By Tony Attwood
No Man Righteous was included in Heylin’s list of “The gems that Bob Dylan discarded” which in the UK was published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
It was recorded for Slow Train Coming, but the recordings have (for once) been kept out of the public awareness. While the other two outtakes have become public (Trouble in Mind as a B side of a single, and Ye Shall be Changed in the first set of Bootleg albums (1-3) this one remains obscure. Only one recording by a fan recording a concert, lets us know what it was all about. I’ve put the link to it below.
And even that recording was by chance, given that Dylan just performed the song three times in 1979 and 1980. He did comment to the audience one night that the band was trying it out, and having done so he decided it would be on the album. But then it wasn’t.
So it is interesting that the three out takes, all come from the early stage of the work of recording Slow Train Coming. Dylan was clearly working his way up to the songs that he felt were right for the piece, and with the three outtakes out of the way, he settled down to the real business.
The Book of Romans in the New Testament, lays down the ground rules that salvation comes through following Jesus Christ. So guys like me, who basically try and live a decent and honourable life (and of course usually fail) can do all the good things possible, but without admitting the the Lord God holds sway over all mankind, and that Jesus Christ was his son, then, come the reckoning as described in the Book of Revelations, we’re done for. All the business of helping people is for nothing without letting God and Jesus in.
Romans 3:10 tells us, “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one” while Isaiah 4:6, proclaims “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags.” And that’s where Dylan starts out.
It’s a fairly upbeat, dance (or at last hip swinging) song but underneath it is what seems to me the dark heart of Christianity. For salvation I have to believe. It is what is in my head that counts, not the good deeds that I might do of my own volition. There is going to be no escape from what happens in the second coming unless I think the right thoughts as well as do the right deeds.
For as TS Eliot so clearly put it, “The last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” But then Eliot also said, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” That is the creative artist talking – we can never find out how to get things right, unless we take huge, huge risks. It is all a bit confusing.
So we come to the essence of this song. “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Psalm 14:3)
Dylan takes up the position from the start, so there can be no misunderstanding…
When a man he serves the Lord, it makes his life worthwhile
It don’t matter ’bout his position, it don’t matter ’bout his lifestyle
Talk about perfection, I ain’t never seen none
And there ain’t no man righteous, no not one
In short, I don’t stand a chance on my own, only by serving the Lord can I be saved because the Devil will “even work his ways through those whose intentions are good”. Which I have always understood to mean that the Devil is so strong that no matter how much I try to be a decent sort of guy, he will corrupt me. Only by declaring myself for God will I be able to fight the fallen angel.
Now of course some of the song contains concepts that I suspect very many Dylan fans will agree with straight off
Look around, ya see so many social hypocrites
Like to make rules for others while they do just the opposite
That’s the sort of thought that we were used to in the earlier songs – pointing out exactly why we shouldn’t follow leaders.
But at the heart of this song is the notion that we will all have to “account for all the deeds that you done” – which seems a sort of justice in itself, if not associated with the fact that we have to repent and follow the Lord. Repenting and trying to be a better person on one’s own just isn’t enough in this vision because the Devil is always lurking, ready to take advantage.
So in the end it is all so simple for the follower of this creed.
When I’m gone don’t wonder where I be
Just say that I trusted in God and that Christ was in me
Say He defeated the devil, He was God’s chosen Son
And that there ain’t no man righteous, no not one
For the rest of us however, it is so very tough. You can be as good as anyone, but without submission to the Lord, you, like me, are doomed.
Indeed as Dylan said at the very start…
When a man he serves the Lord, it makes his life worthwhile
It don’t matter ’bout his position, it don’t matter ’bout his lifestyle
Talk about perfection, I ain’t never seen none
And there ain’t no man righteous, no not one
Recent Posts
- “Man Gave Names to all the Animals” – behind the Bob Dylan song
- Trouble in Mind: a song Dylan clearly cared for, but never played in concert.
- “Ye shall be changed”; old song, old message, old testament, new religion.
- Bob Dylan’s “Do right to me baby”: Christianity but not as we know it
And elsewhere
- Index of all the songs on the site
- Dylan’s best opening lines: an index
- How Dylan writes songs, and other articles.
- Dylan’s songs in the order they were written.
