the one hand, it is a lyrical summation of the doctrine of divine providence, particularly in its Augustinian iteration. As James Spiegel has argued, “Every Grain of Sand” combines a stress on “God’s complete control over the entire cosmos” with an insistence that each individual should nevertheless act in accordance with antecedent “divine decrees.”23 In this way, Spiegel adds, Dylan might be rightly considered a theistic compatibilist, “affirming both strong providence and human responsibility.”24 To be sure, this tension permeates “Every Grain of Sand.” Too often the narrator has been beset by “the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,” and even now he remains tempted to stray from God’s purpose: “I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame / And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.” And yet, he derives courage from the assurance that his failures, no less than his triumphs, will be used by God to effect his eternal destiny: “Then onward in my journey I come to understand / That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.” It would be a mistake, however, to see “Every Grain of Sand” as merely illustrating a theological principle. The song is actually closer to an expression of what Seth Rogovoy calls “existential despair.”25 The question is: how should one understand this despair? For Rogovoy, Dylan resembles a penitent going through “the teshuvah process of Yom Kippur,” engaging in a “ritual process . . . of intense self-examination and reflection.”26 Thus Rogovoy contrasts “Every Grain of Sand” with earlier tracks from Dylan’s gospel period: the former is marked by “notes of ambiguity and ambivalence and doubt,”27 the latter by bold proclamations tinged with “self-righteousness and self-pity.”28 But one need not draw a sharp distinction between “Every Grain of Sand” and other religious tracks penned by Dylan. For one thing, the song contains allusions both to the Hebrew Bible and to the Christian New Testament. Apart from any connection to Blake’s poetry, images of “sand” or “the sand of the sea” turn up periodically in the Tanakh, often as metaphors for a multitude of persons or things. As the LORD conveys to Abraham in the Book of Genesis: “In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Gen. 22:17–18).29 By the same token, Dylan’s line that “every hair is numbered” is borrowed directly from the New Testament. In trying to convey that the eternal God has concern for mundane creation, Jesus tells his listeners: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of

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more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6–7). In truth, then, “Every Grain of Sand” is akin to a literary pastiche, appropriating a range of biblical influences and insights, none of which exclude the other. With this in mind, it makes sense to interpret the “existential despair” of “Every Grain of Sand” in expansive fashion. In other words, the song does not speak only to the particularities of a given religious tradition but, rather, to the human condition writ large. Here is where the Kierkegaardian concept of “Religiousness A” might prove illuminating. Recall that Kierkegaard frames Religiousness A as a form of inward deepening, whereby the individual, driven by a longing for eternal happiness, comes to realize that such beatitude lies beyond her capability. The result is a pathos-filled despair, which reaches its “decisive” expression in an admission of “guilt” (Skyld).30 This understanding of Skyld is not moralistic. On the contrary, Climacus is highlighting the fact that a “vexatious gap always remains between the ideal and the actuality,” for which “at some level [persons] experience themselves as being responsible for having failed to enact the ideal perfectly.”31 But this sense of culpability is simultaneously paradoxical, since “the very presence of this pervasive guilt, and the self-negation it involves, shows that the individual is indeed passionately relating to the absolute.”32 Put more simply, while human beings cannot attain eternity on their own, the recognition of their inability to do so opens up a negative space where the reality of the divine can break through. The “existential despair” in “Every Grain of Sand” bears a notable resemblance to this decisive expression of pathos-filled religiousness. The narrator’s awareness of God’s presence proceeds neither from a sense of moral purity nor divine benediction. Rather, Dylan provides a devastating catalog of failures and frailties—“the hour of my deepest need,” “the pain of idleness and the memory of decay,” “I have gone from rags to riches,” “the bitter dance of loneliness,” “the broken mirror of innocence,” and so on. Indeed, it is now clear why the song’s first line immediately identifies it as a “confession”: the narrator has confronted the ideal and found himself sorely lacking. Herein lies “the danger” and “despair,” and, distressingly, he knows that he is liable to suffer the fate of Cain. But this sense of impoverishment brings him to the very paradox sketched out by Climacus. Only when he grasps the hopelessness of his own situation can he perceive the reality of God: “In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand / In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.” As Timothy Hampton has noted, the song is ultimately “both about a singular moment of awareness and repentance, and a sense of the ongoing, recursive and repetitive power of temptation and ‘danger.’”33 This tension helps explain why the final stanza of “Every Grain of Sand” retains a sense of uncertainty. “I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man,” Dylan intones, “Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of

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sand.” The singer’s personal experience of anguish and weakness is actually something universal—“the reality of man.” On the original album version of “Every Grain of Sand,” recorded in Los Angeles on April 29, 1981, Dylan even “breaks with the quavers and nasality of the rest of the performance to pronounce ‘the reality of man’ with an exaggerated clarity, as if the message were set off from all other instants in this song.”34 Intriguingly, however, this line was later added to the song. Dylan first recorded “Every Grain of Sand” in September 1980 in what appears to have been a far more relaxed atmosphere: Dylan sings and plays piano, with Jennifer Warnes (and, in a happy accident, Dylan’s dog)35 providing background vocals. For many, this is the superior version of “Every Grain of Sand,” largely due to its homespun quality. Moreover, since Dylan uses “a perfect, finished plan” instead of “the reality of man,” the first version ends on a more contented note, suggesting that “the human condition is . . . part of a perfect plan,” rather than “a balancing act of misery.”36 On the surface, this difference between the two versions seems significant, but Kierkegaard’s conception of Religiousness A can shed light on such a contradiction and thereby reconcile the two recordings of “Every Grain of Sand.” According to Kierkegaard, it is only when one comes to grips with the reality of human existence—that it is ipso facto unsettled and, in and of itself, cut off from ultimate happiness—that one is primed to perceive and even to surrender to the higher plan of God. Dylan suggests something similar: trusting in God’s “perfect, finished plan” is, in the end, the happy flip side of the forlorn “reality of man.” “God Knows” On September 10, 1990, Bob Dylan released Under the Red Sky—the follow-up to his acclaimed 1989 album Oh Mercy. The two recordings were very different in style and substance. Oh Mercy was produced by Canadian musician Daniel Lanois, who had emerged as a tastemaker due to his work on U2’s quintuple-platinum 1987 album The Joshua Tree. Tasked with reconstructing the sonic landscape of Dylan’s 1980s output, Lanois eschewed Dylan’s recent use of drum machines and synthesizers and opted instead for a sound resembling “Louisiana swamp blues with a hint of rockabilly.”37 Not only did Oh Mercy end up Dylan’s strongest album of the decade, but the recording process resulted in a number of excellent outtakes, including “Series of Dreams” and “God Knows.” Indeed, Dylan would revisit the latter song on Under the Red Sky, albeit under markedly different circumstances. Oh Mercy was recorded in New Orleans, Under the Red Sky largely in Los Angeles; Oh Mercy held fast to Lanois’ exacting standards, Under the Red Sky featured a hodgepodge of “rock celebrities,”38 studios, and producers

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(Don Was, David Was, and even Dylan billed as “Jack Frost”). According to Don Was, who initially was approached to produce a new version of “God Knows,” the goal of the Under the Red Sky sessions was to assemble worldclass musicians and give them a simple directive: “Listen to Bob and respond sympathetically.”39 For many critics, not to mention Dylan himself,40 Was’s plan for the album achieved mixed results. And yet, for the purposes of this project, what is significant is that Dylan saw fit to record “God Knows” twice. Doubtless this is an indication of his fondness for the song, as is the fact that he played it in concert almost 200 times from 1991–2006. Yet, if one examines the two versions of “God Knows” more closely, it is clear that the reasons for rerecording “God Knows” were not just musical. Dylan incorporated a number of lyrical changes as well. Thus it appears that he also wanted to say something new. That, at any rate, has been a prevalent assumption.41 But one must be careful not to exaggerate the differences between the two versions. After all, the overarching theme of “God Knows” is “a favorite of Dylan’s,” namely, an emphasis on “God as omnipotent and omniscient (God seeing what all of us do and knowing our secrets).”42 This is obviously an expansive topic, which can accommodate a variety of perspectives. Hence, while it is true that of “the seven verses of the first version [recorded by Lanois] . . . the songwriter kept only one verse,”43 that does not necessarily indicate a change of heart or mind on Dylan’s part. Rather, both versions explore different aspects of what it means to encounter and to relate to the eternal God. For example, in the earlier outtake from Oh Mercy, Dylan’s first verse suggests that God understands human needs, including the necessity for intimate interpersonal relationships: God knows I need you God knows I do God knows there ain’t anybody Ever gonna take the place of you

In contrast, the version on Under the Red Sky begins by stressing that God knows the truth about each and every individual, no matter how unsavory: God knows you ain’t pretty God knows it’s true God knows there ain’t anybody Ever gonna take the place of you

Though different, these two verses are not in contradiction. Both set the fragility of human existence in contrast with the sovereignty of God.

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This remains the predominant pattern for the rest of “God Knows.” Both renderings of the song highlight God’s providential role in history, though they approach it from diverse points of view. The Lanois version highlights what medieval theologians called gubernatio Dei—a conviction that “man’s movement . . . toward the perfect good (the good life of beatitude), is situated in the perspective of God’s providential care and rule.”44 As Dylan sings in this version’s third verse: God knows there’s an answer God knows it’s all in place God knows it might be working right now Lookin’ us right straight in the face

In similar fashion, and despite being a modern thinker, Kierkegaard insisted that a notion of divine providence is needed if human beings are to find meaning in life. Whereas figures such as Hegel and Karl Marx (1818–83) effectively deified the historical process, Kierkegaard argues that such a humanistic conception of life makes everything “thinner and thinner.”45 Yet, he adds, “with the help of God’s governance [Styrelse] everything becomes more and more inward.”46 Here to be “inward” resembles Dylan’s intent with “God Knows,” namely, to intimately perceive God’s connection to and plan for one’s life. The Under the Red Sky version of “God Knows” tenders a similar point of view (“God knows there’s a purpose”) but places heightened emphasis on human sin and divine judgment. Human beings flee from God’s design, trusting in their own powers and schemes. But their confidence is mistaken: God knows it’s fragile God knows everything God knows it could snap apart right now Just like putting scissors to a string

Even worse, humanity’s resistance to God is also dooming: “There’s a million reasons for you to be crying,” Dylan sings, his voice hesitating slightly, “You been so bold and so cold.” Curiously, however, the song’s musical setting is not at all melancholy. Led by the textured guitar of blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughn (1954–90) and the breakneck drumming of Kenny Aronoff, Dylan’s band plays with “distinctive strength and charm,”47 propelling the listener through the song’s nine verses in a just three minutes. This upbeat feeling is eventually reflected in the lyrics. In contrast to the more abrasive sentiments of Dylan’s “gospel period,” Dylan here finds hope in God’s eternality. What people perceive as irreversible losses are but setbacks from God’s point of

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view: “God knows you can rise above the darkest hour / Of any circumstance.” Indeed, as Dylan brings the song to a close, he declares that human weakness and sin may darken, but never extinguish, the desire for eternal life: God knows there’s a heaven God knows it’s out of sight God knows we can get all the way from here to there Even if we’ve got to walk a million miles by candlelight

Hence, as with “Every Grain of Sand,” the two versions of “God Knows” bind together a pair of fundamental observations about human life—that, on the one hand, it is precarious and often anguished, and that, on the other hand, it bears an intrinsic longing for an eternity that only God can fulfill. Yet, what these songs do not answer—and do not try to answer—is precisely how this eternity can be secured. This is a question that thinkers have wrestled with since antiquity. As has been seen, Kierkegaard argues that the highest achievement of reason is to realize that human beings desire and yet cannot attain eternal life. They want what they cannot have; they long for the impossible. For some people, this knowledge will result in spiritual apathy or perhaps even wicked insolence. For others, however, it will generate an openness to divine salvation—a vulnerable cry for the transcendent God with whom “all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). This, in fact, was the subject of Dylan’s well-known “gospel period,” to which this chapter will now turn. Dylan and the Transcendence of God: The Gospel Period This section will focus on the recordings of the “gospel period,” rather than the personal wellsprings of Dylan’s conversion to Christianity. After all, the basic facts are not in doubt: from 1979 to 1983, Dylan’s interest in and understanding of Jesus Christ dominated his music. But many commentators, particularly at that time, refused to explore the role that Jesus plays in Dylan’s art. It was easier to assume that the songwriter had become emotionally unstable or even mentally debilitated. The influential critic Greil Marcus went so far as to accuse Dylan of trying “to sell a prepackaged doctrine he’s received from someone else.”48 Yet, what such a viewpoint fails to address is that Christ answers a recurring question in Dylan’s oeuvre: how can human beings, buffeted by aesthetic desires and anxious about ethical shortcomings, find transcendent meaning and ultimate happiness? Dylan’s love of folk music had long made Christian ideas and themes prominent in his work. Yet, over the first decade and a half of his career, Dylan also evinced a struggle to distinguish between the sacred and the

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profane and, in turn, between that which is authentically Christian and that which has been sullied by mass American culture. As he sings in “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” one of the most influential tracks from Bringing It All Back Home (1965), “human gods” only care to profit from religion, stocking shelves with “everything from toy guns that spark / to flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark.” The conclusion is unmistakable: “It’s easy to see without looking too far / That not much is really sacred.” Clinton Heylin has observed that “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” is a statement of radical nonconformity, calling into question “the whole of America’s way of life.”49 Yes, religion was (and is) part of the American cultural matrix, but Dylan had equally soured on “sex and politics.”50 Intriguingly, Heylin likens the viewpoint articulated in “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” to that of existentialist philosophy: “It seems [Dylan] had finally got around to reading Sartre and Kierkegaard, for here is the first evidence of an existential strain that suffuses much of what he would write”51 in the future. Given the interests of this study, the link to Kierkegaard is both apropos and intuitive. Kierkegaard spent the last several years of his life critiquing Danish culture in general and Denmark’s state church in particular, albeit with an eye toward defending true Christianity.52 For Kierkegaard, the disgrace of the modern church is that it treats Jesus as a commodity, peddled to increase social influence and individual status but otherwise ignored in daily life. In one 1854 journal entry, Kierkegaard argues that the leaders of Christendom have made faith so facile that people have come to doubt its veracity: “Imagine that someone is willing to give on an enormous scale just as much money as anyone wants; all one needs to do is ask—the ordinary person will involuntarily suspect that he is giving away imitation money—for it cannot be on the level.”53 Hence, if authentic Christianity is to endure, it must be proclaimed in such a way that the commitment of the whole person is demanded: “Christianity can be communicated only by witnesses: that is, by those who existentially express what is said, actualize it.”54 Dylan had not yet advanced to this standpoint in 1965—Heylin argues that “the shadow of nihilism”55 loomed over his work during this era—but by the late 1970s his songs came to express a different perspective on American life. The culture was still in collapse, but, as he now suggested, Christianity represents the only way out. Perhaps no song better captures this transition than “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power),” the sixth song on Street-Legal (1978). The song is framed as a “rite of passage,”56 during which the narrator seeks direction from a mysterious guide identified only as “Señor.” On a quest to find his beloved (“Señor, señor, do you know where she is hidin’?”), the narrator finds himself amid a number of “terrifying scenes,” culminating in “a final struggle between good and evil (like the New Testament’s Battle of Armageddon).”57 To be sure, the song contains some of Dylan’s most indelible lines: “Well, the

