The Forgotten Murder of Alberta King

Bafflingly, few Americans realize that Alberta King - mother of Martin Luther King, Jr - was shot to death just six years after her son, as she sat her Atlanta church's organ, on June 30, 1974. She was 69 years old. Her killer was Marcus Chenault, a member of an extremist wing of the Black Hebrew Israelites. When I first learned of this event, I was stunned that I hadn't previously known it. Upon reading of this murder, I assumed that the heinous nature of the act, and its high-profile victim, would have seared it into American consciousness as much as the assassination of her son in 1968.

In the wake of the chaos that's erupted (that is, simply re-awoken from its troubled, fitful, one-eyed sleep) in the past two weeks after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, I think I've figured out why the murder of Alberta King is not a more widely known crime, unjustly relegated to an obscure footnote in the history of American race relations.

Every time a high-profile injustice is committed against a Black person, and the unsolved issue of racial oppression again rises in heated debate, violence, or social uprising, there are invariably a vocal number of Americans who dismiss racism as a dying issue. There are countless people who, whether too cowardly, too weak, or too deluded to face such a remaining struggle, have developed the revisionist notion that, with two events, racism in America was forever destroyed. Those two events being:
the Emancipation Proclamation, and the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Any further escalation of tensions or oppression is labeled by these kinds of thinkers as liberal agitation designed by some unseen blue-haired septum-pierced boogeyman out to divide the country. And to prove their point, these people will almost always quote from Martin Luther King's famous speech. They will cherry-pick their favorite lines or exalt the speech as if it were a magic spell Dr. King cast on the country that forever ended racism.

Despite the fact that King was later shot and killed - by a racist.

And it's in the recent inevitable rekindling of these revisions to history that I've realized why the murder of Alberta King is such an obscure event in the grand picture of racism in America.
It's the same reason so many white people often fail to mention her son's murder - simply put, it doesn't fit their narrative. That narrative being that Dr. King crushed all prejudice with his marches and his speeches, therefore there's no need to talk about it anymore, not again, never.

The addition of Alberta King's murder to her son's story is too awkward of a detail, too lengthy and dark of an afterword. The story of Martin Luther King works better, revisionists may reason, if it ends panning away from his lifeless body on that balcony in Memphis to an epitaph of hope, despite his murder. A story is strange when there are too many more events to absorb after the climax. The flow of the story is affected. Maybe the shooting of Alberta King dashes the hope otherwise found in the coda to the life story of her son. It's too painful. It rends the heart. It's a reminder we're too fragile to take, a thought we're too ashamed to consider: that a mother's death at the hands of racial madness would suggest the work for which her son died was left incomplete, despite how amazing his work truly was - a telling sign that even with all that the Civil Rights Movement accomplished, minorities are still blatantly oppressed in the United States.

We've left the murder of Alberta King as a footnote. We might even have the audacity to say, "but she was shot by another Black person, therefore it's not the same kind of racism." But her violent death, like the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, must be remembered as another bloody and horrific day in the history of American race relations. We must unearth this woman's death from the archives to which we've relegated it, and display it as it is - a glaring reminder that racial division and the bloodshed it causes is alive and well, breathing fire, no matter how many MLK quotes we handle with carelessness once every January, twice every February.

Album Review: Rick Wright - "Broken China"

You can take a guy out of Floyd, but you can’t take Floyd out of a guy. Each member of Pink Floyd’s solo albums have brought to the fore that particular musician’s strengths, highlighting his contributions to the legendary catalog of the band’s music, always keeping the identifiable, though ineffable, aura of Floyd that always seemed to overshadow its individual members. Even drummer Nick Mason, the most overshadowed member of Floyd, has released two albums that, though obscured by history, reflect his understated, dry, British sense of humor.

