So… Bob found God.

And, as always, when Dylan gets into something he gets really into it. But he must’ve know this Jesus thing was going to be a tough sell, so he hired Jerry Wexler to produce and Mark Knopfler to guest on what would turn into Slow Train Coming. And it worked. Maybe people were so glad that the album wasn’t recorded in a rush and turned into a half-hearted mess, like the last album Street Legal that they were willing to overlook the preachiness of the songs. At least Bob sounds really excited and invested in what he was singing about for a change.

But as Bob refused to play any of his secular tunes in concert, and a second album of gospel titled Saved came out, the patience of the audience and the critics quickly waned. It didn’t help that Saved ended up with nearly as muddy of a mix as Street Legal. The tide had turn on Dylan’s born-again period.

By the third album, even Dylan was getting a little tired of this. Older, non-Jesus songs were popping up in the live set again. And the third album in his Christian trilogy, featured straight-forward love songs like Heart Of Mine and even a whole song about decidedly non-christian comic, Lenny Bruce.

And then just like that – without any announcement or fanfare – the Christian period was over and Bob never really addressed it again. Did he still believe, and was just not singing about it anymore? Or did something happen that made him question, or even renounce, his faith? Who knows?

But coming into the eighties, Bob wasn’t quite sure who or what he was making music far any more. As a result, this born-again period soon looked back on with an air of wistfulness.