Bob Dylan / 6:03
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar (?)
Mark Knopfler: guitar
Barry Beckett: piano, organ
Tim Drummond: bass
Pick Withers: drums
Carolyn Dennis, Helena Springs, and Regina Havis: backup vocals
Harrison Calloway Jr.: trumpet
Lloyd Barry: trumpet
Ronnie Eades: baritone saxophone
Harvey Thompson: tenor saxophone
Charles Rose: trombone
Recording Studio
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Sheffield, Alabama: May 3, 1979 (Overdubs May 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11, 1979)
Technical Team
Producers: Jerry Wexler and Barry Beckett
Sound Engineer: Gregg Hamm
“Slow Train” is one of two songs (“Do Right to Me Baby” is the other) written by Dylan while on his Street Legal tour. Unlike the other songs on the album, this song contains no explicit allusions to the Bible, even though it was originally called “Holy Slow Train.” It is a protest song of a new type, because it criticizes an overtly nationalist ideal. The song targets American capitalists and protests against the inequitable economic system. Dylan rails against the unbridled and boundless malice embodied by unscrupulous businessmen (“Big-time negotiators, false healers and women haters”) who cause people to starve while “grain elevators are bursting” and have the power to turn people into “puppets.” The chorus, “There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend,” has two interpretations: the “slow train” could be the train of redemption or the train leading to madness and even the apocalypse.
At the time of its release, “Slow Train” harshly divided critics. According to Charles Shaar Murray of New Muscial Express, Dylan “has divided the world into Good and Evil according to the precepts of a narrow and fundamentalist creed.”112 Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone wrote that “‘Slow Train’ is univocally in the tradition of ‘state of the union’ songs that Bob Dylan has put on every record he’s ever done… [and] is nothing less than Dylan’s most mature and profound song about America.”121
A very strong performance recorded on May 3 (basic rhythmic track) allowed the musicians to show excellent cohesion and perfect instrumental arrangements. Musically, “Slow Train,” although a blues-rock song, has a reggae sound. The drums and bass create an ideal groove around which Beckett plays his piano and organ part (overdub on May 11), supported by the backup vocalists providing soul-accented harmonies, the Muscle Shoals Horns (overdub on May 10), and Knopfler’s guitars (May 5). Knopfler provides two rhythmic patterns, panoramic from right to left, on either his Fender Stratocaster or his Telecaster, and the lead guitar. He demonstrates once again his exceptional touch on his Gibson ES 335. Dylan’s vocals are excellent. They are almost close to the protest tone of his early years. Apparently, he does not play any instrument (if so, it is buried in the mix).