Broken China was keyboardist Rick Wright’s second solo album (his third if you count Identity, a collaboration with Dave Harris), and ultimately his last. After being musically reinvigorated by Pink Floyd’s recent Division Bell album and world tour, Wright couldn’t sit on his yacht and do nothing. He was creatively recharged, and this hauntingly beautiful, atmospheric album was evidence. And, it brought out exactly what Rick Wright’s contribution to Pink Floyd had been – atmosphere. Just as Roger Waters’ solo works displayed his lyrical muscle and political vision, as David Gilmour’s albums showcased what had been the musical force behind Waters’ lyrics, as Syd Barrett’s two albums preserved, both sadly and brilliantly, his mental decline but remaining genius, Broken China is a portrait of Wright’s ability to create an atmosphere for the story being told in Floyd’s songs and albums.

The 1980s had been a very rough time for Wright. He had been silently ousted from Pink Floyd by 1981, and efforts to repair a crumbling marriage fell through. The album with Dave Harris went nowhere, Wright calling it “a mistake,” and perhaps his most high-profile musical project otherwise had been the score to a documentary about soccer star Pele. When former bandmates Gilmour and Mason decided to begin recording again as Pink Floyd, Wright was eventually brought on board. His contributions to A Momentary Lapse of Reason were limited, but his performance in the ensuing two hundred-date world tour and live Delicate Sound of Thunder album demonstrated a musician regaining the self-confidence that had been eroded by the band’s bitter in-fighting in the 70s, and by his own personal struggles.

Wright has since stated that the reason he suffered from severe writer’s block, which coincided with Roger Waters’ grasping of the Floyd controls, is that he was depressed. Little did he know his own experience would be invaluable to identifying with the muse of his finest solo piece. The story being
told on Broken China is a woman’s experience with depression. It’s the most Floydian of any of the band’s solo albums, and not just because it follows a specific theme: it’s more the thought that “you can’t take Floyd out of the guy.” Just as, musically, “Money” had sounded like excess, as “Time” had sounded like desperation, as “The Great Gig in the Sky” had sounded like fear, the sounds of Broken China sound like mental distress, in a purely emotional sense rather than the sociopolitical sense of the Waters era. “Money” and “Time” told their stories so poignantly with instruments that even if they hadn’t included cash register and clock sound effects, they’d have sounded like their subjects.

So it is with this album. One can hear a woman groping in the darkness without the sound of stumbling, footsteps, or weeping. Wright’s music does that. Floyd collaborator Anthony Moore proved a perfect fit for Wright’s music when he supplied lyrics for “Wearing the Inside Out” on The Division Bell – which remain among Pink Floyd’s best post-Waters lyrics. Moore had worked with Floyd on A Momentary Lapse of Reason as well, and continues to do so occasionally into the twenty-first century with Gilmour. His words can be as dark and melancholy, as filled with haunts and madness, as they can be uplifting and hopeful. What Waters’ lyrics had been to a world view, Anthony Moore’s words are to a personal view, to sheer emotion. Rick Wright must have been in the mood to match the emotion of those lyrics, as in two particular cases, he gives two vocal performances more thrilling and chilling than any turn at the mic with Floyd: “Far From the Harbour Wall” is devastating, while the penultimate “Along the Shoreline” finds Wright pouring everything he has into his modest voice, waves of hope cascading to form a powerhouse vocal from a man not remembered for such eye-widening performances.

Softer pieces like “Hidden Fear” and “Blue Room in Venice” tug at one’s heart as Wright’s own vocal cords seemingly break as he sings them. The keyboardist himself was always critical of his own voice – of his own work, period – though Pink Floyd songs like “Stay” and “Summer ‘68” (the latter being the closest the group ever came to sounding like the Beatles), and the opinion and love of fans, belie his reservations. But tough on himself or not, Wright was indeed known more for his musical contributions rather than his singing, and his work here molds an alluringly dark portrait of his subject; instrumentals like “Unfair Ground,” “Satellite,” and the introductory “Breaking Water” are as articulate in telling this broken woman’s story as Anthony Moore’s gripping lyrics. Guest Sinead O’Connor sings lead on two pivotal songs, “Reaching For the Rail” and the closing “Breakthrough,” the latter of which David Gilmour says he wished had been written in time for inclusion on The Division Bell. On some of his early 2000s solo shows, Gilmour would insist on Wright having a spotlight to perform the song.

