And the people that confronted him were many...

The poetry and the meaning of the songs is brought to life by Dylan's cracked voice and the accompaniment of shimmering drums.

Dylan's gift is a tremendous outburst of pity for the suffering, who are represented always in highly stylized situations. A romantic aura surrounds the actors, heightening the spiritual insight of their actions. Of the love-songs on the album, two are suitably "distanced," and one, "I'll be your Baby Tonight," is sublimely simple.

Dylan has fashioned a new music to sing this enlightenment by, and like the lyrics it differs sharply from his previous songs. Just as a cascading piano was appropriate for "Queen Jane Approximately," so the new record is rightly driven by muted, subtle rhythms and complex interaction. Dylan and his regular drummer, Kenny Buttrey, seem to have developed the sort of perfect understanding that Bart Starr shares with Carroll Dale. In places all over the record, they groove effortlessly, as at the end of John Wesley Harding when Buttrey pumps the shutters, with Dylan wailing on harp.

The poetry is marred, as usual, by the ubiquitous rhyme but the classic Dylan singe at the end of a sequence still registers,

No one tried to say a thing when they carried him out in jest

Except of course the little neighbor boy who carried him to rest

And he just walked along with his guilt so well concealed

And muttered underneath his breath, nothing is revealed.

And he can sing beautifully. "Fourteen-carat gold in my mouth, silk upon my back." Listen to it.

John Wesley Harding is a satisfying album--mainly for Dylan's sake, because many of the songs are implicitly personal renunciations of the "narcotic of a subtle skepticism" that Pope Paul advised against in his Christmas plea for "Peace of Heart" in all men. Perhaps Dylan has found "Peace of Heart." And his record gives some hope to its listeners, a little strength of mind to face a grisly political milieu that threatens to overwhelm us. Cold comfort?