Expecting Rain

No need to go back that far. It's a Shot of Love-era song (see Heylin, Still on the Road, p. 201). Several epic songs from that time--"Caribbean Wind," "Angelina," "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar"--aren't especially Jesus-y.

When listening to this song, something happened to me that I only know from certain Bob Dylan songs.
At first, it seemed bland to me, like there was nothing going on in the music or the vocals.
Then I listened to it with while reading the lyrics and something clicked. First, the vocals took a life of their own. Then the energy of the words and newly discovered passion in the vocals unlocked something in the music for me.
Now I'm in love with this song!

I agree with a lot of the analysis and comparisons to other songs already mentioned here. Let me add another one.
Bob mentions positive attributes (e.g. "That you stand up unafraid to believe in justice"; though often in the form of a negation of a negative attribute) and then always turns it upside at the end with the line "But you're making a liar out of me". I think this is pretty similar to the technique he used ten years later in "Most Of The Time", isn't it?

Nice observation. Note, too, there is also an echo of "Queen Jane Approximately" in the tune, but also in the lyrics, which, though not quite as dramatic as "Most of the Time," "Journey through Dark Heat," and "Liar of Me," still make a kind of turn on the final line of each verse--all of these people are plastic, once you realize it, come see me.

I think it is a great song. I hear it as a "sequel" to 'Gates of Eden'. The radical dialectics between World and Heaven - which again echoes Pietism (the Lutheran version of Puritanism), like 17th Century Danish psalmist Thomas Kingo e.g. Everything in the world essentially comes down to vanity and will thus eventually vanish. God is the only eternal force, and it is only by his grace and will that we may have any stake in eternity. Even in our fallen world, however, we have a sense of and a longing for what is eternal - Truth, for example: "At times I think there are no words but these to tell what's true, but there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden." - this is one of Dylan's most brilliant expressions of the paradoxical condition of human existence. Following this logic, anything that claims to be true and not spring from within the Gates of Eden is a lie. 'Making a Liar Out of Me' deals with exactly that: all the various fallen-world intentions of doing the right thing and disguising vanity as righteousness. We do tend to call a lot of it good and righteous, because we are seduced or convinced that it is so, or because it is the most convenient thing to do (if we didn't, it might indeed be difficult to even be in the world). But once we do that we become liars. The father of lies (the Devil) makes liars out of us all. The song is not as finger-pointing as some of the others of this era - rather Dylan points the finger as much at himself as anyone else and at the great struggle that rages inside of him as it does inside all of us: the fight between truth and lies - the fight determining who we shall serve: the Devil or the Lord...

Reminds me of an inferior version of the 'Polly Vaughn' he did with Bromberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmZfXYK_7s8

musically speaking, i am more going though the sound of "Journy through dark heat" , but it remains a very srong song and i am glad he gave it to us
during our life-time.

You know that in rock and roll heaven you get to listen to Bob's music all day. The playlist up there has every song he every song he ever recorded, every outtake, and every song he didn't record but really should have. It's like Tulsa, but better! I appreciate getting a little taste of that down here, but a true believer shouldn't mind waiting to experience Bob's full glory on the other side.

If you can't listen to Bob in heaven, I definitely don't want to be there.

Nice thoughts.

I could not disagree more. It's no masterpiece. It isn't a patch on Jokerman. People are getting carried away. It's ok, it's interesting, I'm glad to have it, but it would not have been a stand-out track on Bootleg Series Vols I to III.

Anybody noticed the similarity between...

"...You remind me of some old-time used-to-be..."

and

"...you remind me of something that used to be..."


Making a Liar/Something There Is About You

i kinda found it quite unique, in the dylan song collection...am happy its been unveiled, as i have a large collection,
this song was one i did not have a recording of.

Thnx yea, never occurred to me.

Given our political situation in the US, so many of these lines struck me as perfect commentary on the current President, and especially on his false promises. The second verse leapt out oat me. Obviously, that was not the original subject of the song, so it is not "about" that, but at the least it goes to show the genius of how Bob's music can apply to whatever is on one's mind. I cannot help but wonder, however, despite Bob's resolute avoidance of politics, if the decision to include it on this collection could be more than serendipitous.

Guys- Let's be honest- it's so good.

This is what we've all been wanting from our man. A instant classic uncirculated gem. It's like the yard sale Declaration of Independence.