Rick Wright died of cancer in 2008, crushing what very scant hope remained of a reunion album or tour of the celebrated four-man Floyd. Even if that was unlikely to happen in the first place, it’s still a shame that Wright never completed another solo album. He would, fortunately, form a more intimate partnership with Gilmour than when they were in Floyd together, and he continued to perform – and even sing – until his death. When he passed, even Roger Waters, who had by then made amends with his former bandmates, stated that with all the arguments and debates of “who was Pink Floyd” or who was the most important, Rick Wright’s unique, surreal playing were sometimes overlooked in the fury, and that his contributions cannot be underestimated.

He was as important to the sound of Pink Floyd as the prism on the cover of Dark Side of the Moon was as important to their imagery and lore. Fortunately, we have Broken China as a memento of a talented, complicated musician weaving with his talent a story as sad as the eyes of the man himself.

from the book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems

Poem: While Thinking of Ashley Mattingly & A Mass Shooting in Nova Scotia

You've taught your children how to walk
And how to help little old ladies who can't
You've taught your children about
the Underground Railroad
and the charge at Iwo Jima
Have you taught them
not to rage when they're called crazy
for believing such crazy bravery?

Have you taught them what crazy looks like?
Have you taught them what to say to crazy people?
and how to listen to their stories?
To keep eye contact? How often to nod?
Have you taught them how to talk to the cops
when they go crazy, too?

Have you taught them about Dred Scott?
About Waco and Oklahoma City?
About Casey Anthony and Adolf Hitler?
Have you taught them how to howl
at the tops of their lungs?
Have you taught them ah who cares?
"hAvE yOu TaUgHt YoUr ChIlDrEn?"
Nobody cares

Album Reviews: Neil Young - "Trans" & "Everybody's Rockin'"

My old football coach had a tracheotomy and spoke with one of those microphone things tracheotomy patients use (I don’t know what they’re called). This left his voice sounding electronic and alarming to those who weren’t used to it; you can imagine how disconcerting it was to be rushing down the field and hearing a robotic voice repeating “RUN! RUN! RUN!” It messed with both teams’ heads and it wasn’t unusual that Coach Escobar’s voice affected the score of the game.
Likewise, when fans and the suits at Geffen Records alike heard Trans, they were jarred and confused by what Neil Young was doing (save for the ones who claimed they weren’t).
Rolling Stone, in their typically too-cool-for-the-room language, said of the album:

“‘Well, Mr. Weird is at it again,’ was one of the first reactions I heard to the synthesized sounds and Vocoderized vocals that typify a lot of the material on Neil Young’s new album, Trans. With Young, one learns to expect the unexpected...”

And they were right. After the commercial success of Harvest, the public indeed came to appreciate the unexpected from Young, starting with the hoarse, desperate delirium of Tonight’s the Night in 1975. And, as catty as the “Mr. Weird” remark may have been, the observation was not without merit. But it’s imperative to keep in mind that NY has never ventured into the eclectic, the weird, without purpose. There’s always been a method to the madness. Much like the derelict at the bus station who holds a cardboard sign declaring “The End is Near,” there’s a reason he does this. The derelict is not experimenting or making such a bold statement out of stagnancy, or for the sake of the thrill of being bold. And, surely enough, there’s a meaning, an origin, an inspiration behind the vocoders and other techno gizmos that make up the sound of Trans.

That inspiration was Neil’s son, Ben.

Born with cerebral palsy, Ben is unable to speak. Through advanced therapy sessions with his son, Young was stricken creatively by the thought of being unable to communicate. Obviously, the theme had been on his mind long before, as he’d experienced it firsthand in observing his son’s disability. And, like just about every other human being, he’d no doubt experienced personally the existential frustration of feeling unheard and misunderstood, especially as an artist whose music is so heavily scrutinized and often confounding. Though Trans does include a couple of “conventional” tracks (stemming from its beginning as an unassuming project called Islands in the Sun), the bulk of it, and the most intriguing material, is that in which Young is either misunderstood when his literal voice is distorted by the gadgetry, or when it’s his musical and artistic goals that leave one puzzled. Young paints a stunning portrait of a sterile futuristic (or maybe even current) environment and, most importantly, of a man with a lot to say struggling to communicate.
Rolling Stone summed up their review:

“despite his tinkering around with the hardware of the computer age, Neil Young is really still a sweephand clock in a digital world, a solitary quester after truth. And he continues to tick for all things enduring: love, humanity, dignity, strength. The good fight.”

