The best known of Bob Dylan’s Christian albums was the previous album Slow Train Coming, which produced the hit song “Gotta Serve Somebody”, the topical song “Slow Train” (also relatively rare by this point in Dylan’s career) and the charming children’s song “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” – this one ends abruptly before naming the snake (and Dylan later verified that he meant the one in the Garden of Eden).  But several of the songs didn’t pull any punches or seek shelter in allegory, notably “Precious Angel”, “When You Gonna Wake Up” and “When He Returns”. 

Some of the criticism of Dylan’s Christian albums is quite harsh.  For what it’s worth, a 2013 readers’ poll in Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Gotta Serve Somebody” as Bob Dylan’s second worst song, with “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” as the fourth worst. 

(August 2014)