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last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled / Was that trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field.” Nevertheless, the underlying theme of “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” is the narrator’s utter dependence on the title figure. After ending three of the first five verses with a question, Dylan concludes the sixth verse with a declaration: “I’m ready when you are, señor.” The narrator wants to make a break from the existing order, but he needs the help of his leader. As Dylan sings with a voice rising in intensity: “Señor, señor, let’s disconnect these cables / Overturn these tables.” With this last line, Dylan finally divulges the identity of “señor.” In Spanish, “señor” is used to translate the Greek term kyrios, meaning “Lord.” Indeed, in Spanish translations of the New Testament, Jesus is often called “Señor,” as in the gospel of John when Thomas the Apostle cries out to Jesus: ¡Señor mío y Dios mío! (Jn. 20:28). Just as Jesus cleansed the temple by overthrowing the tables of the vendors who had turned God’s temple into a “den of thieves” (Matt. 21:12–13), so does Dylan’s narrator ask “Señor” to “overturn these tables.” While the allusion is clear, its meaning is open to interpretation. Nevertheless, from a Kierkegaardian perspective, the invocation of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple is an apt metaphor for the sublime’s infringement of the immanent frame. Put differently, Jesus represents the transcendent disruption of the world’s attempt to reduce the sacred to a commodity—an icon of the irreducible paradoxicality of what Kierkegaard called “Religiousness B.” Dylan highlights this understanding of Jesus in a number of songs from the “gospel period.” Indeed, so many of the songs from this era are similar that it makes sense to group them together thematically, paying special attention to a pair of features that Kierkegaard associates with Religiousness B—namely, faith and love. Recall that, for Kierkegaard, Religiousness B is marked first and foremost by divine revelation. Whereas Religiousness A emerges out humanity’s philosophical-cum-ascetical attempts to achieve eternal happiness, Religiousness B emerges precisely where human initiative fails. That which is impossible for creatures is possible only for God. Yet, insofar as this is true, it is also true that divine revelation is not an ordinary form of knowledge or a kind of technological know-how; it cannot be demonstrated through syllogisms or tested in a laboratory. One must have faith in it. For that reason, the one who has faith is no longer reliant on worldly wisdom alone: what human society typically views as virtues are now apprehended from the perspective of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. Thus the person of faith is transformed, subscribing, for example, to a conception of love that exceeds and thereby offends common sense. As Jesus teaches in Luke 6:27–32: But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

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And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. . . . For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

These notions of faith and love are remarkably prevalent during Dylan’s “gospel period” and will be explored below. Dylan on “Faith” The song that announced Dylan’s conversion to Christianity is not about faith per se. Rather, it makes an indirect apology for the person who chooses faith. Recorded in May 1979 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and subsequently released as the lead single on Slow Train Coming (1979), “Gotta Serve Somebody” jeers at the modern Western idea that human beings are truly free. No matter one’s station in life, Dylan suggests, one must trust in and tend to something greater than oneself. You may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble, you might like to dance You may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

Dylan’s observation here is rooted in the New Testament. As Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). The word “mammon” here is essentially held over from the Aramaic mamona, meaning “riches” or “profit.” Thus Jesus implies that one will either serve immanence (mammon) or transcendence (God), will either place one’s hope in worldly gain or divine salvation. Dylan intensifies this decision by equating mammon with “the devil,” an agent noun that, in the New Testament, is often associated with idolatrous temptation and possession.58 The opposite of faith in God, Dylan suggests, is servile worship of that which is not God, be it the world, “the devil,” or any other creaturely idol. The second song on Slow Train Coming underlines the contrast between faith and idolatry. Entitled “Precious Angel,” this song is, first, a note of

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gratitude to the person who led Dylan to faith in Jesus Christ.59 As Dylan sings in the first verse: Precious angel, under the sun How was I to know you’d be the one To show me I was blinded, to show me I was gone How weak was the foundation I was standing upon?

Indeed, Dylan repeats this sentiment in each of the song’s three refrains, “Ya know I just couldn’t make it by myself / I’m a little too blind to see.” In contrast to his “so-called friends,” who look him “squarely in the eye and they say, ‘All is well,’ Dylan’s “precious angel” understands and instantiates the transformative power of faith. “You’re the lamp of my soul, girl,” Dylan intones, “and you torch up the night.” As Christopher Ricks observes, Dylan’s association of “precious angel” with light (“under the sun,” “lamp of my soul”) echoes passages from the Book of Revelation: “And I saw an angel standing in the sun” (Rev. 19:17) and “Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal” (Rev. 21:11).60 Faith, then, is a new way of seeing, of viewing the world in the light of divine revelation, and the standpoint of the angel resembles that of faith—to see in an illumined way that exceeds ordinary human sight. “Not since King Lear,” Ricks adds, “has there been so tensile a tissue of eyes and seeing (of being blinded and blind, of the bodily and the spiritual) as is woven through Precious Angel.”61 But what, exactly, does faith see? This is the second main theme of “Precious Angel.” After all, an angel is a kind of medium—the word itself is derived from the Greek angelos, meaning “messenger” or “one that announces”—and so what the angel communicates is crucial. Here the song appears to operate on two levels. First, it serves as a reminder that, in and for faith, temporal existence is never a random series of natural events; it always bears the hallmarks of supernatural purpose. If the immanent mind can understand and sympathize with the wish for eternal happiness, it cannot comprehend that eternity actually traverses the immanent sphere. Yet, brightened by the eyes of faith, Dylan has come to grasp the transcendent reality latent in earthly affairs: Now there’s spiritual warfare and flesh and blood breaking down Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there ain’t no neutral ground The enemy is subtle, how be it we are so deceived When the truth’s in our hearts and we still don’t believe?

On the surface, modern life may look like a series of advances, whether in finance, medicine, or technology. But this assumption is framed by a

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materialistic reading of history, which brackets off questions about the spiritual state and destiny of human beings—an omission that is convenient from a secular point of view. “Men prefer to make Christianity and the world homogeneous,” Kierkegaard wrote in 1848, “That the world progresses cannot be denied, but . . . [God] must feel about it as does a father about a child who has become sophisticated about life—that is, he has lost the best. When Christianity and the world come to amount to the same thing and all the tension is taken away, men will let it go.”62 As the world evolves in one sense, Kierkegaard suggests, it devolves in another. This is why Dylan cannot shake the idea that a great “darkness” is coming. If faith perceives genuine transcendence—which, in Kierkegaardian terms, allows one to overcome to the immanent conditions of human existence—the rejection of faith appears to be a kind of death-wish. Even worse, this same rejection is based on a misunderstanding, insofar as God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ demonstrates that “the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Thus Dylan shudders for the people who enjoy present contentment and yet lack faith. When today’s comfort becomes tomorrow’s pain (and such is the lot of all earthly life), they will wish to die. And yet, as Dylan sings in “Precious Angel,” this is a deceptive wish: “Can they imagine the darkness that will fall from on high / When men will beg God to kill them and they won’t be able to die?”63 Dylan’s phrasing here places distinct accent on the adjective “able,” ironically underscoring the impotence of humanity in the face of life’s ultimate questions. As “Precious Angel” comes to an end, Dylan revisits this theme. Pleading with his lover to remain on God’s path, he intimates that life is a journey that culminates in the authority and dominion of Christ (Matt. 19:28): “But there’s violence in the eyes, girl, so let us not be enticed / On the way out of Egypt, through Ethiopia, to the judgment hall of Christ.” The pairing of “enticed” and “Christ” presents a “choice between these two words that rhyme, the one the temptation to sin, the other the overcoming of sin in the face of judgment.”64 As Dylan implies throughout the song, the opposite of divine judgment is self-rule, and where faith sees the former, sin sees the latter. The successor to Slow Train Coming was the aptly titled Saved (1980). Dylan began work on the album in September 1979, when he wrote a gospel song named “Saving Grace.” Several months later, in February 1980, this track was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. Dylan delivers an “emotional” performance, giving a “poignant testament to his newfound faith.”65 Indeed, as Ricks points out, the song’s confessional intimacy is crucial to its success, since the expression “saving grace” has been turned “into just a turn of phrase, amounting to no more than ‘Well, I suppose there is this at least to be said for it. . . .’”66 Thus Dylan “sets the timbre of

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the ancient phrase ‘saving grace’ against our modern casualness.”67 Whether or not this was Dylan’s intention is, of course, difficult to ascertain. What is clear is that the song’s juxtaposition of Dylan’s life before faith and his hope after faith is anything but casual. As Dylan sings in the second verse of “Saving Grace”: By this time I’d-a thought I would be sleeping In a pine box for all eternity My faith keeps me alive, but I still be weeping For the saving grace that’s over me

On the one side is death, which is certain for all human beings. On the other side is life, which, in the end, is accessible only to faith. Doubtless here Dylan had passages from the New Testament in mind: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16); “The righteousness of God [is] revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). Yet, as Kierkegaard would add, this is precisely the paradoxicality of faith—that it sees life in death, the eternal in the historical, grace in sin. Elsewhere in “Saving Grace” Dylan returns to the optical metaphor, albeit in a slightly different vein. If, in “Precious Angel,” faith is tantamount to light, in “Saving Grace” it is tantamount to sight. There is a subtle difference, because, it turns out, not all light facilitates seeing. As Dylan sings in the fourth verse of “Saving Grace”: “Well, the devil’s shining light, it can be most blinding.” Faith is a kind of light, but it is not just any light. It is a means of seeing God’s presence in the world: “As I look around this world all that I’m finding / Is the saving grace that’s over me.” Indeed, the person of faith can find God in all things: Well, the death of life, then come the resurrection Wherever I am welcome is where I’ll be I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection Is the saving grace that’s over me

The word “confidence” is etymologically related to “faith.” Both terms can be traced back to the Latin verb fidere (“to trust”), and Dylan uses them almost synonymously in “Saving Grace.” “Faith” in the second stanza explains how he is able to persevere despite past mistakes; “confidence” in the third verse looks ahead to an unknown future. Either way, Dylan suggests that faith alone is able to overcome the afflictions native to human existence—a standpoint marked by “humility (I am happy to leave it to Him)” and “assurance (for in His will is not only my peace but my happiness).”68

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And yet, despite its importance, faith is not said to be the ne plus ultra of Christian life. This point is famously emphasized in the thirteenth chapter of the Apostle Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. In this lengthy passage, Paul explains that knowledge, altruism, and even faith are wasted in the absence of agapē—a Koine Greek term translated as “love” or “charity.” As he puts it, “Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2). Finally, he concludes, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Cor. 13:13). Biblical scholars have long wrestled with Paul’s language here, but one conclusion is that, for Paul, faith is a precursor to love. That is to say, faith is a “human commitment” that prepares one to share in the love “grounded . . . in God” and expressive of “God’s commitment toward all creatures.”69 Indeed, one must have faith in the love of God—an unchanging beneficence free of any self-interest—before one can love in the way that God loves. Notably, Kierkegaard reads Paul’s “encomium on love” in similar fashion. In an 1836 journal entry, he calls faith the “a priori” that “hovers over all the a posteriori of works.”70 Elsewhere he stresses that love is the “primus motor”71 of Christian life, without which one is doomed to unhappiness: “To defraud oneself of love,” Kierkegaard writes in Works of Love (1847), “is the most terrible, is an eternal loss, for which there is no compensation either in time or in eternity.”72 That Dylan’s “gospel period,” then, would allot sustained attention to agapē is a natural outgrowth of the songwriter’s engagement with God’s transcendence. Where Slow Train Coming gives priority to Dylan’s newfound faith, Saved and on Shot of Love provide a number of insights about Christian love. For Dylan, as for Kierkegaard, agapē is embodied by the person of Jesus Christ, and, in and through Christ, it is a virtue in which human beings can share. Dylan on “Love” Saved opens with a soulful cover of “A Satisfied Mind,” a song originally written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes that, in 1955, Porter Wagoner turned into a country hit. Dylan’s version of “A Satisfied Mind” is itself memorable, converting Wagoner’s stoical performance into a “wailing vocal delivery”73 resonant with gospel feeling. Yet, the track’s main purpose to establish Saved’s atmosphere. Whereas Slow Train Coming begins with the ominous tones of Barry Beckett’s keyboards and Tim Drummond’s bass, as if to indicate that Dylan’s turn to faith was also a turn against the world, Saved commences with Fred Tackett’s airy guitar picking, followed by Spooner Oldham’s shimmering electric piano. From the very outset, then, it is clear that Saved is meant to be a joyful album. Even critics who otherwise disliked

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Dylan’s evangelical faith could agree on that: “Saved is a much more aesthetically gratifying LP than its predecessor,” Kurt Loder writes in a September 1980 review, “particularly because of the hope (mostly musical, I admit) it offers that Dylan may eventually rise above the arid confines of Biblical literalism.”74 But it is not just Saved’s music that reflects a newfound hope. Seven of the album’s nine tracks give focused attention to the person of Jesus Christ, stressing, above all, Christ’s loving self-sacrifice on the cross. This notion has its basis in the New Testament. As the Apostle Paul writes, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). Nevertheless, Paul’s allusion to “vicarious atonement”—the idea that Christ died on behalf of other persons in order to satisfy God’s demand for justice and that, in doing so, he ransomed individuals from eternal damnation—has proven controversial. Famously, Gustaf Aulén’s 1930 book Christus Victor argues that vicarious atonement, which received definitive expression in the work of medieval churchman and philosopher Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), should be exchanged for an understanding of Christian redemption that places greater weight on Christ’s glorious triumph over cosmic forces such as sin and death.75 On Aulén’s reading, the cross principally has to do with the salvation of the world, and personal failings are but epiphenomena of a larger predicament. Moreover, emphasis on individual sin too often strikes a judgmental chord and thus clashes with the “good news” (euangelion) of Christian faith. Still, whatever else can be said of Aulén’s critique of vicarious atonement, it is clear that Saved cannot be accused of pessimistic scrupulosity. Time and again, Dylan portrays Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as a work of mercy and, consequently, as a sign of God’s abiding love. On Saved’s eponymous second track, the chorus brims with joy: “I’ve been saved / By the blood of the lamb,” Dylan exclaims. With this in mind, he repeats the phrases “I’m so glad” and “thank You, Lord” three times each. Two songs later, in “What Can I Do For You?,” Dylan’s attitude takes on an air of humble gratitude: “You have given all there is to give / What can I do for You?” On “Solid Rock,” however, Dylan thunderously exults the cross of Christ. While many “people are expecting a false peace to come,” Christians hang on to “a solid rock / Made before the foundation of the world.” And yet, though the cross has cosmic significance, Christ’s suffering is also deeply personal. As Dylan snarls over a forceful guitar riff: “For me He was chastised, for me He was hated / For me He was rejected by a world that He created.” As indicated, commentators have linked such sentiments to a world-denying form of evangelicalism, and Saved’s final track “Are You Ready?” would

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seem to warrant this concern.76 Still, the album generally falls within the bounds of mainstream orthodox Christianity, identifying the cross as the ultimate sign of God’s love. According to Welsh theologian Rowan Williams, whose recent tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury was noted for its attempt to bridge the gap between traditional Christian theology and modern secular culture, Jesus’ life “enacted God’s identification with the world of human beings,” and, for that reason, Jesus’ suffering on the cross “speaks of God’s presence in the extremity of suffering, in abandonment and death.”77 In short, as Williams sees it, Christian teaching about the atonement is ultimately about the love of God for creation: “There is our hope—the infinite resource of God’s love, the relationship with his creatures that no sin can finally unmake. He cares what we do because he suffers what we do. He is forever wounded, but forever loving.”78 This point of view predominates in Saved and extends to its successor Shot of Love. As the album’s title indicates, Shot of Love contains a number of songs that celebrate love—both the love of God and the human desire to share in it. Indeed, as the title track declares, no drug or medicine can heal in the same way as authentic love: “Don’t need a shot of heroin to kill my disease,” he sings, “I need a shot of love, I need a shot of love.” In “Dead Man, Dead Man,” which Dylan has said “is a song about myself” written “while looking into the mirror,”79 the protagonist is described as “clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine.” In this way, the song is a cry for the renewal that “the glamour and the bright lights and the politics of sin” can promise but never deliver. As Dylan hisses in the second verse, “Satan got you by the heel, / Do you have any love to share?” Drawing on Romans 8:11, in which the Apostle Paul claims that only God can “quicken your mortal bodies,” Dylan equates God’s eternal life with the nature of God’s love. Find one, and you will find the other. But this is precisely why love is such a complex object of desire. Everybody wants to love and be loved, but many are content with attenuated forms of it. Hence, in Kierkegaardian terms, the idea of a holy and transcendent love may give “offense” (Forargelse) to human sensibilities. In other words, it collides with what human beings expect of either erotic or filial love.80 This very collision is the subject of “Watered-Down Love,” the fifth song on Shot of Love. Recorded on May 15, 1981, in Los Angeles, “Watered-Down Love” is “a pleasant, medium-tempo rock song,” which bears a sonic resemblance to Betty Wright’s 1971 R&B hit “Clean Up Woman.”81 In the opening stanza, Dylan draws on the language of the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 13:7), contrasting the Christian conception of agapē with that of an erotic seducer: Love that’s pure hopes all things Believes all things, won’t pull no strings

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Won’t sneak up into your room, tall, dark and handsome Capture your heart and hold it for ransom