The artistic accomplishment was the good news. The bad news was, among the people who didn’t get it was David Geffen, head of the eponymous record label with whom Young had recently signed. Geffen was also the most incensed. Funding for a planned film to accompany the album was pulled in retaliation for what the label’s executive deemed “uncommercial and unrepresentative work.” The film, according to Neil Young, would have made the album much more understandable. What’s more galling is that Young’s contract had assured him complete creative control.
David Geffen demanded a rock and roll record. That’s exactly what Neil Young planned to give him.
As Neil Young told it:

“I almost vindictively gave Geffen Everybody’s Rockin’. Geffen wanted more rock ‘n’ roll. That was the key phrase: ‘Well, you want some rock ‘n’ roll, do ya? Okay, fine. I can do that. As a matter of fact, my uncle was a rocker, and I’ll be him.’”

 Everybody’s Rockin’ was likely recorded with the aid of Mr. Peabody and the Way Back Machine. It transported Young and his new backing band, the Shocking Pinks, to the rockabilly days of 1959. Neil and the Pinks were clad in pink and white suits and greasy, overhanging pompadours for the album’s promotional material as they dove into the role of golden age rockers. Trans had been given a pass, at least with the critics. With Everybody’s Rockin,’ however, the reception would not be so open-minded. Partly because a rockabilly record in 1983 was sinful compared to the fact that Young was at least adventuring forward with new technology on Trans.

Much like the planned film that would have accompanied Trans, Young has since said that there were two songs left unrecorded that would have fleshed out the story of Everybody’s Rockin’ and the Shocking Pinks. Perhaps those two tracks would have made what Geffen probably viewed as nostalgic parody a piece of actual storytelling. But, it’s doubtful: David Geffen’s outrage at Young’s new material prompted him to abrogate the recording sessions, leaving fans with a record just twenty-five minutes long.
In any case, whatever story told by those two lost songs is unknown, and it’s a true shame they’re not present, but the very sound of Everybody’s Rockin’ tells a story of its own. Young and his trio are living a dream dreamt by every kid who first strummed a Stratocaster in the Eisenhower era. The foursome relived the Alan Freed scandal and the bebop of a simpler age when a broken heart and 4/4 time was more than enough to make a great song. Though placed in tighter structures than the likes of “Cowgirl in the Sand,” Young manages to pull out some subtly devastating vocal performances, particularly on “Wonderin’” and “Bright Lights, Big City.” The former is especially moving, as much as earlier, more heralded material like “After the Gold Rush.”

If Harvest was the measuring stick by which all of Young’s “weird” albums were compared, no doubt Everybody’s Rockin’ was as unconventional and, admittedly, “unrepresentative” as Trans. But Neil Young wasn’t phased by being called “unrepresentative.” He’s since stated that one of his career’s motifs has been to move on quickly, before an audience can identify or stifle him in any musical box, lest they figure out what defines him.

In a way, Trans and Everybody’s Rockin’ are hard to separate from each other, though they’re musically polar opposites. They both perplexed Young’s audience more than any instance prior, and found him unable to communicate with them. But perhaps more detrimental than that, the subsequent battle between Neil Young and David Geffen is so infamous that the music is often overshadowed by the creative and legal scuffle that accompanied them. But decades later, the point of the records, the things Young was trying to express are much clearer, the music in a position to be appreciated, and their creator justified (and not just because he won the lawsuits and got an apology from Geffen). It’s a bummer that sometimes it takes forty years for a piece of music to be understood, even if just a little, but in a strange way, it compounds what Young was saying behind all those sound effects and greasy pompadours –

we really don’t understand each other, do we?

