I just read and was disappointed by Trouble in Mind by Clinton Heylin; subtitle: Bob Dylan’s Gospel Years; sub subtitle: What Really Happened.

What I really wanted to read is this:

In 1966 spaced-out, majestic, mercurial Bob Dylan wrote in I Want You:

The saviors who are fast asleep, they

Wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinking from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the

Gate for you

The saviors in Dylan’s prime of creation were fast asleep. The 1960s and 70s in a nutshell.

Then came Dylan’s comical conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1979, based primarily on the nonsensical bestseller (which I also read fervently at the same time, but I was 17 years old!), The Late Great Planet Earth.

From Covenant Woman:

 I’ve been broken

Shattered like an empty cup
I’m just waiting on the Lord to rebuild and fill me up

It is a touching lyric, which I have gone back to many times (many more times than I have I Want You), but it shows how his wide openness was replaced in a instant by pedantry and worse: cribbing notes the Bible – “The book” which is a scar on humanity as it attempts still (unbelievable) to elevate itself and erase “books” and wild worth.