Page 11 - Edition Summer 22 News and Views revised 31.05.pub (Read-Only)

The Primacy of Experience: What can Theology Learn from Bob Dylan?

Michael Jones

Bob Dylan was brought up as an observant Jew and then converted to Christianity in the late
nineteen-seventies. Whether he is still a Christian, has returned to his Jewish faith, or finds his
spritual fulfilment entirely in his writing and performing is unclear. In looking at Dylan’s work I
shall be asking about the primacy of religious experience and how that can be assessed
theologically.

Just as William Blake was an artist and engraver as well as a poet, so for Dylan writing is only
one element of his craft. Because, as a musician who performs his words to musical
accompaniment Dylan is a world-renowned rock star, some have questioned his designation as
poet. I do not have the space to look at this here, except to say I am suggesting that theology
1
can learn from the poems/songs of Bob Dylan the primacy of experience .

Dylan, from his early twenties, like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, sang of his vocation to
stand in solidarity with the oppressed and proclaim God’s judgement on social injustice, as he did
in songs like “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. When his writing is more personal, he still often
feels the need to point out the sins of humanity, even those we might rarely consider, such as
“The Disease of Conceit” which, according to Dylan, causes suffering, heart-break and even
death.
Steps into your room

Eats your soul
Over your senses
You have no control

Ain’t nothing too discreet

About the disease of conceit
Yet this announcement of divine judgement seems to have its roots in personal experience. He
commemorated being given an honorary doctorate in music by Princeton University by writing
“Day of the Locusts”, in which he describes a plague of locusts with “their high whining trill”
singing for him. After all, he was in a dangerous situation, where he could all too easily succumb
to the sin of pride. Once he realises the danger, everything about the event becomes sinister:
darkness, the smell of death, unbearable heat. Finally, he cannot wait to escape and return
home.

Christopher Ricks shows how Dylan uses the biblical Song of the Sea (in Exod. 15) as imagery of
judgement in his songs ‘The Times They are A-Changin’ and ‘When the Ship Comes in’ . With all
2
of this emphasis on judgement, do we quite believe him when he begins ‘Do Right to me Baby
(Do Unto Others)’ with the line ‘Don’t wanna judge nobody, don’t wanna be judged’? Not only is
the Sermon on the Mount being referenced here (Matt. 7:1,12), but Ricks shows how the
seemingly banal lyrics, at least the first verse anyway, do ‘carry biblical weight’ .
3

1 For Dylan as poet, see Michael Gray, Song and Dance Man 3: The Art of Bob Dylan (London: Continuum) 2002: 54-84; also
Christopher Ricks, Dylan’s Visions of Sin (London: Viking) 2003: 11-48
2
Ricks,
3 Ricks, 280-281

11