-from the book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems

Bored With Miracles

To paraphrase, God told Elijah, go and trouble the king of Israel, then run and hide yourself at a dreary wilderness near a brook, and I'll command ravens - literal birds that fly - to bring you food every day.
So Elijah did what God commanded. He told the evil King Ahab that a drought would come upon Israel, and it would not end until he said so.

In the meantime, Elijah hid from the wrath of the king near a small brook east of the Jordan. We know that Elijah was there for a while, because we're told that eventually the entire brook dried up as the drought worsened. Unlike most places in the Bible, it's unknown where exactly this place was on a map, but if it looked anything else like the surrounding country, it probably wasn't the most exciting or entertaining places to spend a great deal of time doing...

...well, we don't really know what Elijah did to occupy his time he spent by the brook. If his faithfulness tells us anything, he likely did a lot of praying. And every day, while he was doing a lot of praying, a miracle happened in the morning and at night, when ravens would bring him bread and meat. That was Elijah's daily schedule for a long time in a long drought: pray, eat breakfast provided through Divine miracle, pray some more, eat dinner provided by another Divine miracle, pray again, sleep.

Pray, miracle, pray, miracle, sleep. Pray, miracle, pray, miracle, sleep. Pray miracle, pray, miracle, sleep...

If Elijah was anything like me, and it's evident by Scripture that he was not, he'd have eventually become bored - complacent, even. And I know exactly how I would have felt if I'd been in Elijah's position because I'm in his position every day. So are you. We rise in the morning with a miracle - that miracle being God's providence. The miracle of our Salvation, sealed by Jesus' blood on the Cross. The miracle of His Holy Spirit guiding us and giving us discernment in our prayers, in every day decisions and troubles.

And yet, we often become restless. We get bored, our minds wander, even wander during our prayers. Even if we pray a lot.

Twice a day, Elijah received a mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle. Ravens directed by God Himself brought him bread and meat. And despite such a wondrous thing, if I'd been there, knowing me, eventually, as the brook slowly dried up, I'd have forgotten just how amazing those ravens were, just how amazing the Hand is that brought them. I know this full well because in my fleshly weakness and the sluggishness of my faith, I do exactly the same thing today - all day, every day, I receive a mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle. Every day, I receive the mind-boggling, nature-defying truth that Jesus Christ was slain on a Cross for my miserable sins, yet rose from the dead and, miraculously, invited me to live with Him now and in eternity, washed anew and redeemed.

That was, and is, a far more amazing miracle than being brought food by ravens. And yet, despite being reminded of that miracle, being faced with that miracle, I find myself complacent if I'm not careful. I find myself bored.

We must bear in mind that a life lived in God does not become one of intrigue and explosions as one's faith grows. One can have the most sincere and fruitful of faith and still live a life that would to many appear mundane and average. Among the many things the Bible explicitly tells us to expect, we can expect to often have to build our faith and live it in dreary, troublesome days.
But the Bible also tells us to expect those dreary, troublesome days to be opportunities to serve others, to bless them in all sincerity, to share the truth of this miracle you and I wake up to every day, to fill our dreary and troublesome days with the light of the Gospel. Even when those days are as still and dry as a ravine near the Jordan in the midst of a drought.

Later in Elijah's ministry, after fleeing from the wrath of Israel's vengeful monarchs, he found himself in a cave in a mountain called Horeb. God told him to leave the cave and stand on the mountain. Elijah was then surrounded by the ominous noise, debris, and chaos of a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire. "But the LORD was not in the wind... the LORD was not in the earthquake... the LORD was not in the fire." Then, "a still, small voice."


And there in the delicate, whispering voice was God.

God is in the sullen whispers and chirping crickets that fill our day to day lives. Our lives that can often seem boring and repetitive. But those dull - sometimes painfully dull - days and nights are made radiant and solemnly jubilant when we choose to embrace the miracle we remember every day. The miracle that we are saved, loved, and cherished by the same God who made the galaxies and the worlds, the same God who dried up Israel and brought the rain again, the same God who raised His Son Jesus from the dead.

