4. Saving Grace

In an Expecting Rain thread about Dylan’s favorite lyrical themes, Ralf Sauter noted that he sees “apocalyptic imagery in a lot of his songs virtually from every decade. I would also add manhood, and being a man, especially in the ’70s. Street-Legal, to me, is essentially a backlash against the sensation of feeling emasculated.” 

Then, after a line break, Ralf added, “And salvation. Pure salvation.”

In composition and tone as well as lyrical matter, I think Saving Grace is the closest Bob Dylan has come to writing a traditional hymn, like Amazing Grace or Charles Wesley’s Idumea. But listen to Jim Keltner’s rolls on the snare, or Tim Drummond’s bassline, or Dylan’s guitar solos, and you’ll know it for what it is: a rock and roll hymn! Air and earth, spirit and matter, all muddied together in the shape of a hurting man, astounded at his rescue, ragged but breathing. “By this time I should’ve been sleeping in a pine box for all eternity…”

Saving Grace boasts a strange chord progression and a strange tune. For this listener, strange (or, in the words of Eyolf Østrem, “harmonically interesting”) is good: it may have taken Saving Grace longer than some of its Gospel set brethren to sink its roots into my heart, but once they made it down, they grabbed hold firmly and found themselves well-nourished.

My favorite of Dylan’s vocal performances in a recording studio is here on Saving Grace. Last I heard, Ralf Sauter shared this view, though it took both of us a long time to realize just how good what we were hearing was. In my first many listens to Saved, I took the studio incarnation of Saving Grace for merely a solid rendition of a song that (like another seven on the album) I had first learned to appreciate live, at the Warfield and beyond. Dylan tended to sing Saving Grace more dramatically in concert, throwing himself into particular words at unexpected moments in a way that, when I listen, forces me to stop whatever I’m doing and listen hard, then take a deep breath and shake my head in wonder. That level of vocal excellence is typical Gospel show fare, but on Saving Grace the strain of fire is especially raw and explosive. On record, the spark-chains don’t fly up quite so high or bright, but to make up for it, the entire vocal is nuanced and sensitive, tenderness and passion lying up one against another like cats curled together for warmth.

Seeing as my favorite Dylan studio vocal is an unconventional choice, I sat down with a notebook and hit play on Saving Grace, intending to note down my favorite vocal moments and list them here. By the time I got to the third verse, I had to put the notebook aside, because there’s no point posting a barely abridged version of the lyrics. The song doesn’t have a great many words, and they’re almost all sung brilliantly, with the tension growing as the verses are rolled out.

Saving Grace is a prayer, a confession, a dedication, a travelogue, a paean, a cry of pain, an outpouring of gratitude, and, in a manner of speaking, a landscape painting.

A prayer : the “You” in the first verse (versus the general “you” in the last) is, of course, the narrator’s God. And while the song soon veers away from the direct address that characterizes sister-song What Can I Do for You?, it never loses the character of a prayer. The opening words frame the whole. In a sense, the four verses that follow the first are the “apology” taking shape: for a real apology—especially one made to one’s own savior—is not empty words, not an offhand “sorry,” but the redirection of a life.

A confession : in the terms of Leonard Cohen’s Steer Your Way, “Say the mea culpa which you’ve probably forgot.” The words are meant for God to hear: “If you find it in Your heart, can I be forgiven?” I can see the devastation I’ve left in my wake, and without Your forgiveness, how am I to gather the courage to turn my back on it and keep walking, hopefully down a better road, and to a better place, and with a better, holier heart animating my steps and my thoughts?

A dedication : as in, I (the narrator) dedicate myself to You (the Lord). It’s not only that one single event has shaken me and now I look back upon it with awe, hoping that it’ll inspire me as I go forward (“Don’t let me drift too far”) : no, “My faith keeps me alive and I still be weeping / For the saving grace that’s over me.” I know that You are beside me. And henceforth I am Yours. “Wherever I am welcome is where I’ll be / I put all my confidence in Him, my sole protection.”

A travelogue : “There’s only road and it leads to Calvary.” That’s the road I’ll be walking down, “into eternity” (to appropriate In the Summertime) : “It gets discouraging at times, but I know I’ll make it.” Though the “saving grace” of the title is all around and all within, the narrator (like the one in What Can I Do for You?) doesn’t write off the darkness, the pain, and the hardship that will hound him (think Trouble in Mind) as he travels through “this world of sin” (to appropriate a phrase from a very, very different kind of song—Antonia and Paul Presti’s Jealous Daddy’s Death Song).

