Bob Dylan's Prophet Song about America and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ [Slow Train]

Metrolyrics.com ^ | 1979 | Bob Dylan

[Jan_Sobieski]

Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happenin' to my companions
Are they lost or are they found?
Have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down?
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, "Boy, without a doubt
Have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic"
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

Man's ego is inflated, his laws are outdated,
they don't apply no more
You can't rely no more to be standin' around waitin'
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin' over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency
All non-believers and men stealers talkin' in the name of religion
And there's a slow, there's a slow train comin' up around the bend

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it
They say, "Lose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions"
They talk about a life of brotherly love
Show me someone who knows how to live it
There's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

Well, my baby went to Illinois
With some bad-talkin' boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothin' I could do to stop it
I don't care about economy, I don't care about astronomy
But it sure does bother me to see my loved ones turnin' into puppets
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend...

[dps.inspect]

One of my favorites...

[firebrand]

“Big train comin’ and the train done gone.”

[Jonah Johansen]

“One of my favorites” Mine too,
along with “When You Going to Wake Up” on same album

Truly, prophetic.

[Vaquero]

Of course Bob has left the Christian born again thing and is just BOB again.

I like Dylan. Always did. Well at least after he left pure folk and got booed off the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, by the folky/hippies.

[11th_VA]

Wow - another person who loves this album. Came out in ‘79 I believe. I wore that album out.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Not yet, our Lord tarries until just the right time, not wanting anyone to miss his arrival. When he finally comes, it will be too late. Now is the time to get right with Him!

[American in Israel]

My favorites too.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Great song and Bob was used by God. But this is yet another PROOF that people can “fall away”...(2 Thes 2)

[Jan_Sobieski]

This is the line that gets me. More true today than even back then...

All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walkin' around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend

[firebrand]

Slow train. Get it?

[Perseverando]

Hey Bro,

Thanks so much for posting! I remember Dylan's brief experiment with Christianity before he fell away. Worked with a guy in '79 who played the cassette often. I was still lost as I could be, but liked Dylan.

I'm going to listen to clips of Slow Train Coming as soon as I post this.

Praise God & thank you, Jesus! I was blind but now I see, was lost but now I'm found.

[Lake Living]

Yes, that one is unnervingly prophetic. Too bad for Bob, I too was hoping he had found his Messiah.

[don-o]

The album that is not like "Slow Train Coming" does open with a train song that touches heavily on the theme of the second coming. That song is "Duquesne Whistle" and like most of the songs on the album it is loaded with biblical language and biblical pictures and the imagery of the New Testament. It is significant that it is the New Testament that Dylan draws upon most heavily. In the Rolling Stone interview he talks of the book of the Acts of the Apostles and the book of Revelation. For followers and estimators of Dylan's current spiritual beliefs and practices the argument must now have changed. If there is quandary about Dylan's beliefs it is not whether he is an orthodox follower of Judaism and the Torah or a believer in both Testaments and the coming of the Christ and his second coming – he clearly belongs in the second category. The question is now whether in his belief in the New Testament and the Old, he can be seen as an orthodox Jewish Christian or whether he has come to a set of beliefs that are distinct to Mr Dylan in his solitary lifestyle and ways – a kind of modern gnostic pursuing a belief that is hidden to those of us who are not playing 150 concerts a year at 71 years of age.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Enlighten me, I may be missing something?

[don-o]

The argument went something like this: Dylan's original name is Zimmerman, he was raised in a Jewish home and he simply has no business touching anything that smells of the Christian faith. This wasn't quite as fiery a reaction as greeted 'Slow Train Coming' or 'Saved' but 30 years later to have this reaction from both Jewish and Gentile commentators was simply amazing and rather misplaced. More than a generation may have passed since those early "Jesus" albums of Dylan's but since that time he has recorded hardly a single album that hasn't spoken of his spiritual journey in implicitly Christian terms. This new generation of critics were just shooting at the obvious target and missing completely a man's right to choose his own faith and to express it as he so chooses. They didn't even wait to hear the offending disc!

[Perseverando]

"...Dylan's brief experiment with Christianity before he fell away."

Thanks for the update. I have not really followed Dylan's music or life. I'm really glad to see that I may have erred in where I though Dylan was in his faith.

[firebrand]

Perhaps he is not going to descend on the Mount of Olives but is already here. “[W]hen he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

Or you could reverse it and say, “When he appears, we will see him as he is, for we shall be like him.”

[chajin]

I remember Dylan's brief experiment with Christianity before he fell away.

Way back in '86, I was privileged to have Don Francisco (the Christian musician, not the Spanish-TV host) sing at the church I was working at. Among other things, he talked about how at one point in the late 70s he was feeling despondent, and seemingly out of nowhere he received a phone call from Bob Dylan, who said the Lord had told him (Dylan) to tell Don that He was with him (Francisco), and how that showed that God wants to use us to encourage one another.

[don-o]

Check this out from a man who had the site rightwingbob.com.

But Dylan's final question, "Tell me what you’re gonna do when your water turns to wine?" puts us on very different ground. What does that even mean: when your water turns to wine? Dylan, as he does on other occasions (especially in his early years) has taken a song that was going in a familiar enough direction and just flipped it into another dimension. The changing of water to wine naturally brings to mind the biblical story of Jesus' first public miracle, at the wedding in Cana. Tha'’s the image; it's one that Dylan as a songwriter knew that listeners would know, and would resonate in some way. It flips the song into another dimension because now the question is not merely: "What are you going to do when the very bad things happen to you?" but: "What are you going to do when something very good happens to you? How are you going to respond to a miracle in your life?"