"Property of Jesus" is just a "Positively 4th Street" redux

To really get inside of Bob Dylan songs you have to go back to when the were written and understand the forces at work. That is one of the benefits of the new film "A Complete Unknown." Some of those early songs take on new meaning when you know the back story.

"Property of Jesus" is really an excellently crafted song. It hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves because of it's lethal content, which comes on kinda strong. At that time, Copywrite © 1981, many of Bob's fan's had turned on him for releasing three albums in a row of what his atheist producer on Slow Train Coming, Jerry Wexler, called "wall-to-wall Jesus."

But isn't that what we love about Bob Dylan? He is no half-way kind of guy. If he has something worth saying, he is gonna say it, in the best way he knows how, and he is gonna let the let the chips fall where they may.

When "Positively 4th Street" first came out in 1967 I remember hearing the song off of the first Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Album (1967), but this wasn't even a previously released song, how can it be one of his "Greatest Hits?" That's just Bob doing his thing, messing with your mind. It's akin to releasing a second album of the Traveling Wilburys called Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 3 in 1990. You picture all these fans looking through the stacks of albums for Vol. 2, with a puzzeled look on their faces. The bottom line is, Bob thought "Positively 4th Street" was one of his greatest hits, so therefore it is include on this album for its first official release.

In the song we hear him dispensing a series of unmitigated blistering attacks on his "fair-weather friends." I remember thinking at the time, I have never heard a song like this in my whole life! But I like it! And I can relate to it! But can you really say things like this and get away with it? Is it legal to attack somebody this hard? Isn't he gonna get in trouble for baring his soul and his true feelings about somebody like this? Surely they must know who they are.

The copywrite on this song is 1965, so that is right after going through what Bob has recently called "the fiasco at Newport" back on July 25th, 1965. With those words he was encouraging people to go see the new film "A Complete Unknown." The film did a fine job taking us back into the zeitgeist of where he was at the time. In one of the final scenes of the movie, he decides he is just going to take off, riding his motorcycle into the sunset while Pete Seeger is trying to take down and put away the chairs from the Newport Folk Festival. I can see Bob coming up with this song while he is riding off into the sunset.

You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning
You say I let you down
You know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt
Why then don’t you show it

.....

I know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You’re in with
Do you take me for such a fool
To think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What he don’t know to begin with
You see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”
But you don’t mean it
When you know as well as me
You’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once
And scream it

.......

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you

He just ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more!

The themes are very similar in "Property of Jesus," and when Bob turns on you, you best look out! Just ask A.J. Weberman. Weberman claimed that Bob Dylan assaulted him in 1971, pushing him to the ground, down on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan when Dylan became upset that Weberman had reneged on their agreement not to search through his trash.

There are some great jabs in the "Property of Jesus" song at people like John Lennon who were upset by Dylan's conversion to Christ because it seemed to go against everything Dylan had previously represented. So Dylan writes: "Remind him of what he used to be when he comes walkin’ through." And Dylan then puts himself into the seat of scoffers: "Hope he falls upon himself, oh, won’t that be sweet."

What is so great about this song is Dylan's full recognition of the reality that everyone is serving some kind of king.

"Because he doesn’t pay no tribute to the king that you serve."

You might be a rock ’n’ roll addict prancing on the stage You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

So Property of Jesus winds down these strong lines:

You can laugh at salvation, you can play Olympic games You think [erroniously] that when you rest at last [i.e. When you die] you’ll go back from where you came But you’ve picked up quite a story [a story of sin and thus impending judgement] and you’ve changed since the womb What happened to the real you, you’ve been captured but by whom? [You been captured by Satan, who sometimes comes as a man of peace.] A couple of wise women, heard and understood the dynamic power that always lay latent in this great song, "The Property of Jesus." Chrissie Hynde used it as a closer for some of her concerts. You gotta love the grove that she set up in the first minute of her amazing cover . Then check out Sinead O'Connor doing it on the Chimes Of Freedom Album: These ladies knew that you can throw down some seriously strong shade, along with some epic declamations, and also get a lot off of your chest, when you attack the work of the devil and his minions in this way.

Doug