A paean : which is to say, a song expressing triumph—but because the victory is the Lord’s rather than his own, the triumph (over death, over hopelessness, over despair) takes the form of praise. I think that, as a whole, Dylan’s musical work throughout 1979 and 1980 was intended, in large part, as praise: and I think that’s part of the reason he worked so hard to make it great and beautiful. A believer’s praise oughtn’t be cheap, considering where, or to Whom, it’s directed. So Dylan gave it his all, foremost in his singing, which (I’d argue) was God’s greatest gift to this particular artist (although considering the absurd quality and variety of the live work since 1987/8, I’m beginning to think “perseverance” may well be tied with “voice” where such gifts and their fruitfulness are concerned. As the famous 2004 exchange with Ed Bradley goes, “BD: It goes back to that destiny thing. I made a bargain with it a long time ago, and I’m holding up my end.” “EB: What was your bargain?” “BD: To get where I am now.” “EB: Should I ask who you made the bargain with?” “BD: With the chief commander.” “EB: On this earth?” “BD: (laughing) On this earth and the world we can’t see.”). But if singing was where Dylan centered his praise, he had plenty left over to fill his writing, his arranging, his rhythm playing, and (momentously) his lead harmonica (What Can I Do for You?) and lead guitar (Saving Grace).

An outpouring of gratitude : well, just listen to the singing. And then look at the lines in which the narrator is amazed to find himself, after so many near-misses, upright with his heels on the earth instead of lying supine in a pinewood coffin. It’s “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe I’m alive” again, but in a different, and perhaps more lasting and meaningful context. And of course there’s great gratitude every time the refrain-phrase ends another verse.

A cry of pain : of gratitude, certainly, but also of pain. Again, listen to the singing: whether live or in the studio, tenderness is balanced with passion, and the passion is a mix of joy (for what has transpired) and sorrow (now that the narrator sees what exactly was missing in his old life). “The devil’s shining light, it can be most blinding / But to search for love,” (see Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, Desire, Street-Legal) “that ain’t no more than vanity.” Sorrow, joy, and also awe: “By this time, I’d have thought that I would be sleeping / In a pine box, for all eternity.”

A landscape painting : because where the narrator is standing, the world looks different. Thus we come to the idiosyncratic point that lends a hand in making Saving Grace my choice for #4 favorite Dylan song. Simply put, the landscape Dylan describes here, in which “As I look around this world, all that I’m finding / Is the saving grace that’s over me,” is the one I live in, too. I won’t account for it, since I’m not here to write about my faith. But my lived experience is that for all the evil and cruelty and sorrow at large in the world, nonetheless, everywhere I happen to turn, I find the same “saving grace” that Dylan wrote this song about. The image is not an exaggeration, not religious hyperbole. It’s just how it is: to the man in the song, at least, and to me.

Since Dylan was aware that the Warfield audiences would not be familiar with at least half of the songs in his Gospel set, I think he intentionally worked up the arrangements in such a way as to make sure each new song would have at least one undeniably captivating feature. So Covenant Woman had its melodies, Solid Rock its riffs, Saved its gospel fire (that piano!!), What Can I Do for You? the harmonica solos, In the Garden its epic “harmonic meandering” (Eyolf Østrem), Blessed Be the Name its singalong structure, and Pressing On its arrangement: Dylan on piano to begin with, playing solo, then dramatically getting up, leaving the piano behind, coming front-of-stage, and performing the second half of the song with the band behind him.

In Saving Grace, that stand-out element was Dylan’s raw and soulful lead guitar breaks. These cleaved to a pre-written form more closely than the harmonica solos in What Can I Do for You?, but nonetheless varied from night to night; and like the other song’s harmonica breaks, which pierced through the desolate cracked ground the narrator stood on (“How weak was the foundation I was standing upon”) to the molten foundation-waters beneath, the guitar solos in Saving Grace shook the ramparts of the castle in which the narrator had once thought to take his defense. There is no posturing in Saving Grace’s lyrics, but if anything, there is even less in the guitar breaks.