Gotta Serve Somebody
Bob Dylan · Slow Train Coming
Every life bows to something — choose wisely
What do these signals mean?
- Edifying: Points the heart toward God, truth, hope, or love.
- Worth Weighing: Real good and real concern together. Test it before you take it in.
- Take Caution: Leans toward what could dull or mislead. Approach carefully.
- Consider Avoiding: Celebrates what Scripture warns against. Little here builds up.
Weighed against Scripture
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Jesus states plainly that no one can serve two masters — you will love one and despise the other. Dylan's chorus is nearly a restatement of this verse in blues form.
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua's challenge to Israel — choose this day whom you will serve — is exactly the confrontation Dylan stages across every walk of life in the song.
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”
Paul teaches that whoever you yield yourself to becomes your master, whether unto sin or unto righteousness. The song's binary of Devil or Lord maps directly onto this reality.
Dylan sweeps through every rung of human society — ambassadors, criminals, preachers, laborers — to make one insistent point: no one escapes the question of whom they serve. The song doesn't moralize about lifestyle details; it treats them all as equally beside the point. What matters is the master. The repeated chorus functions almost like a sermon refrain, pressing the listener toward a choice they cannot indefinitely defer.
No profanity or explicit content. A few references to whiskey, drugs, and 'women in a cage' appear in passing as illustrations of worldly excess, not glorification.
The song's entire weight presses toward a single theological claim: no one is autonomous. Every person, regardless of status or wealth, is ultimately in service to either the Lord or the Devil. The framing is binary and serious, rooted in Dylan's Christian conversion period.
Written during Dylan's born-again period, this was a deliberate and sincere evangelical statement. The intent is to shake the listener loose from the illusion of self-sufficiency and confront them with the reality of spiritual allegiance.
When you picture the master you are actually serving day to day — not the one you claim — does this song feel like a warning or a confirmation?