Previously in this series.
- Restless Farewell
- Long and Wasted Years
- Mississippi
- Foot of Pride
- Things have changed
- Angelina
- Visions of Johanna
Every grain of sand
“Every grain of sand” is an overtly Christian song, and is considered by most commentators a major part of Dylan’s conversion to Christianity. And hopefully, I haven’t made too much of the fact in writing these pages, but I am not a Christian. Indeed, I am one of those people who sees religions as being as likely to cause wars as to give us peace and harmony. And because our background thoughts and beliefs always affect how we see songs, I need to declare my opening prejudice even if many Christian commentators don’t declare theirs.
But my parents were both Christians and as part of my respect for them, now no longer with us, I try only to mention my lack of faith when directly relevant to the moment, such as I find it to be here.
Which raises the question, how on earth could this overtly Christian song be a “life changing experience” for me? For it certainly didn’t convert me. So I shall try and explain.
I think the simplest way to explain this is via the ultimate verse of the song…
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other time it's only me I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
I have, sicne first hearing this, absolutely loved the song, and in fact if pushed to nominate a few periods of time in which Bob was utterly inspired in his writing this era would be part of it with him composing one after the other,
It is not the only utterly magical sequence of compositions by Bob throughout his writing career, but it is right up there. And as for the fact that they are religious songs, I guess my answer would be that yes, but Bob had other magical periods where every song he tried was a masterpiece, and in some of those cases, it wasn’t the religion that did it.
Of course, that’s an argument that can’t be won or lost, but it does lead me to the thought that it might be interesting to consider any other periods of composition where, all Bob touched turned to gold.
And I particularly come to that viewpoint because I have a few times commented upon eras where Bob simply seemed to have lost the spark of genius when it came to composing.
I’ll leave that thought in the pending file for now, not least because having thought that this might be considered one of those brilliant moments in Bob’s creativity where everything he touched turned to gold, a review of the compositions makes me feel it doesn’t work. Take for example, “Groom’s still waiting…” – that is a song, but not a brilliant song. But then three out of four is still better than 99% of songwriters.
And yet despite my non-religious approach to life, “Every grain,” for me at least, is something else. And that is interesting for me, because for once I agree with Clinton Heylin who called the song “perhaps his most sublime work to date”. But the difference between us is that Heylin sees the song as the summation of Bob’s desire to “express what the promise of redemption meant to him personally.” I rather doubt that.
Maybe because I tend to pay more attention to the music than Heylin does, I don’t see that within the song, not least because the harmonica solo in the recording just simply does not fit into that vision. Heylin is, in fact, commenting upon the lyrics and the fact that Bob and the production team clearly took more time than normal to get the full musical sound just right for the meaning of the lyrics. Indeed, only that harmonica solo (which couldn’t be touched because that was pure Bob) seems out of touch with the meaning to me. (In my view, someone should have told Bob, but by that stage I suspect he was the only musical authority in the studio.)
Bob has played the song nearly 500 times in concert – the most recent being just a few weeks before I sat down to write this article in June 2026, And I might be wrong on this, but the only song from the 1980s that Dylan composed and which has been sung more often on stage is Silvio – and that only by a small number of performances.
Indeed, since in recent times Bob primarily performs songs that are well-known and well-loved, this does give us a real insight into Bob’s feelings for this song. It is something like the 36th most regularly performed song in Bob Dylan concerts across the ages. Which suggests, if nothing else does, that he really values it.
Perhaps the reason for this is that the song itself seems to offer some reflection upon Bob’s own life, as he looks back to
the time of my confession the hour of my deepest need
and is thus one of those rare moments where Bob not only looks back at himself and considers what he was and what he went through but also finds the music to fit.
As a result, the lyrics don’t in any way dismiss his period of conversion to Christianity, but simply recognise it was there.
The commentator on the Genius website suggests that “Dylan puzzles over the dilemma of whether his disappointments, temptations, failings, and triumphs were due to his actions alone or ordained by God’s delivering hand, but I’ve never seen it that way, perhaps because my own understanding of the Christian faith is that God gives mankind the freedom to act as He wishes or not.
For me, the key to this song is in the very start: “In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need”… Bob reflects upon his need and sees it very much as that – as his own need. In fact, he is lost – as the line, “There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere” clearly shows. And this is not the Bob that we know at all.
For even at the start of his career, when he expressed uncertainty, as in “Blowing in the Wind,” Bob put that uncertainty down to the fact that some things are simply unknowable. Not because of God, but in fact because they just are unknowable.
So this is a song composed by a different Bob – not a converted Bob but an uncertain Bob who has the rare ability to express his uncertainty in music and lyrics. For as he says, “Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.” Indeed, if that is not an expression of uncertainty, I am not sure what is.
And perhaps that uncertainty is exactly why I love this song so much, as well of course, because the simple melody and accompaniment work so perfectly with the lyrics. It is as if popular music has taken its full journey from being able to say “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog” through to saying,
I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times its only me I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man Like every sparrow falling, like every gain of sand.
And that is one amazing journey to have made.
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