Change my way of Thinking: Essential Dylan # 13

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1979
Slow Train
Slow Train Coming
Jump on the slow train with Bob-but get ready for some apocalyptic preaching! Here, Bob is bright eyed and earnest, he’s found Christ, and he’s lecturing from the mountaintops, warning all below about the coming judgement. He’s slicing the evil of the world to pieces, as Mark Knopfler’s lead guitar shapes the song with it’s wicked precision.

In fact, it’s Knopfler’s guitar that'll first draw you in on this one: the first notes cut like an x-acto knife, as the band swirls in, Bob shoots off the firing gun by stating that declaring he’s “so low down and disgusted”. Who starts a song like that? Agree with Bob or not, listeners are certainly forced to grapple with certain realities the song attempts to address. There’s  no gray matter here.



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