In a typical gospel song, this juxtaposition might be used to convince the listener to embrace Christianity. But Dylan’s appeal is oblique. In the chorus, he does not extol the beauty of agapē but highlights its collision with homo naturalis: “You don’t want a love that’s pure / You wanna drown love / You want a watered-down love.” As Ricks points out, it is intriguing that Dylan’s song “takes up its own enterprise when it sets ‘love that’s pure’ against love that isn’t.”82 This “contrast was no part of St. Paul’s undertaking in chapter 13 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.”83 Indeed, for Paul Nelson, who reviewed Shot of Love for Rolling Stone, Dylan’s repeated use of “won’t,” “don’t,” and even “ain’t” implies that “our love is no damn good.”84 As a result, Dylan seems to reach a spiteful conclusion: “Each and every one of us can go to hell.”85 According to Nelson, Dylan conflates his own suffering with that of Christ, and herein lies the root of his false inference: Being reborn changed the world for him, Dylan claims, but his Christian compositions rarely praise God in any conventional religious manner (praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, maybe). Instead, they’re choked with anger, rife with self-pity and so swollen with self-absorption that the singer often seems to think that he and Jesus are interchangeable on that mythic cross.86

Ricks strongly disagrees, pointing out that the sound of “Watered-Down Love” “moves more jauntily than jouncily, a series of acts of serious jesting, not a solemn commination.”87 And yet, it is not just that Nelson’s review is tone-deaf. It also misunderstands the relationship between the human and the divine in traditional Christian theology. As the Kierkegaardian schema of “Religiousness A” and “Religiousness B” indicates, Christian virtues such as faith and love presuppose the existential-erotic dimension of immanent religion. That is to say, the embrace of Christianity is unintelligible without the prior existence of a number of fundamentally human concerns and desires. Christianity’s claim is that it deepens and perfects, rather than diminishes and eradicates, what Nelson calls “our love.” As the great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–45) once put it: “Being loved by God does not by any means deprive man of his mighty thoughts and his spirited deeds. . . . It is as whole men, who think and who act, that we love God and our brothers.”88 It is this insight that Ricks perceives in “Watered-Down Love.” He calls attention to the track’s final stanza, in which Dylan compares love to an “eternal flame, quietly burning / Never needs to be proud, restlessly yearning.” Dylan draws out the last syllable of “yearning” for an entire four seconds,

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his “voice [rippling] the word out so that it does itself become an eternal flame.”89 Thus he evokes a paradox: human beings yearn for a love that does not restlessly yearn. The problem, in other words, is not that human beings yearn; it is that they yearn in the wrong way or for the wrong thing. As Ricks concludes, “What is to be heard in the yearning with which ‘yearning’ is voiced is not the false claim that charity suffers from yearning (for it ‘Never needs to be proud, loud or restlessly yearning’), but our yearning for it.”90 This observation discloses the interconnectedness of Christian thinking about Christ and agapē and, in doing so, serves as a fitting conclusion to Dylan’s work on religious love. The charity manifested by Christ’s self-sacrifice on the cross—and even amid contemporary secularity, this type of love retains an imaginative hold on society, perhaps especially in the form of Christ-figures in film and literature—completes what is best about human nature. It is the goal toward which human love aspires, though it also challenges and even “offends” other human affinities. After all, Christ was crucified, and it is simply true that people often settle for “a watered-down love.” The situation is such that one cannot help but wonder what it ultimately means and how it will all end. In fact, Dylan’s songwriting is preoccupied with such eschatological questions—the subject of the final part of this chapter. Dylan and Eschatology The word “eschatology” denotes the branch of theology that contemplates the four “last things” (eschata) of earthly existence—namely, death, judgment, heaven, and hell. In doing so, theologians first consider the data of Scripture (and there is more than a little on this topic) but also what philosophy and science can contribute to such matters. Nevertheless, given its concern with the future, eschatology is an inescapably mysterious enterprise. It speaks neither with certainty nor with precision but sees “through a glass, darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). For that reason, eschatology often must cast its ideas in allusion and metaphor, rather than in exact propositional conclusions. As Jesus himself states, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matt. 24:35–36). With this in mind, it is not surprising that artists have typically been drawn to eschatological concepts and motifs. From Dante Alighieri’s narrative poem Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia, 1321) to Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment (Il Giudizio Universale, 1541) to Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet, 1957), eschatology has formed the background of many of the West’s greatest works of art. And that is to say nothing of philosophers who, though incapable of treating eschatological ideas apodictically, have sought to unlock their meaning for human life. As

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Michel de Montaigne (1533–92), drawing on the thought of Roman statesman and philosophical skeptic Cicero (106–43 BCE), famously put it: “To philosophize is nothing else but to prepare to die.”91 This sentiment was, in fact, shared by Kierkegaard. “The thought of death,” he wrote in “At a Graveside” (Ved en Grav, 1845), “gives the earnest person the right momentum in life and the right goal toward which he directs his momentum.”92 Yet, for Kierkegaard, the thought of death can be neither general nor objective if it is to be transformative. For example, pondering a tragic plane crash or surveying the mortality rate of COVID-19 infections may cast one into a state of concern, but these approaches will not facilitate reflection on one’s own death—an earnest task that is crucial if one is to fully comprehend the fragility of life and the need to live with passion and urgency. Notably, “At a Graveside” is the final treatise of a short work entitled Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Tre Taler ved tænkte Leiligheder). The word “imagined” here is critical, both in terms of Kierkegaard’s own thought and in terms of Dylan’s treatment of eschatological themes. With regard to the former, Kierkegaard makes hundreds of references to “imagination” (typically either Indbildning or Phantasie, though the latter is used less often) in his authorship, albeit with a variety of intentions and meanings. Perhaps the most important reference turns up in The Sickness unto Death (1849), in which Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus observes that imagination is interconnected with emotion, knowledge, and will. The imagination is, in other words, “the capacity instar omnium.”93 It is not hard to see why. If one aims to adopt a new course of action (say, to get a new job or to lose weight), one must first be able to imagine that such changes are possible. The will to change in reality depends on the ability to model images that are not currently available to sense experience. Without imagination, then, the self cannot develop, much less reach its full potential. Of course, as an artist, Bob Dylan works in the realm of imagination. The span of his career as a songwriter demonstrates this fact in innumerable ways. As has been seen throughout this study, Dylan’s lyrics conjure up a variety of images, from sensual extravagance to moral austerity. This tendency may seem less pronounced in his religious songs. After all, they often allude to or rework preexisting material, especially from the Bible. Yet, when Dylan focuses on eschatological themes, the richness of his poetic imagination returns to the fore. Even prior to the “gospel period,” Dylan was fond of using apocalyptic imagery. In “Gates of Eden,” the ninth track on Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Dylan strings together a succession of doom-laden images, fashioning a “nightmare vision” of “living in a decaying society.”94 As Dylan snarls in the first verse: “Upon four-legged forest clouds / The cowboy angel rides / With his candle lit into the sun / Though its glow is waxed in black.” Several years later, Dylan wrote perhaps his most famous

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eschatological song for the soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Entitled “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” the song is written from the perspective of a dying lawman. Unable to fight anymore, the man is left to confront his imminent mortality: “It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see / I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.” Dylan wrote the song to accompany a key scene in the film: Sheriff Colin Baker (Slim Pickens), charged with helping Pat Garett (James Coburn) capture Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), is shot by Billy and his gang. Mortally wounded, Baker stumbles to a nearby river, where he is found by his wife (Katy Jurado). The two look at each with poignant affection, until Baker’s eyes drift to the peach-colored sunset. The scene’s only words belong to Dylan, who non-diegetically repeats the refrain: “Knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door.” Thus the film utilizes the song’s “extraordinary mystical dimension.”95 His chest heaving, his face betraying a combination of gratitude and shock, Pickens’ Baker is not just taking his final breaths but confronting the very meaning of his life: “Judgment Day is approaching. . . . ‘That long black cloud’ is descending on him. Is he worthy of entering the pearly gates?”96 Still, if Dylan penned eschatological songs prior to his conversion to Christianity, and if “gospel period” tracks such as “When He Returns” (1979) and “Are You Ready?” (1980) appropriate biblical material on death and judgment, it is arguable that Dylan’s interest in eschatology has actually peaked later in his career, starting with Oh Mercy (1989). Rather than defend this claim at length—ultimately, it would be futile to deny the importance of eschatology to Dylan’s recent output, no matter where it stands in relation to other periods of his career—an overview of this tendency should suffice. The point here is not to exhaustively dissect Dylan’s work on the subject; it is simply to demonstrate that Dylan’s use of religious ideas and themes has persisted, even well after the “gospel period” supposedly came to an end. The fourth track on Oh Mercy, recorded in New Orleans in March 1989, “Ring Them Bells” has been described as a declaration of “the celestial reign of God” and, with it, the fulfillment of the “divine will on earth.”97 Indeed, in one sense, the sounding of the bells represents the end to all deceit and idolatry. The song’s first line addresses “ye heathen,” or those who do not worship God in truth. In the next verse, Dylan associates heathenism with the biblical narrative of the “golden calf” (Exod. 32:1–6)—a story that immediately precedes Moses’ provision of the Tablets of the Covenant to the Israelites. Just as Moses destroyed the golden calf, which was said to replace the LORD (Exod. 32:19–24), so do the tolling bells represent the end of a period of idolatry. As Dylan sings, “Oh it’s rush hour now / On the wheel and the plow / And the sun is going down / Upon the sacred cow.” Moses gave the Torah, but now it is Christian saints, from “St. Peter” to “St. Catherine,” who shatter idols and

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call the “lost sheep” back to God. “Ring them bells so the world will know,” Dylan sings, “That God is one.” With this in mind, it is even tempting to see “Ring Them Bells” as invoking “the end of humankind,”98 a final separation of the sheep from the goats (Matt. 25:31–46). But this would be an extreme reading. Featuring Dylan on a church-like piano, “Ring Them Bells” is ultimately closer to a prayer. It invokes those who, in a godless age, have been oppressed and wounded in one way or another—“the poor man’s son,” “the blind and the deaf,” “the child that cries.” Hence, when Dylan alludes to judgment in the song’s penultimate verse, it does not recall the more austere moments of the “gospel period.” Instead, it sounds a cry for what has been a lost (“When innocence dies”) and registers hope for what is to come (“For the lilies that bloom”). Dylan returns to these themes on Time Out of Mind (1997), with particular force on the album’s concluding track “Highlands.” Over sixteen minutes in length, “Highlands” was Dylan’s longest ever recording upon its release, though it has since been bested by “Murder Most Foul” (2020). And yet, whereas the latter track is essentially a form of jazz poetry, “Highlands” is very much “a standard twelve-bar blues,”99 constructed around the dual guitar playing of Dylan and producer Daniel Lanois. In a 1997 interview, Dylan credited the song’s E blues riff to Charley Patton (ca. 1891–1934), the legendary Mississippi bluesman. Moreover, in a manner that recalls Patton’s Delta sound, “Highlands” repeats its riff is throughout the song with neither a chorus nor a bridge. Thus it “creates an hypnotic effect,” effectively becoming a “sixteen-minute loop.”100 This technique gives Dylan plenty of space to interleave his lyrics, which are replete with eschatological themes. In this sense, “Highlands” is quite different than the song on which it is based, namely, “My Heart’s in the Highlands” by Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–96). As Carol McGuirk has observed, while Burns’ private letters reveal that he saw Scotland’s Hielands as a grim and inhospitable region, he composed “My Heart’s in the Highlands” to serve “as a repository . . . of national cultural memory,” perhaps even as means of rekindling Jacobite sympathies and strengthening “a renewed spirit of Scottish insurgency.”101 It is, in other words, a political poem couched in a paean to nature. By way of contrast, Dylan’s “Highlands” might be described as apolitical in two distinct ways. First, a number of verses chronicle the world-weary narrator’s afternoon wandering around Boston: he goes into a diner, argues with a waitress, drifts through a park, and ponders buying “a full-length leather coat.” The day seems to be a holiday, but the narrator does not know for sure. He is alone, literally and metaphysically. There is no purpose in what he is doing, and he can no longer take refuge in the aesthetic or the ethical. The young people in the park “forgetting their

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troubles and woes,” the activist who “just asked me / If I registered to vote,” neither sees the world as he does: The sun is beginning to shine on me But it’s not like the sun that used to be The party’s over and there’s less and less to say I got new eyes Everything looks far away

Second, just to the extent that the narrator has given up on life in the modern polis, so does he turn to his final destiny. He is passing from the immanent to the transcendent: “Dylan’s song is about death, specifically about what comes after death.”102 On earth it is just the “Same ol’ rat race / Life in the same ol’ cage,” but the distant Highlands are different. As Dylan announces in the song’s first stanza: Well my heart’s in the Highlands, gentle and fair Honeysuckle blooming in the wildwood air Bluebelles blazing where the Aberdeen waters flow Well my heart’s in the Highland I’m gonna go there when I feel good enough to go

Dylan’s language here is some of the most pastoral of his career, and he returns to this imagery throughout the song. The Highlands are “home,” the place where the “wind . . . whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme”; they are situated “Way up in the border country, far from the towns,” where “the horses and hounds” roam freely by “the beautiful lake of the Black Swan.” The Highlands, in short, are a kind of paradise and, consequently, a “symbol of the Garden of Eden from Genesis.”103 Yet, Dylan’s poetry is no mere retrospection. It is also a proleptic intimation of the paradise to come, of life everlasting. He is preparing to triumph over the world: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7). In some ways, Dylan’s late-career Renaissance—which has been sustained up to and through Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)—is epitomized by songs such as “Highlands.” Borrowing from, but not copying, the great poets and events of yesteryear, Dylan has fashioned a peculiar body of eschatological literature. Love and Theft, released on September 11, 2001, is an album haunted by death. On the blistering “Lonesome Day Blues,” whose title is taken from the catalog of Georgia bluesman Blind Willie McTell (1898– 1959), Dylan growls of dead family members, destructive floods, and eerie signs and wonders: “Last night the wind was whisperin’, I was trying to make out what it was / Last night the wind was whisperin’ somethin’—I was trying

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to make out what it was / I tell myself something’s comin’ / But it never does.” The album’s final track “Sugar Baby” is another derived title—this time from Virginia banjoist and singer Dock Boggs (1898–1971), who first recorded the traditional folk song (also known as “Red Rocking Chair”) in 1927—and it centers on the narrator’s unhappy love for a woman identified only as “Sugar Baby.” A femme fatale, Sugar Baby has long proven alluring, but the narrator, in a peculiar combination of affection and weariness, warns that it will not always be so. “Any minute of the day the bubble could burst,” Dylan almost gurgles, drawing out the last syllable until his voice falls silent. Then, in the next stanza, he reminds Sugar Baby of the looming inevitability of death and judgment: “Just as sure as we’re living, just as sure as you’re born / Look up, look up—seek your Maker—’fore Gabriel blows his horn.” The verse’s last line, as well as the song’s overarching melody, is filched from “The Lonesome Road,” a 1927 jazz standard written by Texas crooner Gene Austin (1900–72). But Dylan alters the song’s meaning. While Austin’s mournful singing is rife with regret, urging the listener to consider the cost of leaving home, Dylan’s “Sugar Baby” is essentially a song of farewell. The narrator does not wish ill on his onetime lover, but he is more than ready to see her “get on down the line.” It is easy to multiply examples of this trend in Dylan’s recent songwriting. The final track on Modern Times (2006) is “Ain’t Talkin’,” which has been described as a plea for “justice and vengeance.”104 There is no doubt, in any case, as to the latter. “Ain’t Talkin’” is a litany of abuse and iniquity. Singing in a “searching, even resigned tone,”105 Dylan tells of a character “all worn down by weepin’,” cast from a “mystic garden” into “the cities of the plague,” where those who “crush . . . with wealth and power” reign supreme. Indeed, this figure resembles the biblical patriarch Adam, whom God barred from the Garden of Eden after eating from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 3:1–7). At the same time, however, “Ain’t Talkin’” also calls to mind Adam’s firstborn son Cain, who murdered his brother Abel and received punishment in turn: “And [God] said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth . . . a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth” (Gen. 4:10–12). Similarly, Dylan’s narrator laments the “evil spirit” that can take root in “the human heart.” In pain, “with a toothache in my heel,” the wayfarer sojourns alone, seeking to avenge his misery. “If I catch my opponents ever sleepin’,” Dylan murmurs, “I’ll just slaughter them where they lie.” While “Highlands” smirks at the world’s demise, “Ain’t Talkin’” rages. The narrator’s exile from the “mystic garden” seems interminable: he is adrift in “the last outback, at the world’s end.” This line, along with others on Modern Times, was borrowed from the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE—17 CE),106 who, late in life, was banished by the emperor to the outpost of Tomis

