Life Bookazines - Bob Dylan - 2020

90 LIFE BOB DYLAN

you are a prophet.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not me.’ They used to say,

‘You sure are a prophet.’ They used to convince me I was a

prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer.

They say, ‘Bob Dylan’s no prophet.’ They just can’t handle it.”

If the audience wasn’t shouting “Amen!” to that—and it

usually wasn’t—it was more upset that Dylan was refusing to

sing any of their requests, most of which were for songs from

his secular period.

Dylan would return to those forsaken songs, of course,

and would vacillate on religion as the years progressed.

“Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing,” he

said to David Gates of Newsweek in 1997. “This is the flat-

out truth: I find religiosity and philosophy in the music. I

don’t find it anywhere else. Songs like ‘Let Me Rest on a

Peaceful Mountain’ or ‘I Saw the Light’—that’s my religion.

I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that.

I’ve learned more from the songs than I have learned from

any of this kind of entity. The songs are my entity. I believe

the songs.” But he always made it clear, as well, that he did

believe in God—a god, some god. Important to note: He has

spent the recent decades of his life involved in the Jewish

Chabad-Lubavitch movement, appearing on telethons, and

told Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes in 2004, “the only person you

have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to

God.” When author Bill Flanagan said in a 2009 interview

that Dylan delivered “O Little Town of Bethlehem” like “a

true believer” on his Christmas in the Heart album, Dylan

replied pleasantly, “Well, I am a true believer.”

O

n January 31, 1986, Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan

was born at Humana Hospital in Canoga Park,

California. On June 4 of that year, Carolyn Dennis,

the baby’s mom, and Bob Dylan wed. Their union would last

six years, during which time Carolyn would continue as one

of Dylan’s gospel-rock backup singers, occasionally joined

by her own mother, who had earlier been a member of Ray

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