- Bob Dylan open discussion group on Facebook. Or go onto Facebook and search for “Untold Dylan”
We all sin. Jesus died to pay the penalty for that sin. His sacrifice and love for us covers all of our sins. Because of this our joy is in doing the good that he gives us the mind, body and heart to do. By the way, it is more joyful than just coming from me and much more effective.
Hello Dylan fans, come inside Bob Dylan’s Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/457/Not-Dark-Yet and listen to all the great versions of this classic track.
I like your insights. I just think you should know why Messiah Yeshua/Jesus makes all the difference. When people do good deeds, they do so for self righteous reasons. Self righteousness is perhaps the most egrideous sin. When we are born again, God transforms us from sinners into saints by grace through faith, Eph.2:8-10. What we do after that is because of Christ in us. We serve Him, not to be justified or even for reward. We serve because it’s our new nature as holy ones to love others as He has loved us.
Amazing words and I believe Jesus Christ himself would approve of them. Relevant, and very true of the people and atmosphere in today’s world. This song from an icon like Bob Dylan whose music is loved and listened to by so many is a powerful and anointed ministry. I hunger to hear more of this from him Especially that which he is not yet written and pray he will revisit this spirituality because potentially multitudes can be delivered by his words. If you are listening Mr. Dylan I am sure you know Gods Grace and Mercy are still available for all of us, you and I included.
“A righteous person in Jehovah’s eyes is, not someone who never errs, but someone who is sorry for his mistakes and always repents.” (Rom. 7:21-25) So do not condemn yourself if you are struggling with a weakness. Remember that none of us can earn a righteous standing before God. We all need God’s undeserved kindness by means of the ransom.—Eph. 1:7; 1 John 4:10.
I think you have misunderstood the essential message of the song. Or maybe it’s just that I have another reading that seems to me potentially more interesting. You seem to take the song as saying “There ain’t no men righteous except the one who follows Christ”. But the song doesn’t really say that. The song very much explicitly says “There ain’t no man righteous, NO NOT ONE” (that’s four negative particles in a row, almost too explicit for a Dylan song). Maybe the verses in the Bible that served as inspiration for the song actually meant or implied “There ain’t no men righteous except the one who follows Christ”, but Dylan is clearly saying opposite, perhaps even amending them. I’m not a Christian myself, nor a follower of any particular religion, but I try to take any interesting concepts or values I find here and there. And to me one of the deepest lessons of Christianism (of TRUE Christianism, not the simplified version that atheists can easily contradict as a straw man) is that, well, THERE AIN’T NO MAN RIGHTEOUS, NO NOT ONE. A Good Christian is one who realizes that will never be a Good Christian, because only Christ himself could be a Good Christian, and we can’t be Christ himself for the sole reason that we are humans. We can try to be good people, and surely it is better the more we try and succeed, as I’m sure you yourself do in your life, but the thought “I’m a good person” just spoils it all. The same surprisingly Christian lesson you can get from The Rolling Stones’ “Saint Of Me” and from Kafka’s “The Trial”: if you have no doubt that you’re a good person, then you’re not. Indeed, one of the most anti-simplified-Christianism lines from Dylan belongs to this very song: “You can’t get to glory by the raising and the lowering of no flag”.
I completely agree with the line that says the Devil “even work his ways through those whose intentions are good”. If I help other people out of a need for recognition, or in order to take revenge on someone else, or for any other reason other than helping other people, I will be putting some kind of “negative energy”, “bad karma”, “seeds of conflict”, you name it, that will eventually turn my “good actions” into something counterproductive. Kantian ethics explains that very well, and though Kant was a Christian himself, he doesn’t appeal even a single time to the Bible to make his philosophical arguments.
The last verse, as is often the case in Dylan’s songs, completely twists the plausible expectations of the audience: “When I’m dead, don’t ask whether I might have gone to Heaven or to Hell, because, even though I had the strongest possible faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, I know there ain’t no man that’s righteous, NO NOT ONE” (especially when his credentials include being a “wicked messenger”, a “false prophet”, a “jokerman”, a “man of peace”, and so on). Or as Mick Jagger put it: “Well, I do believe in miracles / And I want to save my soul / And I know that I’m a sinner / I’m gonna die here in the cold”.
By the way, thanks for the overwhelming amount of information and interpretations that you all convey through this most wonderful blog!