Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 18:49:22 GMT
From: Gary Dispoto
Subject: Re: cold war in Dylan lyrics

In article jweikart@mail.utexas.edu (John R. Weikart) writes: >On the CD "The Born Again Music" which is a Toronto show from 1980, Bob >does a little sermon (linking Do Right To Me Baby and Solid Rock) in which >he complains about having told an audience the previous fall that Russia >would invade the Middle East and not being believed. He says his >prediction was based on the Bible. Bob then points out that in the >interim between the shows, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. >

>The funny part is when he says that Russia invaded "I think it was > Afghanistan." >

>-John

That would be this sermon, from April 20, 1980, Toronto:

Actually I wanna tell you a story. We were playin' about four months ago someplace that was a college or a campus. I forget exactly where. Arizona I think it was.
Anyway, I read the Bible alot; it just happens I do. It says things in the Bible that I didn't really learn until recently, and I really mentioned these because there are higher learning people there, preaching their philosophy. So people can study all the different philosophies, of Plato and, uh, who else? Who?
Well, I definitely recall reading Nietzsche and those people like that. Anyways, in the Bible it tells a specific thing in the Book of Revelations that just apply to these times, and it says that certain wars that soon -- I can't say exactly when but soon anyway -- so that at that time it mentions a country to the furthermost north, and has as its symbol the bear. And it's also spelled R-O-S-H in the Bible.
This was written quite a few years ago. So it can't but be applied to one country that I know. But do you know another it can be applied to? Maybe you do. I don't know.
Then there's another country called ... can't remember what the name of it is, but it's in the eastern partn of the world, and it's got an army of two hundred million foot soldiers. Now there's only one country that that can actually be.
So anyway, I was telling this story to these people. I shouldn't have been telling it to them. I just got carried away. I mentioned it to them and then I watched. And Russia was going to come down and attack in the Middle East. It says this in the Bible.
And I had been reading all kinds of books my whole life: magazines, books, whatever I could lay my hands on anyway, and I never found any truth in any of it, if you wanna know the truth. But I said, This country is gonna come down and attack. And all these people -- there must've been 50,000...maybe it wasn't 50,000, 5000 maybe...I don't know maybe three -- 3000 -- they all booed. Everybody just booed; and it was the whole auditorium of people, I said, Russia's gonna come down and attack the Middle East. And it was Oooh! They couldn't hear that. They didn't believe it.
And a month later Russia moved her troops into, I think, Afghanistan. And the whole situation changed, you know. I'm not saying this to tell you they were wrong and I was right, or anything like that. These things that it mentions in the Bible I'm gonna pay mightly close attention to....ben a lot of previews of what Anti-Christ could be like. You had a preview: you got Adolf Hitler. Well, a preview?
Anyway, the Anti-Christ is gonna be a little different from that. But then he's gonna bring a little panic to the world. But he will eventually be defeated too. But you're still gonna have to be aware of these things.
You need something strong to hang onto. It was manifested inthe flesh!
Testified in the Spirit!
Received by angels!
Preached out in the world!

from "Saved! The Gospel Speeces of Bob Dylan, Hanuman Books, Madras & New York, 1990.

Gary Dispoto