I generally loathe the gospel period- but this knocked me on my ass,and it's been since "up to me" when that last happened. Can't believe I'm saying it, but excited about hearing the rest.

sounds like Van Morrison chords, can't place that tune but sounds in the family of "Lifetimes" from the album "Wavelength"

VAN MORRISON : "LIFETIMES" (1978) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmAswq_FqKQ



Feels like a revisit of the New York version of Idiot Wind exploration of longer presentational sentencing
with a Van Morrison arrangement, but everyone hears different

This song is about Christ, not any mortal man. Dylan wouldn't endorse the previous POTUS when very strongly pressed a few years back, why would he voluntarily lower himself to this kind of thing now? Your type of Dylan left the scene in 1963. He has, apart from specific cases of perceived racial injustice, avoided domestic politics since apart from the general apocalyptic sense implied in such albums as Infidels (Union Sundown is an anti-globalism tirade derived from Revelation, for example) and Slow Train Coming.

There is a political section on ER if you wish to debate a man whom Dylan has expressed admiration for in interview.

Dylan spoke out in support of Jimmy Carter. He played at Bill Clinton's inauguration. He repeatedly mentioned his admiration for Obama's books. He was on the platform with Martin Luther King when King made his most famous speech. His work, particularly his 60s work, is unmistakably political and specifically liberal in slant. He was a key component of the 60s counter culture and a massive force in favour of civil rights. To remove the political dimension from Dylan is like trying to unmix a gin and tonic. It's bullsh1t.

And Dylan stated in Chronicles "My favorite politician was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater..."

His positive comments about Trump were more in response to Trump's business persona than his political views I think but admittedly, Bob and I haven't discussed that yet. If it comes up in conversation anytime soon I'll report back.

Sometimes it's about whether to rock or rip this joint

This one does neither

All that you've said above proves nothing more than that Dylan accepts a lot of invitations. He might have said something in support of Jimmy Carter, that doesn't mean any more than saying in his autobiography that the politician he most admires is Barry Goldwater.

Secondly, you are not taking into account the meaning of My Back Pages where he severs his connection with the liberals. 'Rip down all hate I screamed', was the past. He declared he was 'younger than that now'.

He's also on record expressing a wish to shoot hippies and the evidence is that he supported the Vietnam War (Happy Traum and Elliot Landy). He definitely expressed contempt for draft-dodgers (Joan Baez). The only Civil Rights campaign he supported was black rights and one doesn't have to be a liberal to support that. He certainly didn't support the liberal causes in those 1979 raps and he hasn't shown much support for feminism over the years, if his song lyrics are anything to go by.

What is specifically liberal about his work after 1964? Or, in the case of most of it, before then?

I don't believe you. You're going to be too busy talking to him about Christmas In The Heart II.

If you're capable of asking that question, then you would never understand the answer.

Um... First, I very clearly said the song is not "about" Trump. Second, I don't think one can possibly say that the song is "about" Christ (the "you" in the song cannot be Christ), though it could certainly be about man's relationship with Christ.

I also specifically said that Bob resolutely avoids politics. That said, we also know that he is frequently indirect and sly in his allusions.

The point my post was making was simply that like any good poem, this song can be interpreted anew in light of the present day, and therefore I wondered if anyone involved in the album shared that thought when choosing the selection, or, more germanely, if anyone here had had a similar reaction. It seemed to fit in this thread because I am not interested in hypothesizing about what Bob himself thinks of Trump today, but only whether any others here shared my reaction. I apologize if you think it was not the appropriate thread.

There is a very long poetic history of blurring the lines between the sacred and the secular. In Medieval France, for example, songs to the Virgin Mary frequently adapted courtly love songs. There is equally a long poetic history of a poem gaining new resonance in light of a later event. The reason art and literature remain relevant decades or centuries after their creation is because people find new relevance in works with each generation. Nothing about the initial meaning of the song or its creation during the Gospel period excludes its applicability to a different situation now.

Try me. Of course, neither of us has offered one another our definition of 'liberal', which should be the starting point. For me, the primary theme of Dylan's pre-1964 folk material was justice. His songs display a strong consciousness of right and wrong and the systemic societal structures that generated injustice. If, by liberalism, one means an ideology based on Marxist dialectics, I disagree that those songs of Dylan's are 'liberal' in that sense. Songs of underdogs and (mostly British) injustice have been commonplace since time immemorial here in Ireland and the notion of liberalism would have been unknown. Not to mention that Dylan was quite influenced in his songwriting style of the time by The Clancys and various Irish rebel tunes.