What Can I Do for You?

God, since you've saved Bob,
He wants to give something back.
What can he get you?

"What Can I Do for You" is another song of faith and devotion from the 1980 album "Saved." It's a recitation of favors that Jesus has done for him, so he would like to know what he can do in return.

You:
Gave everything to me
Gave me eyes to see
Pulled me from bondage
Renewed me
Filled up my hunger
Opened an un-shuttable door, and quite wide
Chose me for the few
Died for me
Explained the mysteries
Given it all
Given me life

Other notes:
- Job: man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward
- Self wisdom is belief in a lie
- Rough road, poison, firey darts
- Bob doesn't deserve to be chosen, "but I sure did make it through. What can I do for you?"\

Solid Rock

This world is chaos.
Bob hangs on like a limpet
To the solid rock.

This by-the-numbers religious testimonial is the first song on side 2 of the 1980 album "Saved." It uses the metaphor of the solid rock of salvation in contrast to the shifting ground and loyalties of living without God in your life. The chorus of the song goes like this, which is why I thought of a limpet or a barnacle when I was writing it:

"Well I'm hangin' on to a solid rock
Made before the foundation of the world
And I won't let go
And I can't let go, won't let
Go and I can't let go no more."

Dylan puts a full gospel boogie tilt into the song, which keeps it from sliding into sentimental territory.

Other verses, summarized:
- Jesus was chastised and hated on my behalf. He was rejected by his own world. People expect a false peace, which is unlikely given the anger of sovereign nations and all the cursed people out there.
- The way of all flesh is to fight the spirit 24 hours a day with every means possible. Jesus is on a 24-hour campaign against this.

Saving Grace

Being good is rough.
Bob finds it too tough sometimes.
But he has his faith.

What's better than one song on an album called "Saved" with the word "save" in it? Two songs. "Saving Grace," which appeared on the aforementioned album in 1980, is another of Bob Dylan's thank-you notes to God and Jesus for showing him the error of his ways and setting him on the blessed -- though difficult -- path toward righteousness and salvation.

Witness!
1. I should apologize to you for saving me.
2. I've had my nine lives and by rights I should be dead. It's my faith that keeps me alive, and I must admit that I weep real tears for your saving grace.
3. First death, then resurrection. Either way, I'm welcome wherever you will have me. For that, I place my confidence in the protection of God.
4. Now, don't get me wrong. The devil's light shines bright, and that's easy to see, and searching for love is searching for vanity. I'll take saving grace instead.
5. You can't fake peace. Take note of this, wicked people. The real road to salvation is the road to Calvary. It's not a happy or easy road, but that's the one you gotta take.

Saved

Bob was almost gone,
But God's love and sacrifice
Saved him from hellfire.

"Saved" is one of Bob Dylan's most electrifying born-again Christian songs. It's the second track on the 1980 album of the same name, and comes in hot on the heels of the short first song, "A Satisfied Mind," rumbling and stuttering along to a savage gospel beat. It is, as I always say, not a message that I'm inclined to follow or believe in, but if you're on the fence about these kinds of things, a song like this would definitely tip you over to the side of belief. The album cut is forceful enough, but if you really want to get this song full throttle, it's worth searching online for a version of this song that he and his band performed at Massey Hall in Toronto in 1980. The band is out of this world, every single one of them.

How he was and how he is, with the key difference being that he was saved:
1. Was: He was blinded by the devil, born ruined by original sin, already dead as his mother gave birth to him. 
2. Is: Touched, healed, delivered, sealed, all by the grace of God.
3. Is: Saved (by the blood of the lamb)
4. Is: Glad and thankful.
5. Is: upright, full of endurance and freed from the pit all for one low price (the acceptance of the grace of God)
6. Is: Freed from emptiness and wrath.
7. Was: Unrescued, going down for the last time
8. Is: Spared, not by deeds or miracles, but by faith.
9. Was: Hindered and stalled

Here's the Massey Hall performance. This might be the greatest live performance ever, if by the band. Dylan seems a little disconnected. 

Pressing On

Predestination:

It's back in fashion again.

Bob is wearing it.

Predestination admittedly is a more complicated topic as it relates to Christian belief than what Bob Dylan is aiming at in this song, which was released on the 1980 album "Saved." That being said, St. Augustine suggested that the desire for salvation hinges somewhat on God's awareness of it, and affects God's determination to "save" some people for heaven and damn others to hell. Dylan also refers to belief coming from within, "When what's lost has been found, what's to come has already been?" But I should quit now before I talk more about things I don't understand. Here's the song, briefly deconstructed:

Summary of action: He's pressing on, pressing on, pressing on to the higher calling of God.

Obstacles: People try to stop him, and say he should prove that God exists. What kind of sign would satisfy them, he wonders, if belief is on the inside and fate has been determined? 

