Precious Angel - Bob Dylan
As you get older the number of Christmas cards you receive each year declines, not only because the senders are slowly popping off, one by one, but mostly because they feel more and more out of touch as the years go by, and you, for no apparent particular reason, just fall off their list, like an icicle dropping off an eave.
The images recur too, and tend to get more classical, more, appropriately, Renaissance, in style. This year and generally, ahead of the usual recurring yuletide images, ahead of the babe in swaddling clothes, the virgin Mary, the shepherds, the wise men, the red-breasted robin et al, is the angel, whether with Mary at the annunciation or in the stable, or en masse singing halleluiahs on high.
Bob Dylan, like all of rock 'n' roll's great artists, never stayed still, and was always confounding his critics. In 1965, he "went electric" alienating many who thought this was a "betrayal" of his folk roots. Although Dylan's songs were crammed with old testament style imagery, this combined with his natural irony and rebelliousness to make him the spiritual leader of sixties counter culture.
His 1979 album "Slow Train Coming", which effectively signalled Dylan's conversion to Christianity, was also a betrayal to many fans. How could the angry rebel, the cynical atheist, embrace the Church, which to most young Americans was synonymous with the establishment? Even the critics agreed and I remember, at the age of 24, falling in with them. And then I heard "Precious Angel" on the radio, and went out and bought the album.
They should have listened a bit harder. The anger is still there, the cynicism, the poetry, the despair. What more do you want from Dylan, the old troubadour?
Lots of people nowadays go to church just the one day a year, at Christmas, so they can sing carols. The tunes seem to be sweeter, jauntier, more beautiful than ordinary hymns, but perhaps they are really seeking the innocence their collective youth; or maybe it's our genetic memory calling, an unconscious yearning for communal singing, celebrating birth, the turning of the sap, the longer days as we warm ourselves by the night fire.
When I go, each year the congregation is older and more sparse, the organist more twisted and gnarled, the tempo less celebratory and more funereal, co-incidentally reflecting the tragedy enveloping the holy land today.
So, if you didn't make the carols this year, or if you did but it didn't work, turn the volume up to full, stand on your chair, and sing along with Dylan. Or shout. Or do whatever you have to do. There's fury here, there's hope, there's exaltation, something for everyone in these dark, dark days:
"Precious angel, under the sun,
how was I to know you'd be the one
to show me I was blinded, to show me I was gone,
how weak was the foundation I was standing upon ?
Now there's spiritual warfare, flesh and blood breaking down -
you either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain't no neutral ground.
The enemy is subtle, how be it we are deceived
when the truth's in our hearts and we still don't believe ?
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
Ya know I just couldn't make it by myself.
I'm a little too blind to see.
My so-called friends have fallen under a spell,
they look me squarely in the eye and they say, "Well all is well."
Can they imagine the darkness that will fall from on high
when men will beg God to kill them and they won't be able to die?
Sister, let me tell you about a vision that I saw:
you were drawing water for your husband, you were suffering under the law,
you were telling him about Buddha, you were telling him about Mohammed in one breath
you never mentioned one time the man who came and died a criminal's death.
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
Shine your light, shine your light on me.
You know I just couldn't make it by myself
I'm a little too blind to see.
Precious angel, you believe me when I say,
what God has given to us no man can take away.
We are covered in blood girl, you know both our forefathers were slaves.
Let us hope they've found mercy in their bone-filled graves.
You're the queen of my flesh, girl, you're my woman, you're my delight,
you're the lamb of my soul, girl, and you torch up the night
but there's violence in the eyes, girl, so let us not be enticed
on the way out of Egypt, through Ethiopia, to the judgement hall of Christ.
Shine your light, shine your light on me
Shine your light, shine your light on me
Shine your light, shine your light on me
You know I just couldn't make it by myself,
I'm a little too blind to see."
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