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in present-day Romania. There Ovid composed Sorrows (Tristia), a collection of poems grieving his fate. Exiled from his homeland, Ovid knew he would die in a strange and desolate place. In this way, a key theme of Ovid’s Sorrows corresponds to Dylan’s “Ain’t Talkin’.” And yet, as usual, Dylan complexifies his subject matter. In the song’s final verse, which immediately precedes its last refrain, Dylan’s narrator finds himself in the “mystic garden” once more. But this time he meets a woman there, who gives him unwelcome news: “There’s no one here, the gardener is gone.” This is a reference to the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John, which describes how Mary Magdalene and other disciples visited Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion. Finding the sepulcher empty, and Jesus’ burial clothes bundled on the ground, some of the disciples leave in dismay. But Mary stays behind and soon meets the risen Christ: She turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. (Jn. 20:14–16)

In the New Testament, Mary encounters Jesus but assumes he is the gardener; in “Ain’t Talkin’,” Dylan’s narrator meets a woman who tells him that “the gardener is gone.” Is this woman Mary Magdalene herself? And is the gardener to whom she is referring Jesus, who indeed “is gone,” having been resurrected and thereby made victorious over sin and death? This seems to be a viable interpretation, though it does not render the song’s conclusion transparent. Has the narrator been left behind, alone, desperate, forsaken by God in “the last outback, at the world’s end”? Or is the narrator’s long journey given renewed impetus? Realizing, in faith, that Christ has gone to the Father, he keeps pushing, “Up the road around the bend / Heart burnin’, still yearnin’,” on his trek from the fallen world of Adam to that of the risen Lord? Either reading, it seems, is feasible. What is certain is that eschatology remains central to the final third of Dylan’s career. Nor does this trend stop with “Ain’t Talkin’.” On “Tempest,” the penultimate track on Dylan’s 2012 album of the same name, Dylan treats the legendary wreck of the RMS Titanic as a metaphor for the human encounter with death. Borrowing from “The Titanic,” a seven-verse song by the Virginia folk group the Carter Family, Dylan fashions a 45-verse epic that almost flippantly interweaves fact and fiction. Nevertheless, as Dylan contends in an interview, “Tempest” seeks “its own kind of truth.”107 The song follows a series of characters, all trapped aboard the sinking liner, as they face their imminent demise. Their varied reactions stand as a précis of human nature. One character, identified

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as “Wellington,” wakes up to find himself abandoned by his “men and his companions”; he grabs two pistols and plunges into the chaos. A “rich man” called “Mr. Astor” naively expects to survive. A trio of men spend their last moments gambling. Others act with nobility. A bishop leaves his cabin “[t]o help all those in need,” while a man named “Jim Dandy,”108 who cannot swim, gives his seat on the lifeboat to a “little crippled child.” Dylan describes Dandy’s final moments in the language of what Christian spiritual writers call “mystical union” (unio mystica) with God: “Death was on the rampage / But his heart was now at peace.” Perhaps most notable is the captain of Titanic—British naval officer Edward Smith (1850–1912), though Dylan does not mention his name—who spends his final moments remembering his “bygone years” and reading the “Book of Revelation.” Comprised of apocalyptic symbolism and prophetic visions, this New Testament text, the last of the Christian Bible, is said “to reveal” (apokalyptein in Koine Greek) the mysteries of human suffering and God’s salvation in Christ. It describes a period of idolatry and faithlessness, which serves to test the loyalty of God’s people in advance of the Christ’s return (Rev. 21:1–8). Yet, as Dylan suggests, such moments of revelation are not limited to Scripture. That the world is fallen and liable to corruption; that pain and sorrow are ineluctable; that people will react to these circumstances in different ways—some charitably turning to God and neighbor, some violently clinging to their own survival: all are manifest in Titanic’s demise and highlighted in Dylan’s “Tempest.” For, like the author of Revelation, Dylan suggests that history itself is weighted with transcendent meaning.109 Eschatology is not just something coming; it is also happening. After the release of Tempest, Dylan did not release any original material until June 2020, when, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he issued Rough and Rowdy Ways. It is a remarkable album in many ways, containing Dylan’s longest song to date (“Murder Most Foul”) and launching the seventynine-year-old to the top of Billboard’s Artist 100 chart. In a promotional interview with The New York Times, given in conjunction with the album’s release, Dylan reflected on the viral pandemic, associating it with the album’s thematic interests: “I think about the death of the human race . . . everybody’s life is so transient. Every human being, no matter how strong or mighty, is frail when it comes to death. I think about it in general terms, not in a personal way.”110 To be sure, Rough and Rowdy Ways continues Dylan’s late-career concern with eschatological imagery. “My Own Version of You” envisages a mad scientist who, like Victor Frankenstein, visits “morgues and monasteries / Looking for the necessary body parts / Limbs and livers and brains and hearts.” His goal is “to bring someone to life—turn back the years” in a version of transhumanist salvation. In one scene, he imagines a trip to hell, where “some of the best known enemies of mankind dwell.” Doing his best Dante impression, the

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narrator provides the gory details: “Mister Freud with his dreams and Mister Marx with his axe / See the raw hide lash rip the skin off their backs.” In similar fashion, “Black Rider” depicts an encounter with death, or perhaps the devil (“You fell into the fire and you’re eating the flame”), who stalks the narrator with lusty persistence: “Black Rider Black Rider all dressed in black / I’m walking away and you try to make me look back.” In “My Own Version of You,” death elicits desperation—a monstrous attempt to overcome its dominion. In “Black Rider,” it compels submission: “I’ll suffer in silence I’ll not make a sound,” Dylan sighs. Death is the eschaton. Yet, as the album comes to a close, Dylan exchanges visions of eternal punishment—and the human wish to preclude it—for images of transcendent hope. “Mother of Muses” is a prayer to the title figure, presumably the Greek goddess of memory Mnemosyne. The bulk of the canticle is a supplication for artistic inspiration and integrity, but the final verse imbues these desires with religious import. Now aged and diminished, the singer asks the Mother of Muses for comfort as his death draw near: “Let me lay down in your sweet lovin’ arms / Wake me—shake me—free me from sin / Make me invisible like the wind.” Such allusions to heaven become unmistakable on “Key West (Philosopher Pirate),” the penultimate track on Rough and Rowdy Ways. In one sense, the song appears to be a repetition of “Highlands,” since it treats an earthly destination as a metaphor for heaven: “Key West is the place to be / If you’re lookin’ for immortality / Stay on the road—follow the highway sign,” Dylan croons over Donnie Herron’s soothing accordion. Significantly, however, “Key West (Philosopher Pirate)” is bereft of the mordant humor that characterizes “Highlands.” On the contrary, it shows Dylan at his most romantic and spiritual: Key West is the place to go Down by the Gulf of Mexico Beyond the sea—beyond the shifting sand Key West is the gateway key To innocence and purity Key West—Key West is the enchanted land

Whether or not Rough and Rowdy Ways will be Dylan’s final album is unknown, though it seems notable that, as of fall 2021, Dylan has resumed touring. Still, the album serves as a fitting coda to what might be called Dylan’s “eschatological period,” during which he cast his long-standing religious concerns into an apocalyptic, even mystical register. He looks to the last things with “fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12),111 but also with an aching hope for a return to God.

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CONCLUSION Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this lengthy chapter is that it has only scratched the surface of Dylan’s engagement with religious questions and themes. There is doubtless more to be said, and it is hoped that this chapter will stimulate further interest in Dylan as a religious poet. At the same time, however, a few key points have come into view. First, drawing on Kierkegaard, this chapter has shown that the concept of “the religious” is multifaceted, encompassing a range of human concerns and desires. Second, it has reasoned that Dylan’s songwriting consistently and purposively addresses religion in a number of ways, involving (but certainly not limited to) his famous “gospel period.” Third, and following from the previous two points, it has established various points of connection between Kierkegaard’s thought and Dylan’s art. As with earlier discussions of “the aesthetic” and “the ethical,” Dylan’s corpus has been revealed as existentially significant, shedding light on a basic dimension of human life. For Dylan, no less than Kierkegaard, human beings are caught up in the process of becoming, which unfolds in distinct yet interrelated spheres, including that of the religious. The above summary restates the core argument of this study—an argument that has now run its course. Nevertheless, in closing, brief attention must be given to how the findings of this project bear on contemporary culture. After all, one may grant that Dylan is an iconic figure in popular music; one may even see him as one of the great Anglophonic poets of the last century. Still, a skeptic may ask: who cares? It is well-known that rock and roll is no longer as popular as other musical genres, especially hip-hop, pop, and rap.112 The situation is far more dire for poetry, which, according to a recent survey, is one of the least popular art forms today. Since 2002, poetry readership has declined by almost half, and even Google searches involving poetry are steeply declining.113 So, despite Dylan’s current fame and importance, one might ponder the extent to which he will be relevant in decades to come. Or, even more warily, one might wonder if his work actually merits ongoing attention. A vast catalog of folk-rock songs, often engaging ethico-religious concerns that themselves seem out of date, hardly sounds like a promising recipe for continued interest or significance. And yet, in the Epilogue to this study, I want to sketch a counterclaim that may seem paradoxical: Dylan needs to be studied now more than ever, precisely because he is ostensibly antiquated. There will not be space to develop this argument in full, but, in short, I want to survey the value of art, and especially poetry, for a world determined by global technology. As institutional religion also wanes,114 hastened by the arrival of the smartphone and social media, it may be that the poetic songwriting of artists such as Dylan

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remains the last place where one can encounter the kinds of questions raised by Kierkegaard long ago—questions that invite people to meditate on the meaning of existence itself. NOTES 1. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 298. 2. See, e.g., Christopher B. Barnett, “Nikolai Edinger Balle: The Reception of His Lærebog in Denmark and in Kierkegaard’s Authorship,” in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries: Tome II: Theology, ed. Jon Stewart (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2009), 23–38. 3. See, e.g., Christopher B. Barnett, Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2011). 4. See, e.g., G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). 5. Glenn Alexander Magee, The Hegel Dictionary (London: Continuum, 2010), 99. 6. See, e.g., Christopher B. Barnett, From Despair to Faith: The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), as well as Christopher B. Barnett, “Sanctification: Kierkegaard and the Journey Towards Rest,” in T&T Clark to the Theology of Kierkegaard, ed. Aaron P. Edwards and David J. Gouwens (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 335–52. 7. SKS 7, 506 / CUP1, 506. 8. SKS 7, 506 / CUP1, 506. 9. SKS 7, 478 / CUP1, 433. 10. The concept of “immanent frame” has recently been popularized by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, who defines it as “a constructed social space, where instrumental rationality is a key value, and time is pervasively secular” (Charles Taylor, A Secular Age [Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007], 542). Taylor goes on clarify that “this frame constitutes a ‘natural’ order, to be contrasted to a ‘supernatural’ one, an ‘immanent’ world, over against a possible ‘transcendent’ one” (ibid.). 11. SKS 4, 231 / PF, 23. 12. SKS 4, 238 / PF, 31. 13. SKS 4, 238 / PF, 32. 14. C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 153. 15. See, e.g., Christopher B. Barnett, Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). 16. Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, 201. 17. Ibid., 201–2. 18. Ibid., 200–201. 19. Sheryl Crow, “Farewell: Sheryl Crow Pays Tribute to Johnny Cash,” Entertainment Weekly, December 26, 2003, https:​//​ew​.com​/article​/2003​/12​/26​/farewell​-sheryl​ -crow​-pays​-tribute​-johnny​-cash​/.

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20. Quoted in Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michael Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2015), 502. 21. William Blake, Poems (New York: Vintage Classics, 2016), 37. 22. Ibid., 37–38. 23. James S. Spiegel, “With God (and Socrates and Augustine) on Our Side,” in Bob Dylan and Philosophy: It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Thinking), ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006), 135–37. 24. Ibid., 138. 25. Seth Rogovoy, Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet (New York: Scribner, 2009), 231. 26. Ibid., 231–32. 27. Ibid., 231. 28. Ibid., 228. 29. Also see, e.g., Gen. 32:12, Josh. 11:4, Job 29:18, Ps. 139:18, Jer. 33:22, and Hos. 1:10. It is worth adding that, in the New Testament, Jesus makes one of the Bible’s most prominent references to “grain,” albeit of a different variety: “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field” (Matt. 13:31). 30. Climacus develops his trifold conception of “existential pathos” over a lengthy section: see, e.g., SKS 7, 352–510 / CUP1, 387–561. 31. Lee C. Barrett, “Religious/Religiousness,” in Kierkegaard’s Concepts: Tome V: Objectivity to Sacrifice, ed. Steven M. Emmanuel, William McDonald, and Jon Stewart (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015), 219. 32. Ibid. 33. Timothy Hampton, Bob Dylan’s Poetics: How the Songs Work (New York: Zone Books, 2019), 177. 34. Ibid., 180. 35. The dog makes an audible appearance twice in the song, barking at 2:15 and at 3:09. This version of “Every Grain of Sand” can be heard on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3: Rare and Unreleased, 1961–1991, which was released in 1991 to great acclaim. 36. Hampton, Bob Dylan’s Poetics, 180. 37. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 563. 38. Ibid., 580. 39. Quoted in ibid., 578. 40. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 580. As Dylan later put it, “I like Don and David, but let’s face it, neither one of them knew anything about American folk music or gut level arrangements that come out of the world of simplicity” (quoted in ibid.). 41. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 584. Also see, e.g., Tony Attwood, “God Knows by Bob Dylan: Two Different Versions of the Song, and a Very Convoluted Meaning,” Untold Dylan, March 28, 2017, https:​//​bob​-dylan​.org​.uk​ /archives​/4000. 42. Ibid.

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43. Ibid. 44. Rude Te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the “Summa Theologiae” (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 17. 45. NB5, 122 / JP3, 2640. 46. NB5, 122 / JP3, 2640. 47. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 584. 48. Quoted in Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 466. 49. Clinton Heylin, Revolution in the Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 1957–1973 (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2009), 211. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. For more on this period of Kierkegaard’s authorship, see, e.g., Søren Kierkegaard: Discourses and Writings on Spirituality, ed. and trans. Christopher B. Barnett (New York: Paulist Press, 2019), 223–80. 53. SKS 25, NB 30:3 / JP 3, 3534. 54. SKS 23, NB 18:16 / JP 3, 3499. 55. Heylin, Revolution in the Air, 211. 56. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 459. 57. Ibid. 58. See, e.g., Deut. 32:17, Matt. 4:1, and Matt. 13:39. 59. The person in question was most likely actress Mary Alice Artes (1948–), with whom Dylan had a relationship in the late 1970s. Intriguingly, a subsequent stanza in “Precious Angel” chides another person, identified only as “Sister,” for leading Dylan away from Christian faith. Some have speculated that this verse may be directed at Dylan’s ex-wife Sara Lownds Dylan (1939–). See, e.g., Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 470. 60. Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (New York: Ecco, 2005), 384–85. 61. Ibid., 385. 62. SKS 21, NB7:18 / JP 3, 3013. In this passage, the word “sophisticated” translates the Danish modifier kløgtigt, which would be better rendered “shrewd” or “devious.” 63. Dylan would return to the theme of immortality, and the looming possibility of eternal judgment, on his 1988 song “Death Is Not the End”: “When the cities are on fire / With the burning flesh of men / Just remember that death is not the end / And you search in vain to find / Just one law-abiding citizen / Just remember that death is not the end.” 64. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 387. 65. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 489. 66. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 390. 67. Ibid., 391. 68. Ibid., 394. 69. J. Paul Sampley, “The First Letter to the Corinthians,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 10:955. 70. SKS 17, DD:79 / JP 2, 1097. 71. SKS 18, EE:25 / JP 3, 2383.

