Bob Dylan / 3:55
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Charlie McCoy: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: October 17, 1967
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineer: Charlie Bragg
For this piece, Bob Dylan was inspired by and paraphrases “Joe Hill,” a poem written by Alfred Hayes in 1936 and set to music by Earl Robinson. The first two couplets of the song, “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night / Alive as you and me,” are practically identical to Dylan’s song. In this song, the dream is not of the union organizer Joe Hill, viewed as a martyr after he was convicted on weak evidence and sentenced to death in 1915, but of St. Augustine. Dylan’s St. Augustine is far from the bishop-philosopher of the fourth century, who was never martyred. St. Augustine, born in Tagaste (now Souk Ahras in Algeria) converted to Christianity in 354 at the age of thirty-three, after a debauched youth redeemed by grace, and became one of the great Christian philosophers. Dylan is interested in this idea of the Christian philosopher. For his whole life Augustine bore a sense of guilt that carried at the same time a sense of hope and was foreign to any form of Manichaeism. He believed that God, via Christ, intervened on earth for the redemption of humanity.
In the song, St. Augustine, wearing “a coat of solid gold” and “searching for the very souls / Whom already have been sold,” may denounce the wealth of institutionalized religions, while the fathers of the Church preach poverty and asceticism. When Dylan sings “Oh, I awoke in anger / So alone and terrified / I put my fingers against the glass / And bowed my head and cried,” it is about somehow returning to the precepts of St. Augustine, to feelings of humility and guilt.
The American singer and guitarist Joseph Arthur remembers being impressed listening to the song. “When I first heard this, it blew my mind. First it was the production, so stripped down and bare, so radically different to what he had done before. Then there was the lyric which revealed him to be so vulnerable. I took the St. Augustine character to be a metaphor for Dylan himself, him feeling this immense guilt and this was killing him somehow.”56 Maybe Dylan simply wanted to point out the parallel between St. Augustine’s debauchery, followed by years of redemption, and his own exalted rock-star status, called into question by his motorcycle accident.
Dylan recorded “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” during the first session of the LP John Wesley Harding on October 17, 1967. Four takes were made; only the first was interrupted. The last take was chosen for the album. The song is a pensive ballad, harmonically close to Earl Robinson’s folk song. Joan Baez and Pete Seeger both included the title in their repertoire; it is probably through them that Dylan discovered Joe Hill. The atmosphere of “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” is serene, despite a very tormented lyrical content. Dylan sings with a fragile expression in his voice, enhanced by a strong reverberation. He played harmonica (in F) and guitar by strumming, and was backed on rhythm by Charlie McCoy and Kenneth Buttrey, with the same formula for the orchestration and delivery. McCoy played bass with a more sober tone than on the previous two titles on the album.
Dylan performed “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” for the first time live in a slow waltz arrangement at the Isle of Wight Festival on August 31, 1969. He also played the song live on the Rolling Thunder Revue (1975–1976), and later with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the 1980s.