Tiny Tribe Picks Bob Dylan Shelter from the Storm - The Monday Morning Memo

Bob Dylan’s song “Shelter from the Storm” contains several references to Christ:

The narrator as Christ

The narrator is both God and man, and some say the lyrics imply that he is Christ himself. For example, the narrator says, “I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form,” which alludes to Christ’s 40 days in the desert. The narrator also uses the phrase “I got my signals crossed,” which hints at his death by crucifixion.

The fifth verse

The fifth verse includes the line, “Suddenly I turned around/And she was standing there/With silver bracelets on her wrist/And flowers in her hair/She walked up to me so gracefully/And took my crown of thorns”.

The contrast between the realm of the soul and the visible world

The song includes the line, “Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount”. The deputy is likely to be Christ, and the preacher could also be Christ.

Following Jesus

The song includes the line, “In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes. I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose”.

“Shelter from the Storm” was recorded in 1974 and released on Dylan’s 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks, in 1975.

“Supporters of strongmen . . . are genuinely baffled when told that electoral victory doesn’t grant them unlimited power. Instead, they see any check on the power of an elected government as undemocratic. However, democracy doesn’t mean majority rule; rather, it means freedom and equality for all. Democracy is a system that guarantees everyone certain liberties, which even the majority cannot take away.

Nobody disputes that in a democracy the representatives of the majority are entitled to form the government and to advance their preferred policies in myriad fields. If the majority wants war, the country goes to war. If the majority wants peace, the country makes peace. If the majority wants to raise taxes, taxes are raised. If the majority wants to lower taxes, taxes are lowered. Major decisions about foreign affairs, defense, education, taxation, and numerous other policies are all in the hands of the majority.

But in a democracy, there are two baskets of rights that are protected from the majority’s grasp. One contains human rights. Even if 99 percent of the population wants to exterminate the remaining 1 percent, in a democracy this is forbidden, because it violates the most basic human right—the right to life. The basket of human rights contains many additional rights, such as the right to work, the right to privacy, freedom of movement, and freedom of religion. These rights enshrine the decentralized nature of democracy, making sure that as long as people don’t harm anyone, they can live their lives as they see fit.

The second crucial basket of rights contains civil rights. These are the basic rules of the democratic game, which enshrine its self-correcting mechanisms. An obvious example is the right to vote. If the majority were permitted to disenfranchise the minority, then democracy would be over after a single election. Other civil rights include freedom of the press, academic freedom, and freedom of assembly, which enable independent media outlets, universities, and opposition movements to challenge the government. These are the key rights that strongmen seek to violate. While sometimes it is necessary to make changes to a country’s self-correcting mechanisms—for example, by expanding the franchise, regulating the media, or reforming the judicial system—such changes should be made only on the basis of a broad consensus including both majority and minority groups. If a small majority could unilaterally change civil rights, it could easily rig elections and get rid of all other checks on its power.”

- Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (2024)