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72. SKS 9, 14 / WL, 6. 73. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 485. 74. Kurt Loder, “Saved,” Rolling Stone, September 18, 1980, https:​ //​ www​ .rollingstone​.com​/music​/music​-album​-reviews​/saved​-2​-252021​/. 75. See Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (London: SPCK, 1931). 76. As Dylan sings in the final verse of “Are You Ready?”: “Are you ready for the judgment? / Are you ready for that terrible swift sword? / Are you ready for Armageddon? / Are you ready for the day of the Lord?” To be fair, this stanza is not necessarily heterodox or unbiblical. And yet, taken in isolation, it does seem to imply that the songwriter is giving undue priority to Doomsday prophesying and Christian exceptionalism. 77. Rowan Williams, A Ray of Darkness: Sermons and Reflections (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 1995), 52. 78. Ibid. 79. Quoted in Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 499. 80. Kierkegaard devotes special attention to this theme in his 1850 work, Practice in Christianity (Indøvelse i Christendom). 81. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 499. 82. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 464. 83. Ibid. 84. Paul Nelson, “Shot of Love,” Rolling Stone, October 15, 1981, https:​//​www​ .rollingstone​.com​/music​/music​-album​-reviews​/shot​-of​-love​-102769​/. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 469. 88. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (New York: Touchstone, 1955), 56. 89. Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin, 468. 90. Ibid. 91. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), 56. 92. SKS 5, 453 / TD, 83. 93. SKS 11, 147 / SUD, 30–31. The Latin phrase instar omnium means “for all capacities.” 94. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 170. 95. Ibid., 381. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid., 569. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid., 627. 100. Ibid. 101. Carol McGuirk. “The Crone, the Prince, and the Exiled Heart: Bums’s Highlands and Bums’s Scotland,” Studies in Scottish Literature 35, no. 1 (2007): 184–86. 102. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 627. 103. Ibid.

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104. Hampton, Bob Dylan’s Poetics, 222. 105. Margotin and Guesdon, Bob Dylan: All the Songs, 653. 106. Ovid, The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters, trans. Peter Green (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 145. Richard Thomas has persuasively argued that Dylan has a long-standing interest in poetry from antiquity. See Richard F. Thomas, Why Bob Dylan Matters (New York: Dey St. Books, 2017). 107. Mikal Gilmore, “Bob Dylan on His Dark New Album, ‘Tempest,’” Rolling Stone, August 1, 2012, https:​//​www​.rollingstone​.com​/music​/music​-news​/bob​-dylan​ -on​-his​-dark​-new​-album​-tempest​-184271​/. 108. Notably, the name “Jim Dandy” is taken from LaVern Baker’s 1956 R&B hit “Jim Dandy.” Written by Lincoln Chase, the song humorously relates the exploits of its titular figure, who rescues damsels in distress. Dylan invests the character with far more poignancy. 109. Indeed, the Book of Revelation has been read as a form of resistance literature, whose lurid imagery represents the persecution of the early Church by pagan Rome. On this interpretation, the text is meant to shed light on a historical situation and, in turn, to strengthen the faith of its readers by depicting the mystery of God’s final triumph over evil and sin. 110. Douglas Brinkley, “Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind,” The New York Times, June 12, 2020, https:​//​www​.nytimes​.com​/2020​/06​/12​/arts​/music​/bob​-dylan​-rough​ -and​-rowdy​-ways​.html. 111. Famously, Kierkegaard used this Pauline phrase as the title to his pseudonymous work Fear and Trembling: Dialectical Lyric (Frygt og Bæven: Dialektisk Lyrik), published in 1843. 112. Dorian Lynskey, “Why Bands Are Disappearing: ‘Young people aren’t excited by them,’” The Guardian, March 18, 2021, https:​//​www​.theguardian​.com​/music​/2021​ /mar​/18​/why​-bands​-are​-disappearing​-young​-people​-arent​-excited​-by​-them. 113. Christopher Ingraham, “Poetry Is Going Extinct, Government Data Show,” The Washington Post, April 24, 2015, https:​//​www​.washingtonpost​.com​/news​/wonk​/ wp​/2015​/04​/24​/poetry​-is​-going​-extinct​-government​-data​-show​/. 114. Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Church Membership in the U.S. Has Fallen Below the Majority for the First Time in Nearly a Century,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2021, https:​//​www​.washingtonpost​.com​/religion​/2021​/03​/29​/church​-membership​ -fallen​-below​-majority​/.

‌‌‌‌Epilogue The Poet in an Age of Technology

The term “epilogue” is derived from the Greek epilogus, meaning “additional speech.” Thus an epilogue is something added to the whole, whether as a supplement or an afterthought. An epilogue is related to, but not unified with, that which preceded it. This epilogue is no different. While the basic contention of this study—that Bob Dylan’s songwriting can be productively interpreted with the help of Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of existential spheres—has been discussed and established, an additional question lingers: why does Bob Dylan matter anyway? Many who pick up this book will never ask this question. They are fans, “Dylanologists,” “Bobcats.” But others certainly will ask it. I have taught undergraduate students who, if they consider Dylan at all, see him as a figure of a bygone era—a crusty old rocker who has become irrelevant in the age of Spotify and TikTok. Still others might concede that Dylan is a twentieth-century icon but nevertheless dismiss the importance of someone who sings and writes songs for a living. Dylan’s significance, on this reading, lies mostly in the entertainment industry. His legacy is not finally separable from that of Ariana Grande or The Weeknd. This book was written with the first group of readers predominantly in mind. It is a work of analysis, not of apologetics. Still, before closing, it seems worthwhile to offer a brief reflection on the question of Dylan’s meaning and importance—a reflection that, however incomplete, attempts to explain why Dylan remains a seminal artistic voice in the twentieth-century. As will be argued below, Dylan’s unique chronological location and palpable existential concerns give his oeuvre an enduring appeal, particularly in an era dominated by secular politics and techno-scientific reason. Indeed, as the COVID-19 pandemic extends into its third year, it may be that Dylan is more relevant now than ever before.

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ART AND THE CRISIS OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY In November 1917, as the First World War raged on, the German sociologist and historian Max Weber (1864–1920) delivered a lecture at the University of Munich entitled “Science as Vocation” (Wissenschaft als Beruf).1 In it, Weber ponders the question: what is the meaning of science for the modern sociopolitical order? Given the breadth of this question, it is no surprise that Weber’s answer is complex. What is noteworthy here, however, is Weber’s delineation of the contemporary milieu of scientific inquiry. Unlike previous historical epochs, modern science is not carried out in the context of imperial service and/or ecclesial corroboration. Rather, it takes place under the newfound conditions of rationalization, bureaucratization, and disenchantment. Taken from the German term Entzauberung, “disenchantment” indicates the process by which passions, traditions, and values are replaced by a disinterested means-end calculation. It implies, in literal terms, the removal (Ent-) of magic (-Zauberung) from the world for the sake of scientific control. It took centuries for disenchantment to take root in Western society, but, certainly by the late eighteenth century, its influence was already felt. Romanticism constituted one well-known response to the “vitality which is lost in the objectifying rigours of science.”2 A multifaceted and multinational aesthetic movement, Romanticism sought to resist the nihilism latent in a purely materialistic Weltanschauung, whereby transcendent meaning is bracketed and earthly life rendered a site for agonistic competition. Indeed, Romantics such as William Blake (1757–1827) and Novalis (1772–1801) viewed art as the means by which affect, feeling, and immediacy might be restored to human life. If the Enlightenment’s preference for “reason alone” (der bloßen Vernunft, in the Kantian patois of the era) smothered the religious life of Western Europe, then art would have to fill the void. For the Romantics, “the imagination is a secular form of grace, one which seizes upon the self from some unfathomable depth, but which in doing so allows it flourish in its own inimitable way.”3 A figure such as David Friedrich Strauß (1808–74) might strip Jesus Christ of his mystical-supernatural import,4 but art could be the new Savior. As Terry Eagleton explains, “[The Romantic imagination] is a Christ-like capacity of redemption and reconciliation, one which mimes God’s own creative power.”5 Kierkegaard came of age just as these debates were intensifying. Like the Romantics, he was critical of Enlightenment rationalism, which seemed to divest the world of passion and sublimity. Unlike the Romantics, “he argues that the reconciliation brought about by art is ultimately illusory.”6 The reasons for this conclusion are intricate, though, in this context, it is crucial to underline that Kierkegaard was doubtful that art alone could overcome the

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nihilism latent in modern culture. Kierkegaard’s understanding of modernity is most fully developed in A Literary Review (En literair Anmeldelse, 1846). There he argues that people in “the present age” are dominated by “levelling” (Nivellering), that is to say, the tendency to critique and thereby diminish any person or standpoint that would provide determinate orientation to one’s life. Levelling is exacerbated by modern technology in general and the media in particular, the latter of which foments excessive reflection and leads to a kind of social ennui.7 Rather than pursue higher ideals, people settle for material comfort and civic esteem. As a result, art is uncoupled from “firmly held ethical positions” and absorbed into the vacuous nihilism of the “bourgeois revolution.”8 As George Pattison explains: Kierkegaard is plainly saying that far from art being a redemptive force, it is the destiny of art too to fall victim to the dialectics of modernity, as publicity takes the place of action, spectating the place of participation, money of passion, envy of enthusiasm, levelling of nobility and greatness, meetings and ballots of leadership, the public of community, idle chatter of serious conversation (and serious listening). The pursuit of modernism in art is thus unwittingly a kind of aesthetic suicide.9

This conclusion is ostensibly paradoxical, given that Kierkegaard frequently called himself a “religious poet.”10 After all, what is the point of being a poet if the beautiful cannot escape the totalizing calculus of technical rationality? Notably, however, Kierkegaard’s analysis anticipated a number of significant developments in twentieth-century art. Just as the work of expressionists such as filmmaker Fritz Lang (1890–1976) and painter Jackson Pollock (1912–56) conveyed the dehumanization of modern society and, with it, a desperate turn to abstract subjective representation, so does Kierkegaard’s poetry “assert that the utmost art can do is tell us that we do not possess the truth.”11 That is why Kierkegaard insisted on being a religious poet: his art was meant to point beyond itself to the mystery of God.12 A related, if not identical, discussion of art in an age of technology is found in Martin Heidegger’s treatise The Question Concerning Technology (Die Frage nach der Technik), first published in 1954. Though highly influential in the philosophy of technology, Heidegger’s piece is fundamentally about metaphysics. As he sees it, technology implicitly answers the so-called “guiding question” (Leitfrage) of metaphysics: what is being? Moreover, in doing so, technology effectively brings the history of Western thinking to a close. This is because technology represents a staggeringly persuasive and pervasive influence. As a mode or process by which entities are revealed, technology makes things appear a certain way to human beings or, more precisely, makes particular demands of them. Heidegger uses the example of a river.

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From the perspective of, say, art or religion, the river may summon creativity or veneration. It is different with technology. As Heidegger explains: The hydroelectric plant is set into the current of the Rhine. It sets the Rhine to supplying its hydraulic pressure, which then sets the turbine turning. This turning sets those machines in motion whose thrust sets going the electric current for which the long-distance power station and its network of cables are set up to dispatch electricity.13

Heidegger’s penchant for the verb “to set” (stellen) is intentional. As he argues, the essence of modern technology is “positioning” or, as it is commonly translated, “enframing” (Gestell). What this means is that technology positions things “to stand by, to be immediately on hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering.”14 To see the world through the lens of enframing, then, is to see it as “standing-reserve” (Bestand).15 Heidegger offers numerous examples of this tendency to “unlock energy” from the natural order “in order to store it.”16 Modern blasthole drills and draglines exhibit the earth “as a coal mining district, the soil as a mineral deposit,” and “agriculture is now the mechanized foot industry.”17 But it is not just objects that are viewed in this way. Human beings too can be viewed as a “supply of patients for a clinic,” and human ideas and opinions can be gathered into a newspaper (or social-media platform, website, etc.) where they “become available on demand.”18 Heidegger is careful to say that enframing “is not demonic.”19 However, he does believe that it presents two critical dangers. First, enframing gives rise to “the illusion . . . that everything man encounters exists only insofar as it is his construct.”20 In other words, human beings come to see everything as Gestell without realizing that this mode of revealing is historically conditioned and ontologically incomplete. Second, and following from the previous point, Heidegger argues that enframing therefore “drives out every other possibility of revealing,”21 especially poiēsis. By this term he means a variety of processes “in nature or in handcraft and art” by which non-present entities are allowed to come “out of concealment into unconcealment.”22 The gardener, for example, does not force the hedge to grow; she lets it grow. This “letting be” is itself a form of revealing, but, in contrast to enframing, it does not impose its will upon entities. Moreover, poiēsis announces itself as a mode of revealing—after all, the aesthetic choices made by the one who fashions a jardin à la française are plainly distinctive—whereas enframing “conceals revealing itself and with it that wherein unconcealment, i.e., truth, propriates.”23 The technocrat says, “This is just the way it is,” while the gardener says, “I am but a collaborator with that which is.”

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It is with this in mind that, as Heidegger closes The Question Concerning Technology, he turns to a discussion of art. He focuses his discussion on a couplet from the Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843): “But where danger is, grows / The saving power also” (Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst / Das Rettende auch).24 According to Heidegger, Hölderlin’s lines gesture toward the mystery of technology, which comes into view when one attends to “a more primally granted revealing that could bring the saving power into its first shining-forth in the midst of the danger that in the technological age rather conceals than shows itself.”25 This “more primally granted revealing” is art, which, prior to modernity, was called technē and yet did not function in the manner of Gestell. In those days, art was neither a commodity nor “a sector of cultural activity” but instead “illuminated the presence of the gods and the dialogue of divine and human destinings.”26 As Heidegger goes on: Why did art bear the modest name technē? Because it was a revealing that brought forth and made present, and therefore belonged within poiēsis. It was finally that revealing which holds complete sway in all the fine arts, in poetry, and in everything poetical that obtained poiēsis as its proper name.27

It is art, then, that provides a “decisive confrontation” with modern technology, since, as a mode of revealing, it is “akin to the essence of technology” and yet “fundamentally different from it.”28 “Called to poetic revealing,” art promises to make true the other line from Hölderlin cited by Heidegger: “Poetically man dwells on this earth” (Dichterisch, wohnet der Mensch auf dieser Erde).29 Yes, art can be commodified, facilitating a “sheer aestheticmindedness” that neglects “the essential unfolding of art.”30 Yet, properly understood, art is capable of drawing us into the mystery of Being itself, of what is revealed and of what is hidden, of what is known and of what is unknown. “The closer we come to the danger,” Heidegger concludes, “the more brightly do the ways into the saving power begin to shine and the more questioning we become.”31 These reflections on Weber, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger are by no means exhaustive, but they should be sufficient to sketch an answer to the question of Dylan’s ongoing significance. Indeed, as a singer-songwriter who first came to fame protesting the military-industrial complex, Dylan’s career is both explicitly and implicitly a response to the technological era. Might he be, then, a Hölderlin for the twenty-first century?