If we embrace this miracle and listen to it in the silence of the day, our complacency turns to contentment, our boredom to peace, our restlessness to determination to make the most of that mind-boggling, nature-defying miracle that is Salvation.

(1 Kings chapter 17-19)

Love is a Battlefield

A brokenhearted friend once told me in his frustration that the feeling of love is merely a chemical process in the brain and the rest of the body. Mere physiology, or some other technical mumbo jumbo. I hoped he didn't truly believe this: 

If love is a mere chemical process, then so is hate, and therefore hate should not be taken any more seriously than love. It could even be excused. And if those things are only medical goings-on, so are empathy, compassion, and the outrage against injustice that causes so many brave people to speak out against it. 

Every stand of bravery would be meaningless.

[James 1:17] 

Album Review: Bob Dylan - "Shot of Love"

Despite being a Christian, I don’t listen to contemporary “worship music.” I find it bland and repetitive. If I don’t believe whoever wrote a pedestrian song was inspired, I can’t be inspired, either. Who knows if Bob Dylan is still a Christian today? Who knows if he truly was back then? After his three “Christian albums,” several songs for the following Infidels sessions were full of Christian, or at least Biblical, imagery: “Foot of Pride” and “Lord, Protect My Child” are well-known outtakes from that 1983 album, while “Man of Peace” actually made the cut; its chorus “sometimes Satan, you know he comes as a man of peace,” echoes a verse from 2 Corinthians: “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” The lead track, “Jokerman,” was packed with explicit Old Testament references, even if it seemed to be describing something else entirely. One could even argue that the pro-Israel “Neighborhood Bully” from Infidels was rooted in Dylan’s experience with the Bible, or just his own Jewish heritage, or maybe even both. Biblical imagery, however, would continue to appear in Dylan’s songs long after his faith became ambiguous, and had actually made appearances long before – “All Along the Watchtower” draws some of its words from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, chapter 21 (I’m serious – snoop around).

But as for identifying a reference to Scripture in a Bob Dylan song and laboring over it as a clue to the state of his faith when he wrote it, if any, is probably a fruitless exercise. Even the title of that first “post-Christian” album: Infidels. It could be a clue in itself. Or, it could mean nothing at all, just a little joke. And, before one reads too deeply into the words of “Death is Not the End” in 1988, in which “the bright light of salvation” and “where the spirit never dies” are hoped for, the caveat remains that a song’s narrator is not always reflective of the songwriter’s beliefs.
Whatever the truth is, the man is notorious for self-contradicting interviews that paint a frustratingly baffling portrait of the artist. He once famously said about the media, “I figured you lied to it.” To be fair, though, maybe we fans ought not have the right to be frustrated – it’s, in a way, none of our business what an artist’s personal beliefs are, unless they choose to splay them on record, film, or text. Sometimes it’s even best not to know: I can’t imagine the horror of being a young Billie Eilish and, upon instant stardom at age sixteen, being harangued by media and the public at large demanding to know your stances on abortion, feminism, wealth inequality, immigration, gender identity, and that cake store that refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.
These poor kids don’t even know where babies come from yet.

The burden of being a music star from whom many demand their life answers, the terror of being turned into a golden calf, must be unbearable, unless one just naturally enjoys spouting off their opinions. Bob Dylan no doubt felt this heavier than any major artist before or after him, even more than the Beatles. His beliefs, his thoughts, his views were his, though he was labeled a prophet and those views were adopted with force by his audience.

But, not to defend the demands of such rabid and dogmatic fans, relating to a poignant piece of art while not knowing if the one speaking such seemingly personal statements is being genuine, or if it’s just part of an ever-changing series of the artist’s gimmicks, can be frustrating. Even if, again, sometimes it’s none of our business.
Who knows what goes through Bob Dylan’s head anyway?

