Bob Dylan-Slow Train Coming (1979)


 

Artist: Bob Dylan

Title: Slow Train Coming

Label: Columbia

Format: LP

Cat #: FC 36120

Year of Release: 1979

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1979 Santa Maria Pressing

Listed Condition: G/G

Sell Date: 11/15/21

Sell Price: $4.99

Discogs Last Sold: 9/20/21 VG+/VG+ $4.50

Low: $2.00

Median: $6.67

Average: $.8.12

High: $25.00 NM/NM link new in shrinkwrap

Current low price: $2.00

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 119

Have/Want: 7118/339

Where Sold: Larchmont, NY

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: passed down from parents, I think dad bought it at the 24 hour convenience store on Highland St in Worcester when they sold records in 1979

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

The final Dylan album my parents bought in the vinyl era, Slow Train Coming was played relentlessly in 1979 and into the 80's.  We weren't a religious household, this just fell into the same playing pattern as Street Legal and other Dylan titles before.

Bob was coming into indoctrination.  Or was he?  The thematic Christian trilogy might've been interpreted that way in 1979, but the sands of time change peripheral meaning. The literal meaning is repent all ye sinners or hell awaits.   I don't know what Bob was coming out of in his head to get to all Old Testament all the time.  Maybe I don't want to know.  People come to and depart religion for all sorts of reasons.

Slow Train Coming has ace players.  The ladies backing vocals stay on the Legal side of the Street.  Dylan wanted a funkier approach and Atlantic Producer Jerry Wexler with Muscle Shoals Producer Barry Beckett made it happen.  Tim Drummond's bass has been found  on James Brown and Neil Young records in the past and he appears to be the heart of this lineup.  The curve is Dire Straits.  Instead of pairing Drummond with Jim Keltner, the drummer here is Straits Pick Withers.  Mark Knopfler's distinctive guitar throughout is the most famous contribution.  

For this listen my favorite track was "Man Gave Name To All The Animals "   Levity sometimes comes to the sermon.   "Saw milk coming out but he didn't know how.  Ahhh! Think I'll call it a cow!"  Hundreds of start-to-finish plays in my lifetime and that line only stuck with me that day.

"When You Gonna Wake Up" has been my favorite in recent years.  Tough and merciless in a world where there is no middle ground.  "Gotta Serve Somebody" was one of the few "hits" played on the current tour I just bore witness to at the Beacon Friday night.  Nowadays it is arranged in the ways of the rough and rowdy and would never chart.  As a hit single in 1979, this one is an outlier in any songbook.

 He who returns could be seen as an outlier as well.



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