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BOB DYLAN: POET OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE Born in 1941, Bob Dylan has experienced some of history’s most revolutionary events and innovations—from World War II, nuclear weapons, and the American civil rights movement to personal computers, the Internet, smartphones, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He has seen Weber’s Entzauberung intensify and multiply, and his response has been simultaneously predictable and idiosyncratic. Like many in his generation, Dylan’s youthful rejection of his middle-class upbringing and embrace of music, poetry, and Beatnik culture was, among other things, a continuation of the Romantic challenge to the levelling tendencies of Enlightenment rationalism. In a 1965 interview, when asked if his work was intended to “bring order” to the chaos of existence, Dylan argued to the contrary: “Chaos is a friend of mine,” he quipped, later adding, “Truth is chaos. Maybe beauty is chaos.”32 This sentiment would not have been out of place in the writings of Novalis, whose posthumously published novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1802) celebrates the triumph of poetry over the rigidity of Kantian philosophy and Newtonian science,33 nor would it poorly describe the sublime paintings of a Francisco Goya (1746– 1828) or a Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840). But Dylan traced his comment to folk music: “Folk music is the only music where it isn’t simple. It’s never been simple. It’s weird, man, full of legend, myth, Bible, and ghosts. I’ve never written anything . . . as far out as some of the old songs,” he noted. And yet, as has been seen, Dylan eventually broke with the folk music scene of the mid-twentieth century, not least because it had jettisoned “myth, Bible, and ghosts” in favor of ossified musical standards and banal political messaging. Indeed, in a 1966 interview, Dylan goes so far as to distinguish the folk music popular in the 1960s from authentic “traditional music.”34 The latter “is too unreal to die,” featuring a “plain simple mystery” whose “meaninglessness is holy”;35 the former cares only about rallying people for a particular cause. As Dylan puts it, “They’re not folk music songs; they’re political songs. They’re already dead.”36 Art, he suggests, is alive when it explores and reveres that which resists human control and manipulation; it draws its power from life’s beautiful yet disquieting incomprehensibility. Dylan’s ability to write about different spheres or stages of human existence exemplifies this predilection. Whether singing about aesthetic pleasure, ethical obligation, or religious longing, Dylan does not reduce life to a single meaning. Each of the spheres has validity; each denotes an important aspect of life. At the same time, however, each has its shadow side; each can lead one astray. Dylan’s prodigious and complex oeuvre manages to explore almost every nook and cranny of human existence. In this way, he resembles other great artists from the past—a Shakespeare or a Dostoevsky—but with

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an important difference. Dylan belongs to our era; he is the late-modern poet par excellence. In a 2007 interview, Dylan remarks that the use of “the atom bomb” in World War II “fueled the entire world that came after it,” even giving “rise to the music we were playing.”37 Rolling Stone: Then, in this new record, you’re still dealing with the cultural effects of the bomb? Dylan: I think so.38

Notably, however, Dylan refuses to politicize this statement. The purpose of his work, he insists, is not to point people to a political solution: “I don’t expect politicians to solve anybody’s problems.”39 Nor is he trying to convert people to a religious institution, which “is something that is mostly outward appearance”40 and can be easily secularized: “Corporations are religions,”41 Dylan argues. But faith is different, precisely because its flows out of life’s ineradicable mystery: “Faith doesn’t have a name. It doesn’t have a category. It’s oblique. So it’s unspeakable. We degrade faith by talking about religion.”42 This distinction between faith and religion is hardly unknown among the world’s great religious traditions, not least among the Protestant Christianity with which Dylan is familiar. As discussed in chapter 4, Kierkegaard underlines the difference between an immanent form of human religiousness and the paradoxical receptivity of Christian faith, though he does not identify the former with religious institutions quite as stringently as Dylan. Perhaps closer to Dylan would be Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968), who famously proclaimed, “Death is the meaning of religion.”43 Indeed, for Barth, the term “religion” signifies humanity’s attempt to “retain the possibility of independence before God,” fashioning a “worship which knows not how to be silent before God.”44 Kierkegaard and Barth reason from the perspective of Christian doctrine—God is the wholly other, whose transcendence is so absolute that human concepts, institutions, and words cannot comprehend his nature, rendering the humble virtue of faith the best means of relating to him—but Heidegger makes a similar point from a philosophical point of view. In his 1957 lecture “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics” (Die onto-theo-logische Verfassung der Metaphysik), Heidegger maintains that metaphysics, a branch of philosophy dating back to Greek antiquity, is marked by the attempt to treat Being itself as the logical ground of earthly beings. In doing so, metaphysics subordinates theology to human thinking and thereby contributes to the concealment of divine mystery and sublimity. As Heidegger explains, “[Causa sui] is the right name for the god of philosophy. Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and

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dance before this god.”45 To reject this god is to reject the instrumentalization of the divine for the sake of worldly aims. It is for this reason that Heidegger writes, “God-less thinking is more open to [God] than onto-theo-logic would like to admit.”46 To the extent that God is made a cog in a philosophical, political, technological, or even religious system, that system has concealed “the divine God.”47 And yet, as has been suggested, modernity is nothing if not a triumph of systems. What recourse do people have? Here, of course, a plethora of answers might be given, though Heidegger’s response bears particular relevance to the question about Dylan’s significance today. As Heidegger sees it, the task is “to step back . . . out of metaphysics,”48 to overcome ontotheology, so that the fullness of existence might be perceived. However, this is a subtly difficult challenge. Not only are we surrounded by modern technology, which embeds “the rule of metaphysics”49 in our daily lives, but every day we use language that “is in itself marked with the exclusive brand of metaphysics, and thus marked permanently by onto-theo-logic.”50 It is as if language has been destined to imprison us in finitude and immanence. But Heidegger sees other possibilities. Insofar as “language is the house of Being,”51 words are capable of revealing the world to us in a variety of ways. It is not necessary, then, that “every being appears as the material of labor,” that “man always observes and handles only beings.”52 This is the fate of a calculative, mechanized way of relating to the world. But language is also capable of being the medium in and through which Being is “illuminated and . . . experienced in its truth.”53 As Homo loquens, the human being has precisely this capacity: “Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being.”54 For Heidegger, it is Hölderlin who best grasps this responsibility. Yet, over the last several decades, Dylan might be seen in similar terms—a poet who demonstrates “the essential poverty of the shepherd, whose dignity consists in being called by Being itself into the preservation of Being’s truth.”55 This point has been acknowledged, albeit indirectly, by critics and fans alike. For example, in his 2007 film I’m Not There, director Todd Haynes employs six different performers to portray Dylan, including young African American actor Marcus Carl Franklin and Australian actress Cate Blanchett. Thus Haynes implies that Dylan’s variegated career cannot be reduced to a final meaning, that the singer-songwriter’s “folk period” cannot be squared with his “gospel period,” and so on. There is no authentic Bob Dylan lurking behind the artist’s various personae. Dylan represents absolute flux. He is the poetic embodiment of Derridean différance. This study, however, proposes another way of interpreting Dylan’s deferral of identity. It has been argued that Dylan’s songs suggest a Kierkegaardian interest in life-views, with a particular emphasis on how human beings subsist in different existential spheres—the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.

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Following Heidegger, this openness to life’s multiplicity, rendered in imaginative and lyrical detail, is not just “a source of special aesthetic pleasure, but . . . a force that can reveal our world and transform our existence.”56 Thus it is clear why Dylan, the 2016 Nobel laureate, could not simply disclose his existential insights in an essay or in an instruction manual. “If Heidegger is right,” Richard Polt concludes, “then our most authentic relation to language is poetic. Instead of using language as a tool for representation, we should respect it as a rich source of poetic revelation.”57 On this reading, Dylan’s diverse personae, and the existential stages that are associated with them, are conduits in and by “which Being takes hold of us, appropriates us, and allows us and all beings to come into our own.”58 In poetry, we are not the primary speakers: “The language speaks” (die Sprache spricht),59 as Heidegger puts it. But this insight is not meant to obfuscate; it is to underline that “we human beings are not the primary speakers, but are participants in an event of meaningfulness.”60 Here Heidegger’s speech creeps ever closer to that of theology—a topic far too complex to examine as this book comes to a close.61 Nevertheless, the very suggestion that poetry’s linguistic attention and sensitivity divulge the meaning of Being is sufficient to intimate why Dylan’s songwriting was destined to culminate in a religious-cum-mystical turn. Indeed, at this point in his career, Dylan might even be considered a “religious poet,” albeit in a Kierkegaardian rather than a dogmatic sense. As Kierkegaard intimated, the religious poet educes life’s various phases and stages, culminating in an encounter with the absolute. Likewise, Dylan’s songs convey that human beings are caught up in a process of becoming, and, even if this process seems increasingly calculable, gauged by data gleaned from smartphone apps and scientific surveys, its meaning nevertheless exceeds technical concerns. Questions about the beautiful, the good, and the true cannot be extinguished, and Dylan, “shepherd of Being,” keeps them before our eyes and ears. In a fascinating 2012 interview with Rolling Stone, which touches on topics as diverse as the Book of Acts and American politics, Dylan offers a lengthy and sometimes recondite discourse on the possibility of transfiguration. Pondering what distinguishes him as a person and as a songwriter, Dylan observes: You don’t write the kind of songs I write just being a conventional type of songwriter. And I don’t think anybody will write them like this again, any more than anybody will ever write a Hank Williams or Irving Berlin song. That’s pretty much for sure. I just think I’ve taken things to a new level because I’ve had to. Because I’ve been forced to. You have to constantly reshape things because everything keeps expanding on you. Life has a way of spreading out.62

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When pressed to clarify this point, Dylan suggests that his work is a reflection of the way that being unfolds in various forms and spheres: “That’s the nature of existence. Nothing stays where it is for very long. Trees grow tall, leaves fall, rivers dry up and flowers die. New people are born every day. Life doesn’t stop.”63 It is this commitment to becoming, to movement, that allows Dylan to continue plumbing the mysteriousness of existence—from the aesthetic, to the ethical, and, ultimately, to the religious. NOTES 1. Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures, ed. David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004). 2. George Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith: An Introduction to His Thought (London: SPCK, 1997), 69. 3. Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 102. 4. Strauß’s two-volume book The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, 1835–36) influentially argued that the New Testament’s historicity is improbable. In his view, for example, miracles attributed to Jesus did not really happen but, instead, were invented by the early church to support its evangelical mission. 5. Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God, 102. 6. Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith, 74. 7. For an extensive study of Kierkegaard’s response to and understanding of modern technology, see Christopher B. Barnett, Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). 8. Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith, 74. 9. Ibid., 86. 10. See, e.g., SKS 16, 63–65 / PV, 84–86. 11. Pattison, Kierkegaard and the Crisis of Faith, 84. 12. For an in-depth treatment of this topic, see Christopher B. Barnett, From Despair to Faith: The Spirituality of Søren Kierkegaard (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), especially Chapter Three (“Kierkegaard and the Aesthetics of the Icon”), Chapter Four (“Icons of Faith: The Natural World”), and Chapter Five (“Icons of Faith: The Bible”). 13. Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge, 1993), 321. 14. Ibid., 322. 15. Ibid., 322. 16. Ibid., 320. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid., 323. 19. Ibid., 333.

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20. Ibid., 332. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., 317. 23. Ibid., 333. 24. Friedrich Hölderlin, “Patmos: Dem Landgrafen von Homburg,” in Gedichte: Eine Auswahl, ed. Gerhard Kurz (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2003), 88. 25. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” 339. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 340. 29. Friedrich Hölderlin, “In Lieblicher Bläue,” in Gedichte: Eine Auswahl, ed. Gerhard Kurz (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2003), 120. 30. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” 340–41. 31. Ibid., 341. 32. Jonathan Cott (ed.), Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 54. 33. See, e.g., Joyce S. Walker, “Romantic Chaos: The Dynamic Paradigm in Novalis’s Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Contemporary Science.” The German Quarterly 66, no. 1 (1993): 43–59. 34. Cott (ed.), The Essential Interviews, 104. 35. Ibid., 105. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid., 486. 38. Ibid., 487. The album in question is Modern Times (2006). 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., 488. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 6th edition, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 253. 44. Ibid. 45. Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969), 72. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid., 73. 51. Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” in Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (London: Routledge, 1993), 217. 52. Ibid., 242–43. 53. Ibid., 242. 54. Ibid., 245. 55. Ibid.

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56. Richard Polt, Heidegger: An Introduction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 177. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid., 178. 59. Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 208. 60. Polt, Heidegger, 178. 61. See, e.g., John Macquarrie, Heidegger and Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1994), David Lewin, Technology and the Philosophy of Religion (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), George Pattison, Heidegger on Death: A Critical Theological Essay (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), and Judith Wolfe, Heidegger and Theology (London: Bloomsbury, 2014). 62. Mikal Gilmore, “Dylan Unleashed,” Rolling Stone, September 27, 2012, https:​ //​www​.rollingstone​.com​/music​/music​-news​/bob​-dylan​-unleashed​-189723​/. 63. Ibid.

Works Cited

WORKS BY SØREN KIERKEGAARD

In Danish Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, ed. P. A. Heiberg, V. Kuhr, and E. Torsting, vols. I-XI-3. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, 1909–48. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vols. 1–28, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, et al. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013.

In English Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. Howard Hong and Edna Hong, vols. 1–7. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1967–78. Kierkegaard’s Writings, ed. and trans. Howard Hong and Edna Hong, vols. 1– 26. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978–2002. Søren Kierkegaard: Discourses and Writings on Spirituality. The Classics of Western Spirituality. Edited and translated by Christopher B. Barnett. New York: Paulist Press, 2019.

OTHER SOURCES Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: 1: Inferno. Translated by John D. Sinclair. New York: Oxford University Press, 1939. Ancelet, Barry Jean. Capitaine, Voyage Ton Flag: The Traditional Cajun Country Mardi Gras. Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana, 1989. Attwood, Tony. “Jokerman: The Meaning of the Lyrics and the Music.” Untold Dylan, November 23, 2008, https:​//​bob​-dylan​.org​.uk​/archives​/25.

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Index

“A” (Søren Kierkegaard), 43–46, 49, 81, 102 Abel (biblical figure), 117, 139 Abraham (biblical figure), 11, 118 accompaniment (instrumental/vocal), 60, 142; acoustic guitar, 31n23, 50, 58, 92; drums/percussion, 52–54, 70, 120, 122; organ, 11–12, 14; piano, 5, 21, 31n23, 120, 130, 137; steel guitar, 14, 52 accordion, 142 acoustic guitar, 31n23, 50, 58, 92 Adam (biblical figure), 22, 49n130, 117, 139–40 addiction, 66–67 “the aesthetic” (det Æstetiske) sphere of existence, 39–40, 42–48, 79; immediacy, 48–54; as reflective, 54–65; ruin and, 64–72 African American musical traditions, 1, 9–10, 29, 87–88, 116 agapē, 130, 132–34 Ahasverus/“the Wandering Jew,” 64–65, 69, 71 “Ain’t Talkin,’” 139 Alabama, 20–21, 88, 126, 128 albums, 22, 57, 86. See also specific albums alchemy, 29, 54–55

alcohol, 17, 51, 67, 90–91, 104 Ali, Muhammad, 60 alienation, 2, 70, 82, 95, 111, 113 allegory, 16, 50, 97 Amidah (Jewish prayer), 15 Anderson, Rudolf, Jr., 56 Another Side of Bob Dylan (album), 24–25 Anselm of Canterbury, 131 Antichrist, 22, 61, 63 Anti-Climacus (Søren Kierkegaard), 65, 69, 77n137, 105, 135 antisemitism, 64 appropriation, 28, 88, 107n46 “Are You Ready?,” 131–32, 136, 147n76 Aronoff, Kenny, 122 art, 12, 16, 39–42, 44–45, 134–35, 150–54 Artes, Mary Alice, 18–19, 146n59 assassination, 86 Asylum Records, 15 “Auguries of Innocence” (Blake), 117 Aulén, Gustaf, 131 authenticity, 123–24, 132, 156–57 “Baby, We’re Really in Love” (1951), 52 Baez, Joan, 83–84 169

170

Index

“The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” 96–99 “Ballad of Hattie Carroll” (West), 91–92 Baltimore, Maryland, 90–94 The Band, 13, 15, 51–52 bar mitzvah (Jewish ceremony), 4–5, 22 Barth, Karl, 155 The Basement Tapes (1975), 13–14, 52 Baumgarten, Alexander, 39 Beatles, 13, 66 Beatnik culture, viii, 6, 51, 96, 116, 154 Beckett, Barry, 130 Beckwith, Francis, 94 becoming, process of, 143, 157–58 Benét, Stephen Vincent, 55–56 Bergman, Ingmar, 134 betrayal, 18, 58, 70, 97–98, 111 the Bible, 4, 13–14, 16, 31n1, 40, 60, 81, 88, 97, 107n46; Book of Acts, 157; Book of Daniel, 86; Book of Exodus, 10, 87; Book of Genesis, 20, 35n130, 117–19, 138–39; Ecclesiastes 5:2, 22; Hebrew, 28, 80, 115, 118; Numbers 6:24, 15, 101–2. See also New Testament; specific biblical figures The Bible in the Lyrics of Bob Dylan (Cartwright), 28 Billboard (Artist 100 chart), 21, 66, 141 The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche), 45 “Black Diamond Bay,” 103–4 “Black Rider,” 142 Blade, Brian, 70 Blake, William, 86, 117–18, 150 Blanchett, Cate, 2, 156 “Blind Willie McTell,” 22–24 Blonde on Blonde (1966), 10, 11–12, 14, 96 Blood on the Tracks (1975), 16, 47, 103 Bloomfield, Mike, 66 “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 85–86

blues music, 22, 24–25, 33n66, 137 B’nai B’rith (Jewish service organization), 4 Bob Dylan (1962), 9–10, 24–25, 87 “Bob Dylan and Theology” (Villanova University course), vii–viii Bob Dylan Archive, vii–viii Bob Dylan in America (Wilentz), 29 Boggs, Dock, 139 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 133 Book of Revelation (New Testament), 127, 141, 148n109 Books, the Bible: of Acts, 157; of Daniel, 86; of Exodus, 10, 87; of Genesis, 21, 35n130, 117–19, 138–39 The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 (2008), 36n166 boredom, 43–46 Bosch, Hieronymus, 63 “The Boxer” (1969), 100 Brecht, Bertolt, 92 Bringing It All Back Home (1965), 49–51, 124, 135–36 Broadside (magazine), 56–57, 90–91 Brorson, Hans Adolph, 41 Brown, Claude, 88 Browning, Robert, 22 “Buckets of Rain,” 103 Burns, Robert, 27–28, 137 Burroughs, William S., 11–12 Buttrey, Kenneth, 52, 54 Cain (biblical figure), 117, 119, 139 California, 15, 18–19, 51, 120–21, 132 career of Dylan, B., vii–viii, x, 84; late, 23–28, 112, 138, 141 Caribbean, 60–62 Carroll, Hattie, 90–94, 108n74 Carter Family (band), 140 Cartwright, Bert, 28 Cash, Johnny, 116–17 Catholicism, 12, 14, 86–87, 112 Charioteer of Delphi (sculpture), 62–63 Chase, Lincoln, 148n108