1981’s Shot of Love is the last, the hardest-rocking, and most accessible of Dylan’s trio of “Born-again” records that began in 1979, all of which were (and still are) widely criticized. I’ve met many non-believers who, despite not having a religious interest, nonetheless appreciate and gravitate toward the book of Job. There are many elements on Shot of Love that reflect that Old Testament figure’s rage and agony. The title track and “The Groom’s Still Waiting At the Altar” are the most musically ferocious things Dylan had done since “Hurricane.” The former finds Dylan decrying the “rape” of the Church and the declaration that “God is dead,” the latter an angry defense of those who “try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery,” blasting those who “mistake your shyness for lewdness, your silence for snobbery.” “The Groom’s Still Waiting” could have easily fit on Highway 61 Revisited – imagine if The Band, or even just Levon Helm or Garth Hudson, had been in the lineup. “Property of Jesus” is exactly what the title suggests, except it’s much more rollicking and loose than any of the more stiff, underwhelming material on the previous Slow Train Coming and Saved. Its lyrics are moving and stark, the opposite of the kind of Christian music that simply doesn’t move me.

But it’s the gentler moments of this otherwise hard rocking album that are most effective, and find Dylan at his most self- reflective, and self-aware. On the gorgeous harmonica-laden ballad “In the Summertime,” he asks, seemingly his audience and his critics, and maybe himself,
Did you respect me for what I did
Or for what I didn’t do
Or for keeping it hid?
Did I lose my mind
when I tried to get rid
of everything you see?

A passage from the 139th Psalm declares, “where can I go from Your presence? If I ascend into the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” It seems that way of thinking, that nothing is truly “secular,” as no song can hide from God, is being applied on songs that aren’t overtly “Christian,” like the genial “Heart of Mine” and the beautiful dirge “Lenny Bruce.” Other artists must have felt these tracks safe enough, as “Heart of Mine” features Ron Wood and Ringo Starr, and the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench plays keyboards throughout the album. On that note, it’s amazing to think that Slow Train Coming was produced by Jerry Wexler, who, when Dylan allegedly tried sharing his faith during the sessions, sighed and said, “Bob, you’re dealing with a sixty-two-year-old confirmed Jewish atheist. I’m hopeless. Let’s just make an album.” He proceeded to produce Bob to his first Grammy for “Gotta Serve Somebody,” a song John Lennon dubbed so offensively preachy that he responded with “Serve Yourself.”

Then there’s the ode to Lenny Bruce (1925-1966), the most controversial comedian of his time, and to many a martyr for the First Amendment. On almost any other Dylan album, the eulogy would settle inconspicuously in the track list, as Bruce was almost as much of an icon of 60s counterculture as Dylan and Abbie Hoffman. But when placed on an album identified as a Christian album, its inclusion is curious – at first. The lament is actually very fitting among the title track’s anguish and the bite of “Groom.” “Lenny Bruce” captures a sadness that comes from events in the “secular world” (wherever that is) processed through a faith that is mutually inclusive with inevitable feelings of heartbreak. The closing lyric
Lenny Bruce was bad
He was the brother that you never had
gives the listener a look through watery eyes at loss and waste, of a man dead too soon, even if that man was never the singer’s Christian “brother.”

If Dylan was aware his Christian era was, at least musically, coming to a close, there was no better song that could have rolled over the credits or a closing montage of savagely derisive press clippings than “Every Grain of Sand.” It ranks among “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” “Buckets of Tears,” and “Roll On John” as one of the greatest closing tracks to a Dylan album. Even if he has truly eschewed his faith in Christ since the early 80s, he wrote a realistic and heart-wrenching look at the whole idea of faith that’s topped only by King David’s most anguished but hopeful Psalms. Again, being so emotionally gritty, it’s not the kind of contemporary music played in many churches. An even more stunning, rougher early version of the song is available on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3. “Every Grain of Sand” encapsulates “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (that’s a Bible verse).

I guess you’d just have to have experienced for yourself the beautiful insanity of faith to identify with the poetry in this song. Or, maybe you just have to be someone with a lot of hope, whose hope wrestles daily with a lot of pain. As Dostoevsky once wrote, “my Hosanna has passed through a furnace of doubt.”

-from the book Rocktology Exam: Classic Rock's Hidden Gems