Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead live-'Man of Peace'-Meaning of the Lyrics & Music

"I’ve been listening to two versions of the song – one from Infidels and one on a You Tube video with the Grateful Dead. The two are completely different. The Dead version sounds like a jam session with everyone doing their thing and Dylan calling out the lyrics without any care that we understand them or not. The album version has a totally different feel especially at the start. The riffs of the guitar are very carefully performed and engineered into the overall sound. As is the change of rhythm in the bridge – which after the first verse is lost – but then comes back again before the first instrumental break before vanishing for good.
In short we get a feeling in the first verse that yes, this is a standard 12 bar blues construction but with real variations and additional styling – but then after that first verse some of these finer points in the music are lost and indeed as time goes by more and more of them vanish. However this version never moves fully over to the absolutely standard blues of the Dead version. But what Dylan does do and what is impressive is to vary the melody throughout the song – it certainly adds a lot to the music and makes it, as a blues song, far easier to listen to than the more hard-core 12 bar on the recording with the Dead. But what on earth are we to make of the lyrics.? We have here an album produced by Mark Knopfler, a reference to Dixie in the second line, and immediately I thought, ah, “The Sutlans of Swing”, which, you may recall, played “Dixie double four time”, on the Dire Straits first album. And then... And then I got lost.The opening lines suggest a traditional Dixie band busking in the street for money from passers by, and then Dylan says, “Could be the Fuhrer, Could be the local priest”. Now since Dixie is Dixieland music – New Orleans jazz of which perhaps the best known early song is “When the saints go marching in” we have to pause here and think, what on earth have we got? We have a reference to Dixie, a sophisticated 12 bar blues, a reference to a busking band, and the Fuhrer and the priest, followed by the regular end of each verse: “Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.” The simple answer is, nothing is what it seems. The priest appears to be a man of God but one only has to look at the number of abuse lawsuits facing the Catholic Church to recognise one implication of Dylan’s lines. Of course the majority of priests are men of pure heart being honourable and decent, but clearly not all. But I am an un-Godly heathen, so I notice stories like that, which doesn’t in any way suggest that this is Dylan’s meaning. Heylin got to the same conclusion by a different route writing of “Narcissus the false Messiah, shimmering from the same stagnant pool” and quotes Dyylan’s interview in 1984 sayying “You can’t be for peace and be global. It’s just like that song “Man of Peace”. None of this matters, if you believe in another world. [But] if you believe in this world… you’ll go mad ’cause you won’t see the end of it.” Which takes us to Matthew 10:34: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword.” So the end is nigh, and we need to be careful not to be misled from this belief by any great works of humanitarianism. It doesn’t matter what you do, the beast will howl and the poor will rise up to inherit the earth, not through Bill Gates supporting charities but rather because of decisions taken long ago by God. It doesn’t matter what we do, the future is preordained. As Dylan later said (quoted in Heylin again) “People who believe in the coming of the Messiah live their lives right now as if He was here. That’s my idea of it, anyway.” And yet Dylan only performed a song which, according to the commentary above, 41 times between 1984 and 2000. With such an important message (at least for Bob, if not for infidels like me, seems a bit odd.
So we are talking about both the abuse of power deliberately, and the use of power to do good – which to me seem polar opposites and yet here are equally irrelevant. The second verse with its “gift of the gab” reference suggests that we are in a world of the storyteller. Which to those of us who don’t believe is what religions are – stories, no different from myths and
legends. Again, nothing is at is. It is also possible to evolve a meaning to the effect that the peacemaker of the world, the outsider trying to solve a major problem, is Satan. Indeed while I was doing the usual background work trying to get my thoughts in order on this song, I found a You tube video which plays the song, shows some of the lyrics, and then has pictures of President Obama. Hmmm…..
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[marakaretsos]

The Voice !!
Ecxelant Performance !!!!
🎼🎼🎼🎶🎶🎶🎼🎸🎸🎸⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[wandaschmitz]

I dont believe many people can totally understand Mr Dylans song...still love this song!..my favorite singer!!

[duncane.]

Like the song "Serve Somebody", if you're a Believer, you know what the meaning of this song is about. Satan is the master of deceit.

[rachelee]

Omgosh you've really looked into this song 😥🌈😥. You made me speechless for awhile. Simply for me this song is deep twisted in frustrating love. When letters and private thoughts of peace, unique unity in community were twisted and turned by people to mislead leadership and abuse the word of love and community. Using words of peace for control ownership and war not good. It's not a simple song and one I praise Bob for singing sometimes. 🌈😥🌈.
Forgot I'll have to check the extra links later 🙃

[Equipoise]

Can anyone think of somebody pretending to be a man of peace today 5 Jan 2020?