Index

children/childhood, 1–7, 43–44, 50, 81, 96 China, 90 Christ. See Jesus Christ Christianity, 2, 87–88, 123–24, 128, 146n62; conversion to, 18–23, 35n119, 111, 116, 126, 136; evangelical, 18–20, 22, 28, 47; faith, 20, 131, 146n59, 155; Protestant, 20, 112, 155; theology, 20, 112, 132–33. See also New Testament Christmas in the Heart (2009), 26 Christus Victor (Aulén), 131 Chronicles (Dylan, B.), 7, 23, 33n66, 48, 56, 100 Cicero, 135 Civil Rights movement, 83, 87–88, 108n74, 154 Cleave, Maureen, 10 Climacus, Johannes (Søren Kierkegaard), 104–5, 113–14, 119, 145n30 cocaine, 17 “Cold Irons Bound,” 69–70 Cold War, 20, 56–57 Coleridge, Taylor, 39 collaborations, 16–17, 24 Columbia Records, 1, 7, 15, 86 “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies” (folk song), 86–87 communism, 90, 92, 107n58 The Concept of Irony (Kierkegaard), 42 Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the “Philosophical Fragments” (Kierkegaard), 104, 113 conversion to Christianity, 18–23, 35n119, 111, 116, 126, 136 corporations, 80, 155 Cott, Jonathan, 116 counterculture, 3, 13, 28, 95, 100 country music, 15, 52, 99–100, 116, 130 cover images, album, 22, 57, 86 cover songs, 15, 24–25, 29, 100 COVID-19 pandemic, 135, 141, 149, 154

171

creativity, 41–42, 44–45, 46–47, 150 Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, Kant), 39 Crosby, Bing, 25 the cross, Jesus Christ and, 64, 131–34 Crow, Sheryl, 116–17 crucifixion of Jesus Christ, 9–10, 140 Cuban Missile Crisis, 56, 86 Daniels, Charlie, 100 Dante Alighieri, 58, 134 Davis Sisters, 100 “Dead Man, Dead Man,” 24, 132 death, 36n171, 70, 116–17, 129, 138–39, 146n63, 155; of Carroll, 90–94, 108n74; of Faust, 54–55; of Jesus Christ, 131; Kierkegaard on, 135; physical, 65, 67, 69, 71; on RMS Titanic, 140–41; spiritual, 65, 67, 69–71 “Death Is Not the End” (1988), 146n63 demos, 3, 13, 96 Denmark, 112, 124 Desire (1976), 17, 103–4, 117 “Desolation Row” (1965), 99 despair, 15, 65–67, 81, 105, 117–19 the devil, 14–15, 26, 54–56, 61, 126, 129, 142 “The Devil and Daniel Webster” (Benét), 55–56 dialectics, 30, 80, 114, 151 Diaspora, Jewish, 64 “Dirge,” 15 disenchantment (Entzauberung), 150, 154 divine: judgment, 122, 128; providence, 118, 122; revelation, 30, 112– 14, 125, 128 Divine Comedy (Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri), 134 divorce, 15–17, 103 domesticity, 33n79, 51, 101–3, 112 Don Giovanni (opera), 49 Doomsday, 10, 147n76 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 13, 48, 154–55

172

Index

Down in the Groove (1988), 24 “Down the Highway,” 85 Drake, Pete, 52 drug use, 17, 50–51, 66–67, 84, 95, 108n85 Drummond, Tim, 130 drums/percussion, 52–54, 60, 70, 120, 122 Du Bois, W.E.B., 10 Dunbar, Sly, 60 Dürer, Albrecht, 60 Dylan (1973), 15 Dylan, Anna Lea, 96 Dylan, Bob, 1–6. See also specific topics Dylan, Jakob Luke, 96 Dylan, Jesse Byron, 15, 33n79, 96 Dylan, Samuel Isaac Abram, 96 Dylan, Sara Lownds, 15, 17, 33n79, 146n59 Dylan’s Visions of Sin (Ricks), ix, 29 Eagleton, Terry, 150 Ecclesiastes 5:2, the Bible, 22 education, 6, 112 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 56–57 Either/Or (Kierkegaard), 43–45, 48–49, 81, 94, 102, 104 electric guitar, 50, 130 Eliot, T. S., 29 Ellis, John, 29 Empire Burlesque (album), 23–24 “enframing” (Gestell), 152–53 England, 10–11 Enlightenment, 2, 41–42, 90, 150, 154 Entzauberung (disenchantment), 150, 154 Erikson, Erik, 42 erotic love/eroticism, 51–54, 70, 103, 132 eschatology, 72, 89, 112, 134–42 eternal/eternality, 81–82, 114, 122–23, 127, 134, 146n63 “the ethical” (det Ethiske) sphere of existence, 3, 40–41, 79–83,

103–5; of family life, 94–102; of protest, 84–94 det Ethiske. See “the ethical” sphere of existence Euthydemus (Socrates), 94 evangelical Christianity, 18–20, 22, 28, 47 Evans, C. Stephen, 45–46, 114 Eve (biblical figure), 22, 117 “Every Grain of Sand,” 21, 116–20, 123, 145n35 den evige Jøde. See “the Wandering Jew” exile, 64–65, 68, 87–88, 117–18, 139–40 existentialism, 30, 48, 95, 124 faith, 26, 60, 116–17, 125–31; Christian, 20, 131, 146n59, 155; hope and, 128–29; in Jesus Christ, 22, 60, 115, 126–27 Fallen Angels (2016), 26 family life, 13, 81, 94–104 family life/“family songs,” 99–102 fatherhood, 95, 98–99, 101–2, 104 “Father of Night,” 15 Faust (Goethe), 55 Faust, Johann Georg, 54–58, 61–62, 64 fear, 14–15, 71, 93, 117–19, 142 Fitzgerald, Ella, 25 Folklore Center, Greenwich Village, 8 folk music, 6, 9, 15, 24–25, 139, 145n40, 154; African American, 87–88; Christian ideas in, 123–24; covers of, 29; in Greenwich Village, 7–8, 84–85; rock ’n’ roll and, 10–12 “Forever Young,” 15, 101–2 Foxe, John, 48 Die Frage nach der Technik (The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger), 151, 153 “Fragment” (Shelley), 64 Franklin, Marcus Carl, 156 The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), 3, 10, 56–59, 85–86

Index

Friedrich, Caspar David, 39, 154 The Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch), 63 Garden of Eden (Genesis), 117, 138–39 Gaslight Café, Greenwich Village, 8 Gast, Johannes, 54 “Gates of Eden,” 135–36 Geffen, David, 15 gender, 4–5, 66–72, 90–94 George Kaiser Family Foundation, vii Gestell (“enframing”), 152–53 Gibran, Khalil, 12–13 Gilmour, Michael, 28 Ginsberg, Allen, 17 Girard, Chuck, 19 “Girl from the North Country,” 85 Gleason, Ralph, 10–11 God, 11, 14, 55; divine revelation, 30, 112–14, 125; immanence of, 113, 116–23, 127–28 “Go Down Moses” (spiritual), 24 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 55 “Going, Going, Gone,” 15 Good as I Been to You (1992), 24, 107n39 gospel music, 1–2, 9–10, 21–23, 29, 87 Gospel of John (New Testament), 140 “gospel period” for Dylan, B., 18–24, 111–12, 122–23, 143, 156; appropriation in, 136; evangelical Christianity of, 47; Infidels and, 60; “Religiousness B” coinciding with, 115–16, 125, 133; transcendence of God in, 123–34 “Gospel Plow,” 9 Gospel Tour of 1979–80, 47 “Gotta Serve Somebody,” 20, 126 Goya, Francisco, 154 Gray, Michael, 61–62 “Great American Songbook,” 25–27 Greenwich Village (New York City), 1–2, 7–8, 16–17, 84–85 Grossman, Albert, 13

173

guitars, 14, 47, 50, 52, 130, 137; acoustic, 31n23, 50, 58, 92 Gulliksen, Kenn, 19 Guthrie, Woodie, 2, 7–8, 25–26 Hadassah (Zionist organization), 4 Hampton, Timothy, 63, 119 “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” 83, 85–86 harmonica, 92 Harris, Emmylou, 17, 117 Harrison, Wilbert, 24 the Hawks (band). See The Band Hayes, Joe “Red,” 130 Haynes, Todd, viii, 2, 156 heaven, 22–23, 55, 64, 117–18, 123, 134; metaphors for, 142, 145n29 Hebrew Bible, 28, 80, 115, 118 Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, 40–41, 80–82, 112, 122 Heidegger, Martin, x, 42, 151–53, 155–57 Heinrich von Ofterdingen (Novalis), 154 heroin, 50, 69, 132 Herron, Donnie, 142 Herzl Camp, 5–56, 31n20 Heylin, Clinton, 124 Hibbing, Minnesota, 4–7 “Highlands,” 27–28, 46, 72, 99, 137–39, 142 “Highlands” (Burns), 27–28 Highway 61 Revisited (1966), 10, 11, 66–69, 79 histoplasmosis, 69 Hitler, Adolf, 60, 63 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 153, 156 homage, 26 Homer, 69 “Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance,” 85 Hong, Edna, xi Hong, Howard, xi hope, 10, 21, 28, 72, 85–86, 89, 113, 122, 131–33; faith and, 128–29;

174

Index

in “Forever Young,” 101–2; transcendent, 142 hopelessness, 55, 70, 119 hospitalization, 69 Hudson, Garth, 14 humans/humanity, 114, 118, 128, 134, 152, 156. See also spheres of existence humor, 97, 142 “Hurricane” (1975), 3 identity, 2, 47, 49, 124, 156 “Idiot Wind,” 4, 16 “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” 14–15 “If Not for You,” 101 “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know” (1953), 100 “I Have a Dream” speech (King Jr.), 83, 90 imagination, 8, 39, 84, 135 immanence, 112, 113, 118–23, 127–28, 138 “immanent frame,” 113, 125, 144n10 immediacy, aesthetic, 48–54 immigrant experience, 3–6 immortality, 45, 142, 146n63 I’m Not There (film), viii, 2, 156 inaccuracies, 92, 107n 60 inequality, 85, 92 Inferno (Dante), 58 Infidels (1983), 21–22, 59–64, 79 injustice, 16, 85–86, 88, 93–94, 103, 117 “In My Time of Dyin,’” 1, 9, 87 instrumentation. See accompaniment (instrumental/vocal) intoxication, 50–51, 74n61, 90–91 irony, 5, 26, 41, 56, 99, 113 Isaac (biblical figure), 11 Israel, 22, 24 Israelson, Chad, viii “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 124 Jamaica, 60–61

James, William, 68 Jefferson, Blind Lemon, 87 Jesus Christ, 19, 58, 64, 89, 123, 132– 34; crucifixion of, 9–10, 140; divine revelation via, 30, 112–14, 125, 128; faith in, 22, 60, 115, 126–27; love of, 125–26, 131 “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed” (spiritual), 1 Jewish upbringing, 1–7, 111, 116 Jim Crow era, 8–10 “Jim Dandy” (1956), 148n108 Jobs, Steve, 90 Johnson, Blind Willie, 1, 87 Johnson, Lonnie, 24 Johnson, Robert, 24m 33n66 Johnson, Samuel, 25 John Wesley Harding (1968), 14–15, 52, 96–99 John XXIII (Pope), 7 “Jokerman,” 59–64, 79 Joshua (biblical figure), 40 The Joshua Tree (1987), 120 Judaism, ix, 1–7, 16, 22, 111, 116 Judas Iscariot (biblical figure), 97 Judeo-Christian tradition, 11, 15, 26 Judge William (Søren Kierkegaard), 81–83, 94–95, 98–100, 102 judgment, 27, 88, 94, 104, 137–39 jumbis/jumbies (Caribbean folklore), 61–62 justice, 80, 88–89; social, 83–85, 89, 96, 103–4 Kant, Immanuel, 39–40, 80–82, 84, 94, 154 Keats, John, 70 Kegan, Larry, 5 Keltner, Jim, 70 Kemp, Louie, 5, 31n20 Kennedy, John F., 7, 56–57, 60, 86 Kerouac, Jack, 51, 69 “Key West (Philosopher Pirate),” 142 Khrushchev, Nikita, 56 Kierkegaard, Michael Pedersen, 112

Index

Kierkegaard, Søren, ix–xi, 30, 111–15, 122, 124, 143, 150–51, 155; AntiClimacus pseudonym for, 65, 69, 77n137, 105; “A” pseudonym for, 43–46, 49, 81, 102; on Christianity, 128, 146n62; on death, 135; on ethical responsibilities, 104–5; on faith, 130; on Faust, 55, 57–58, 61–62; Judge William pseudonym for, 81–83, 94–95, 98–100, 102; on poets, 41, 73n14; on “Religiousness A,” 113–16, 119–20, 125, 133; on Wandering Jew, 64–65. See also “Religiousness B”; spheres of existence Kierkegaard’s Writings (Hong, H., and Hong, E.), xi King, Martin Luther, Jr., 83, 88, 90 Kling, David, 87–88 Knocked Out Loaded (1986), 24 “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (1973), 15, 135–36 Knopfler, Mark, 20, 60 Koerner, “Spider” John, 6 Kooper, Al, 11–12, 66 Kosher diet, 4–5 Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant), 39 Lang, Fritz, 151 language, 66, 70, 92, 138, 156–57. See also lyrics Lanois, Daniel, 69–70, 120–22, 137 The Late, Great Planet Earth (Lindsey), 19–20 late-career, 23–28, 112, 138, 141 “Lay, Lady, Lay,” 51–54, 79, 99 Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet (The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, Strauß), 158n4 Ledbetter, Huddie, 25 left-wing politics, 6, 91, 96 “Let Me Die in My Footsteps” (1962), 10 “levelling” (Nivellering), 151, 154

175

Levit, Ken, vii The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, Strauß), 158n4 Lightfoot, Gordon, 14 “Like a Rolling Stone,” 10, 66–69, 79 Lindsey, Hal, 19–20, 22 Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (Johnson, S.), 25 Loder, Kurt, 131 Lois, George, 59–60 “Lone Pilgrim” (traditional song), 29 “Lonesome Day Blues,” 138–39 “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (1964), 85, 90–94, 107n60, 108n74 Lornell, Kip, 8–9 Los Angeles, California, 15, 19, 120–21, 132 love, 12, 15–16, 44–45, 52, 69, 79, 101, 130–34; erotic, 103, 132; of Jesus Christ, 125–26, 131; romantic, 71, 81–82; songs, 85, 99 Love and Theft (2001), 25, 138–39 “Love Sick,” 69–70 love songs, 85, 99 Luke 6:27 (New Testament), 125–26 Lulewicz, Paul, 2 Lutheran Christianity, 112 lyrics, 14, 53, 87–89, 104, 135, 147n76; “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” 97–98; “Black Rider,” 142; “Blowin’ in the Wind,” 85–86; of “family songs,” 99–102; “Gates of Eden,” 135–36; “God Knows,” 121–23; “Gotta Serve Somebody,” 126; “Highlands,” 72, 137–38; “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” 124; “Jokerman,” 62–63; “Like a Rolling Stone,” 66–69; “Lonesome Day Blues,” 138–39; “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” 92–93; “Masters of War,” 56–59; “Mr. Tambourine Man,” 49–50; “My Own Version of You,” 141–42; “Not

