warm and inviting harmonica playing, and offered a remarkably unwarlike account of why he became a born-again Christian. There were even a couple of numbers in which he didn't sandbag us with endless I've-got-Him-and-you-don't references to Jesus.
Truth be known, my initial reaction was just another example of the old and familiar Bob Dylan syndrome: i.e., because the man's past achievements have meant so much to so many of us, we tend to give his newest work the benefit of every doubt. No more. For me, it stops right here. Unfortunately, except for "Every Grain of Sand," Shot of Love seldom gets any more interesting than that first listening. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most of the time, Dylan's still beating the same annoying drum he did on Slow Train Coming and Saved (which, between them, produced one passable–and believable–cut, "Pressing On"), and if a recognizable portrait does emerge, it's probably an unintended one, since it's filled mainly with hatred, confusion and egoism.
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. Ultimate victims. And, of course, it's all our fault. By not appreciating the genius of Bob Dylan's current material, we're supposedly crucifying him, even though he's awfully handy with the hammer and nails himself. Dullards that we are, we can't understand God. We don't understand Dylan. Our love is no damn good ("Watered-Down Love"). We're barely alive ("Dead Man, Dead Man"). Therefore, each and every one of us can go to hell.
Well, fuck that. Sinning against God and sinning against Dylan are two different things. I'm ready to believe in the mystery of a higher power and willing to hope that God exists (if He does, He's got an ungodly sense of humor), yet Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love are a whole lot more sinister and secular to me than, say, Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisi
