Bob Dylan, just announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was first described as “protean” on the album notes to “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”, released on May 27 1963. It was his second studio album and he had turned 22 three days earlier.
Dylan would always be associated with his assertion that the times were changing but, now that it is possible to look back from his 76th year, it is clear that the man himself has changed as much as the times themselves, sometimes chiming with them, but more often not, usually to the consternation of many of his fans. The writer of the Freewheelin’ album note could not have known that his description would “nail” the 22-year-old over a whole lifetime. But it does so only in the sense that the one constant about Dylan has been constant change, and making sure no one “nails’ him has always been a priority of his.
The oeuvre is massive and easily merits the Nobel accolade. Millions have been glad to have their life journeys accompanied by Dylan motifs. He longed for love - Sad-Eyed Lady, Visions of Johanna, dozens more - and complained about the world – Idiot Wind, Masters of War, dozens more - from depths and in words that made people feel he spoke for them.
But there is still a phase in his career that is disregarded, even scorned or regarded as an aberration. Slow Train Coming, his nineteenth album released in 1979, marked his public emergence as a born-again Christian. Though Dylan had always been a writer drawn to apocalypse, in all of its senses, most listeners missed the fear that ran through his work at this period. No less than under the shadow of nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, he believed that the end was near and the songs on Slow Train Coming reflected that.