176

Index

Dark Yet,” 69–72; “Precious Angel,” 126–27; “Ring Them Bells,” 136–37; “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power),” 124–25; “Tangled Up in Blue,” 142 MacLeish, Archibald, 55–56 Magnus, Albertus, 48 Maier, Reuben, 4 “Make You Feel My Love,” 69 Manchild in the Promised Land (Brown), 88 “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” 21, 60 “Man of Peace,” 22 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 83, 90 Marcus, Greil, 14, 123 Mardi Gras celebration, 49–51 Marlowe, Christopher, 55, 64 marriage, 33n79, 52, 81–82, 96, 98–101; divorce and, 15–17, 103 Marshall, Scott, viii, 28 Marx, Karl, 122 Maryland, 90–94 Mary Magdalene (biblical figure), 140 mass media, 9, 104 “Masters of War,” 3, 10, 56–59, 85–86 Maymudes, Victor, 51 McGuirk, Carol, 137 McLeod, Hugh, 7 McTell, Blind Willie, 138 Melville, Herman, 22 Mephistopheles (folklore), 61, 64, 67–68 metaphors, 64, 100, 118, 125, 129, 134, 140, 142 metaphysics, 151, 155–56 Meyers, Augie, 70 Michelangelo, 134 middle-class, 94, 154 “military-industrial complex,” 57, 153 Milton, John, 29 Minnesota, 1–2, 3–7 modernity, 40–43, 65, 115, 150–51, 155–56

Modern Times (2006), 25, 139–40 Møller, Poul Martin, 64–65 monogamy, 99 monotheism, viii, 18 de Montaigne, Michel, 134–35 moral/morality, 10, 80, 97 mortality, 59, 69, 116–17 Morton, Dave, 6 Moses (biblical figure), 40, 136 “Mother of Muses,” 142 motorcycle accident, 12, 16, 33n71, 33n79, 51–52, 95–96 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 49 “Mr. Tambourine Man,” 49–51 Munch, Edvard, 60 murder, 17, 91–92, 117, 139 “Murder Most Foul,” 66, 137, 141 Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, 20–21, 126, 128 music, 48–49, 59–60, 62–63. See also specific topics music videos, 59–60 “My Heart’s in the Highlands” (Burns), 137 “My Own Version of You,” 141–42 Nashville Skyline (1969), 51–54, 79, 99, 100, 102 Nelson, Paul, 133 Nelson, Willie, 26 Neuwirth, Bob, 67 Never Ending Tour, 23–24, 111–12 New Jersey, 6 New Morning (1970), 15, 100–101 New Orleans, Louisiana, 49–50, 120–21, 136 New Testament (Christian Bible), 21–22, 28, 59, 118–19, 145n29, 158n4; Book of Revelation, 127, 141, 148n109; death of Jesus Christ in, 131; Gospel of John, 140; Luke 6:27, 125–26; Psalm 41:3, 1; Romans 8:11, 132 New York, 13, 33n71, 51–52, 95–96, 98

Index

New York City, New York, 3–6, 11–12, 51 48, 59–60, 91; Greenwich Village, 1–2, 7–8, 16–17, 84–85 New York Daily News, 97 New York Times, 90–91, 141 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 13, 45 nihilism, 13, 65, 83, 124, 150–51 Nivellering (“levelling”), 151, 154 Nobel Prize for Literature, viii, 23, 157 Norman, Larry, 19 “Not Dark Yet,” 69–72 “Nottamun Town” (folk song), 58 Novalis (poet), 150, 154 nuclear weapons, 154–55 Numbers 6:24, the Bible, 15, 101–2 Obama, Barack, viii “Ode to a Nightingale” (Keats), 70 Odyssey (Homer), 69 Oh Mercy (1989), 120–21, 136–37 Oldham, Spooner, 130 On the Road (Kerouac), 51, 69 On the Road with Bob Dylan (Sloman), 59 “The Onto-Theo-Logical Constitution of Metaphysics” (Die onto-theologische Verfassung der Metaphysik, Heidegger lecture), 155 organ, 11–12, 14 The Outsider (Wilson, C.), 12–13 outtakes, 3, 14, 22, 36n166, 120–21 Ovid, 139–40 painting/s, 16, 60, 63, 134, 154 paradise, 97–98, 138 paradoxes, 17, 25, 98, 129, 134, 155; about religiousness, 113– 14, 119, 125 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (film), 136 pathos, 93, 112–13, 119, 145n30 Pattison, George, xi, 40–41, 64–65, 151 Patton, Charley, 1, 25, 27–28, 137 Paul (Apostle), 130–33 Peckinpah, Sam, 135–36

177

percussion/drums, 52–54, 60, 70, 120, 122 Peter, Paul and Mary (band), 13 phenomenology, 65, 69 photography, 22, 60, 86 physical death, 65, 67, 69, 71 piano, 5, 21, 31n23, 120, 130, 137 “Pied Piper of Hamelin” (Rattenfänger von Hameln), 50–51 Planet Waves (1974), 15–16, 101–2 Plato, 80 poetry/poets, 27–29, 64, 70, 90–91, 139–40, 148n106, 153; Dylan, B., as, 59–60, 92, 154–58; Kierkegaard on, 41, 73n14; religious, 143, 151, 157; Wilentz on, 22 poiēsis, 152–53 polio, 3–4 Pollock, Jackson, 151 Polt, Richard, 157 Poor Little Rich Girl (film), 67 popular music, 5, 8–9, 16, 18–19, 25, 66, 100–101, 143 Porter, Carl, ix postmodernism, 20 postwar, 4 power, viii, 14, 55, 67–68, 127, 139 prayer, 12, 15, 101, 142 “Precious Angel,” 29, 126–27, 129, 146n59 prophecy/prophets, 4, 10, 12–13, 16–17, 40, 86, 88, 141, 147n76 The Prophet (Gibran), 12–13 Protestantism, 20, 112, 155 “protest songs”/protest music, 3, 9–11, 56, 84–95, 99 providence, divine, 118, 122 Psalm 41:3 (New Testament), 1 The Question Concerning Technology (Die Frage nach der Technik, Heidegger), 151, 153 rabbis, 4, 116 race, 8–10, 83, 87–94, 103, 108n74

178

Index

radio, 7, 24–26 Raeben, Norman, 16 rationalism/reason, 41–42, 150, 154 Rattenfänger von Hameln (“Pied Piper of Hamelin”), 50–51 recording (studios/process), 14, 24, 58, 100, 120; Columbia Records, 1, 7, 15, 86; Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, 20–21, 126, 128; in New Orleans, 120–21, 136; in West Saugerties, 51–52, 96 redemption, 9, 131, 150 Reed, Dock, 87 reflective aestheticism, 54–65 Reformation, 7, 55 reggae, 60 relationships, 16, 67, 84, 103, 121 Religieusitet (“religiousness”), 112–15 religion/religious, 7–18, 24, 28–30, 36n164, 115, 155; poets, 143, 151, 157. See also specific religions “religiousness” (Religieusitet), 112–15 “Religiousness A,” 113–16, 119– 20, 125, 133 “Religiousness B,” 113–15, 125, 133 religious sphere of existence, 79, 111–12, 156 Renaldo and Clara (film), 116 repentance, 93–94, 112, 119 Repetition (Kierkegaard), 43 Republic (Plato), 80 responsibility, 83, 94–95, 104–5, 119 “Restless Farewell,” 26–27 revelation, divine, 30, 112–14, 125, 128 Rhodes, Jack, 130 Ricks, Christopher, ix, 29–30, 70, 87, 89–90, 108n74, 127; on “Forever Young,” 101; on “Like a Rolling Stone,” 68–69; on love, 133; on songwriting, 92–93 “Ring Them Bells” (Oh Mercy), 136–37 Ritchie, Jean, 58 Rivera, Scarlet, 17 Rock ’n’ roll music, 6, 10–12, 21, 26 Rogovoy, Seth, viii–ix, 118

Rolling Stone (magazine), 10, 60–61, 66, 116, 133, 155, 157 Rolling Thunder Revue (film), 17 Rolling Thunder tour, 59 Romans 8:11 (New Testament), 132 Romanticism, 15, 39–42, 47, 64, 72, 150–51 Rothchild, Paul, 66 Rotolo, Carla, 84 Rotolo, Suze, 57, 84 Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020), 105, 138, 142; “Murder Most Foul,” 66, 137, 141 ruin, aesthetic, 64–72 Rutman, Howard, 5 The Sacred Harp (1844), 29 “Sara” (Desire), 103–4 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 71 “A Satisfied Mind,” 21, 130 “A Satisfied Mind” (Hayes, Rhodes song), 20, 130 Saved (album), 21, 47, 128–32, 136, 147n76 “Saving Grace,” 36n171, 128–29 Scorsese, Martin, 17 Scratch (play), 55–56 The Scream (Munch), 60 Scroggins, Bob, 6 secularism, 7, 21, 28, 115, 127– 28, 134, 155 Sedgwick, Edie, 66–67, 77n143 seduction/seducers, 44–46, 48, 52–54, 132–33 “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” (spiritual song), 87 self-determination, 41–42, 44, 95 self-gratification, 43, 46, 48, 54, 67, 71–72, 81–82 Self Portrait (1970), 15, 100–101 Self-Portrait (Dürer), 60 self-revelation. See divine revelation Selvin, Joel, 18 “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power),” 17–18, 124–25

Index

The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet, film), 134 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), 13 Shadows in the Night (2015), 26 Shakespeare, Robbie, 60 Shakespeare, William, 45, 154–55 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 64 Shot of Love (1981), 21, 24, 116–20, 123, 130, 132–34, 145n35 The Sickness unto Death (Kierkegaard), 65, 105, 135 Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, University of Minnesota, 6 “Sign on the Cross” (2014), 14 “Sign on the Window,” 101 Simon and Garfunkel, 100 sin, 88–89, 97, 112, 122–23, 132, 142 Sinatra, Frank, 25–27 Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal, film), 134 SJW. See “social justice warriors” Slim Harpo, 25 Sloman, Larry, 59–60 Slow Train Coming (1979), 20, 21, 60, 128, 130; “Precious Angel,” 29, 126–27, 129, 146n59 Smith, Edward, 141 Smith, Joseph, 48 social justice, 83–85, 89, 96, 103–4 “social justice warriors” (SJW), 84, 104 social media, 84, 143–44 Socrates, 94, 114 “Solid Rock,” 47, 131 “Something There Is About You,” 15 songs, 3, 13, 86, 96; family, 99–102; love, 85, 99; outtakes, 3, 14, 22, 36n166, 120–21. See also cover songs; lyrics; specific songs songwriting, x, 29, 46–47, 83–94, 99, 139, 143, 157 Sophists, 94 Sorrows (Tristia, Ovid), 140 Sounes, Howard, 83–84, 95

179

The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion (1835), 29 Soviet Union, 56 spheres of existence, x, 3, 30, 149, 154, 156–57; aesthetic, 42–46, 79, 156; religious, 79, 111–12, 156. See also “the ethical” sphere of existence spirituality/spiritually, 85–86; death, 65, 67, 69–71 spirituals, African American (genre), 1, 10, 87–88 Stages on Life’s Way (Kierkegaard), 43 Stardust (1978), 26 steel guitar, 14, 52 Stone, Lewis, 31n23 Stookey, Noel Paul, 13 St. Paul, Minnesota, 5–6 Strauß, David Friedrich, 150, 158n4 Street-Legal (1978), 17–18, 105, 124–25 sublime, 63, 125, 154–55 suffering, 10, 112–13, 131–33, 142 “Sugar Baby,” 138–39 Sumerian civilization, 60, 80 “Sweetheart Like You” (1983), 59 Tackett, Fred, 47, 130 “Tangled Up in Blue,” 16, 47, 103 Taylor, Charles, 144n10 Taylor, Jeff, viii technē, 153 technological age/technology, 57–58, 143, 150–53, 154–58 Tempest (2012), 25, 27, 103–4, 140– 41, 148n106 Temples in Flames tour, 24 Ten Commandments, Hebrew Bible, 80 Tennessee, 14, 116 Theme Time Radio Hour (radio show), 25–26 theology, 29, 47–48, 155; Christian, 20, 112, 132–33; eschatology in, 112, 134–42 Thomas (Apostle), 125 Thomas, Joseph, 29 Thomas, Richard, 148n106

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Index

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (Tre Taler ved tænkte Leilighederl, Kierkegaard, S.), 135 Time Out of Mind (1997), 25, 69–71; “Highlands,” 27–28, 46, 72, 99, 137–39, 142 The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964), 10, 83, 84, 85–90 Titanic, RMS, 103–4, 140–41 “The Titanic” (song), 140–41 “To Be Alone with You,” 99–100 Together Through Life (2009), 25 “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You,” 100 tours, 10, 17, 19, 47, 59, 90, 95, 104, 142; for Infidels, 21–22; Never Ending Tour as, 23–24; for Planet Waves, 15–16; Temples in Flames, 24 The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (Marlowe), 55 transcendence, 9, 12, 112, 113, 123– 34, 138, 142 transhumanism, 141–42 Traveling Wilburys, 24 Tre Taler ved tænkte Leilighederl (Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Kierkegaard, S.), 135 Triplicate (2017), 23, 26 Tristia (Sorrows, Ovid), 140 Trouble No More (2017), 3 truth, viii, 42, 87, 111, 121 “Tryin’ To Get to Heaven,” 70 U2, 120 Under the Red Sky (1990), 120–23 United States (U.S.), 3–8, 10, 14, 56; Civil Rights movement, 83, 87–88, 108n74, 154; culture, 9, 29, 123–24 University of Tulsa, vii U.S. See United States USA for Africa (band), 24 Van Ronk, Dave, 8 Vaughn, Stevie Ray, 122

Vernezze, Peter, ix, 2 Vietnam War, 7, 55, 57 Villanova University, vii Vineyard Fellowship (evangelical movement), 18–20 Vinyl (film), 67 violence, 9–10, 62–63 “Visions of Johanna,” 11–12 Wagoner, Porter, 130 Wallace, George, 89 Walsh, Sylvia, 41 “the Wandering Jew”/Ahasverus, 64–65, 69, 71 war, 3–4, 58–59, 150, 154–55; Cold War, 20, 56–57; Vietnam War, 7, 55, 57 Warhol, Andy, 66–67 Warnes, Jennifer, 120 Was, Don, 121 Watchmen (film), 90 “Watered-Down Love,” 132–34 Weber, Max, x, 150, 154 “Wedding Song,” 102 Weltanschauung (worldview), viii, 4, 7, 29, 48, 103, 111, 150 Wenner, Jann, 27 West, Don, 91 Western culture, 7, 20–21, 90 West Saugerties, New York, 51–52, 96 Wexler, Jerry, 20 “What Can I Do For You?,” 131 “When He Returns” (1979), 21, 136 “When the Ship Comes In,” 10, 84, 87 Whiting, Richard A., 24 Wilentz, Sean, 22, 26, 29–30 Williams, Hank, 13–14, 52, 99, 157 Williams, Rowan, 132 Wilson, Bob, 52 Wilson, Colin, 12–13 Wilson, Tom, 86 “With God on Our Side” (1964), 10 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 42 Wood, Roy H., 92, 107n58

Index

Woodstock, New York, 13, 33n71, 95–96, 98 Works of Love (Kierkegaard), 130 World Gone Wrong (1993), 24, 29 worldview (Weltanschauung), viii, 4, 7, 29, 48, 103, 111, 150 World War I, 150 World War II, 3–4, 154–55 Wrecking Ball (1995), 117 Wright, Betty, 132

yearning, 22–23, 41, 133–34 Young, Izzy, 10 Zantzinger, William, 90–94 Zimmerman, Abram, 3–6 Zimmerman, Beatrice, 3–6, 31n23 Zimmerman, Robert Allen (Bob Dylan), 1–6

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About the Author

Christopher B. Barnett (D.Phil., Oxon.) is professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University. He has published a number of articles, book chapters, and monographs on Kierkegaard, including Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard’s Philosophy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). He has also issued works on theology and the arts such as Theology and the Films of Terrence Malick (Routledge, 2016) and Scorsese and Religion (Brill, 2019).

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