Transcendence: Wipe the dust off your feet, don't look back. You lack for nothing. You might be tempted, and that's hard. Adam queered the entire situation for the rest of us when he fucke around with Eve and the apple in the garden.\

In the Garden

Despite evidence,
People failed to recognize
Jesus as special.

"In the Garden" is one of the more earnest songs on "Saved," the 1980 album that forms the middle of his born-again Christian trilogy. The album has a few gospel moments that truly rock. Note songs such as "A Satisfied Mind," "Saved," "Solid Rock" and "Are You Ready?" "In the Garden" is one of those moments that builds and builds like some Richard Strauss tone poem, and it does so one solid, plodding step at a time. The song is a series of rhetorical questions that, collectively, tell you all about the losers who failed to believe that Jesus was the messiah. Songs like this are what gave Dylan a bad reputation among people who couldn't understand why he turned into such a sourpuss over Jesus.

1. When the Jews (or Romans, depending on your gospel of choice) came to arrest Jesus, did they know he was more than just some funky carpenter with a long beard and a bunch of hippies following him?
2. Did they know he was the son of God?
3. Did they understand why he told Peter to put away his sword?
4. Did people understand him when he spoke in the city?
5. Did people see him heal blind and crippled people?
6. Did anyone dare speak against him?
7. Why did he slip away to Gethsemane instead of accepting his crown?
8. Did people believe him when he rose from the dead?

And so on.

Covenant Woman

Man with covenant

Seeks single woman with same.

Christians only, please.

"Covenant Woman" comes smack in the middle of Bob Dylan's three-album engagement with Christianity. Appearing on the 1980 album "Saved," it takes to new levels the idea that "the Lord will provide." Instead of sending three boats to save the man on the roof from the rising flood waters, God gets the credit for sending Bob a woman who's operating under the same theological principles that he does.

1. She has a contract with God. She has a big reward coming in heaven and she shines like the morning star.

2. He's going to stick with her, especially for praying to God on Bob's behalf.

3. God's going to rebuild Bob the broken cup, and he knows that this will happen because of the evidence that he produces saying that God sent him her. If he did that, surely he will perform some heavier bodywork soon.

4. Isn't she lucky to be stuck to Bob on this fitful and passing journey through life. Coincidence of coincidences: he has a covenant just like she does.

A Satisfied Mind

I was a rich man.

Money I lost, faith I gained,

Now my mind’s at ease.

There are two commercially available recordings of this song by Joe "Red" Hays and Jack Rhodes, each with somewhat different words. The first version to appear was on the 1980 born-again Christian-themed album "Saved." It's a rousing, if short introduction to the gospel barn burner and title track of the album, and it starts off slow, but the backup singers add great tent show color and tambourines. It's another one of those "Christian" songs that I don't mind listening to one bit. The second version, which to my ears is more pedestrian, if perfectly agreeable, is on the Basement Tapes sessions that were released in 2014.

The lyrics to the version on "Saved" are here. The "hmmms" are Bob and the backup singers getting ready for serious ecstasy:


How many times have you heard someone say
If I had his money I'd do things my way
Hmm, but little they know
Hmm, it's so hard to find
One rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.

Hmm, once I was wadding in fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed of to get a start in life's game
But suddenly it happened
Hmm, I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind.

Hmm, when my life is over and my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones
I'll leave there ain't no doubt
But one thing for certain
When it comes my time

I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready for

Jesus? Are you sure that he

Is ready for you?

This song comes from the second of Bob Dylan's albums to focus on themes of evangelical Christianity, with a heavy focus on American-style born-again Christianity, and all the themes that come with it: baptism, redemption of sins, personal relationships with Jesus, and because it's Dylan, lots of sour hectoring and lecturing of unbelievers, fair-weather friends and the realization that preaching the gospel as a missionary, no matter how famous you are, makes you less desirable to be around.

"Saved," which came out in 1980, turns up the missionary heat that he started generating on "Slow Train Coming" the year before. Whereas that album had a heavy bass and great horns courtesy of producers Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, Saved went more a mix of gospel and slow-burning hymns that take their time to climb. I like "Are You Ready" because it's a grinding blues number, or whatever people in pop news call this kind of music. It has a good beat, the backup singers are great, but the "you have to choose, it's either heaven or hell for you," lyrics along with the implication that the singer knows the right answer to his question, can make for tough going if you have a problem with religious music. I don't buy the message, but I still like the albums.

Here's the Melbourne Mass Gospel Choir performing the song.

Covenant Woman

Dylan's kind of chick
Doesn't just put out. She prays
For Bob's salvation.

Are You Ready?

Bob's warning you, hoss.
You'd better get ready now.
The Messiah's near.

What Can I Do for You?

God, since you've saved Bob,
He wants to give something back.
What can he get you?