Bob Dylan: Saved - 1980
"Behold, the days come, sayeth the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah" - Jeremiah 31:31
The second of Bob Dylan's Christian albums, I have always found Saved, from 1980, far less appealing than its predecessor, the vivacious, dynamic and sonically top class Slow Train Coming.
Firstly, despite its supposed remastering, the sound has always been far more muffled than the previous album. Without a quality sound-conscious musician such as Mark Knopfler present, it is somewhat muddy, the instruments far less defined.
Theologically, Dylan's fervour has lost its initial zeal, to be honest, he is saying the same things again - warning of damnation, of purgatory and cautioning us against sin, willing us to accept the Lord - or else. He played a 100 date tour delivering such on stage sermons, which wasn't his best move (although some of the live recordings from that period are surprisingly good - checkout The Bootleg Series Vol 13, Trouble No More). The songs played from this album actually sound so much better in concert than they do here.
Pressing on into the garden with a satisfied mind, then....
The album opens with a short vocal track, an old country cover titled A Satisfied Mind, before kicking into the rocky, powerful Saved, full of loud female gospel-style backing vocals and a solid drum, guitar and piano backing. It rocks averagely well, and I always enjoy it when I hear it. Whether you buy into its didactic lyrical message or not, you can't deny that it rocks.
Covenant Woman is a slower-paced, lengthy rock ballad that doesn't really get anywhere, comparatively. It is redeemed, to coin an apposite phrase, by some superb organ breaks.
Solid Rock has always sounded far too muffled to me, and again it sounds much better played live. It is has an insistent, rocking beat, though, although the vocals are far too down in the mix, as is the bass. You cannot convince me this has been remastered, I'm afraid. That said, there is something catchy about it - the "won't let go, can't let go" refrain really sticks in your head. Dylan certainly sings it with conviction.
What Can I Do For You? is a yearning number in the same slow tempo, lifted in the middle by a gorgeous harmonica solo. There is a powerful guitar, drum and bass guitar ending to the song as well. The more I listen to the song the more i like it.
On Pressing On, a tired-sounding Dylan tells us how he is indeed pressing on, as if to say "I'm gonna carry on doing this, whatever, it's too late to stop now..." to coin a phrase. Again, it is a track dominated by the vocal backing, it almost drowns out Dylan, in a way that it didn't on Slow Train Coming. As with all the material on the album, it comes over somewhat half-baked, as if with a bit more attention, it could have been much better. The same applies to the potentially potent In The Garden. Continued listens do find them finding their way into my bloodstream, I have to say. Maybe that slow train is coming for me.
Saving Grace raises the bar a bit and it is probably my favourite on the album - slow, dignified and moving. It has a lovely organ backing on it, and impressive guitar too. Dylan's voice on this one is as convincing as it was on Slow Train Coming. Nice one. The pure gospel of Are You Ready very much sounds like an outtake from the previous album. It grinds and plods and again the backing vocalists dominate but it also features a searing guitar solo, mid-point.
I refuse to give up on this album, and duly dig it out about once a year and when I do I always quite like it but, going back to the way things were in 1980, the problem for Dylan was that he was an artist who had always trod his own path oblivious to trends and fashions and he had previously always taken multitudes with him on his journey. Here, though, with this album selling really poorly, he was like a saviour in the wilderness.
Two songs that were not included on the album were the superb Making A Liar Out Of Me, which was very much in the Slow Train Coming album's style and the gospelly vocal number Stand By Faith. Certainly the first one should have been on the album.
