Dylan's Evocative Declaration of Faith: I Believe In You

Warfield Theater, November 8 1979
Photo courtesy Bill Pagel

Bob Dylan’s “I Believe in You” stands as one of the most unguarded and quietly brave songs of his career. The third track on his Slow Train Coming album, it was written during his much-debated Christian period. It is not a sermon, a provocation, or a theological argument. It is a plainspoken, vulnerable, and resolute confession.

What makes the song stand out is its emotional temperature. Dylan does not present faith as triumphal or conquering, but as isolating and costly. The speaker is misunderstood, gently ostracized, even driven “a thousand miles from home.” The resistance he encounters feels social rather than abstract—frowns, closed doors, exile. Faith here is not rewarded with belonging; it creates distance and isolation. And yet the song refuses bitterness. Instead, it offers steadiness.

Musically and lyrically, Dylan strips away irony. The language is simple, almost childlike, but never naïve. Repetition becomes devotion: “I believe in you” is less a declaration of certainty than an act of persistence. Belief is something maintained—through tears and laughter, winter and summer, when being outnumbered or forsaken.  

What unsettled many listeners in 1979 was not merely Dylan’s Christianity, but his sincerity. Dylan had long thrived on masks, ambiguity, and reinvention. Here, he risks directness. The song’s power lies in that risk. It asks nothing of the listener except to witness a man choosing faith over approval.

The issue some Dylan followers may have had with this song, and his overt Gospel period in general, was this straightforwardness that didn't require any deciphering. It was all on the table, no sleight of hand in the lyrics. 

In retrospect, “I Believe in You” was not really an anomaly. For years he repeatedly incorporated spiritual themes in his work. (There are countless Biblical references in John Wesley Harding alone.) This song reveals Dylan’s lifelong preoccupation with commitment—ethical, artistic, spiritual—and the loneliness such commitment can entail. Whether one shares the belief itself is beside the point. The song endures because it honors the human cost of conviction, and the quiet courage it takes to say, simply and without apology: I believe.

For some, the problem was Jesus, who once said, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you." The visceral public rejection (by some) of this Gospel phase in Dylan's career corresponded with the rejection of his new Señor. Dylan's response to this rejection is detailed in the song "Solid Rock" from his follow-up album Saved. "Well, I'm hanging on to a solid rock." 

Dylan performed "I Believe In You" 259 times from 1979 to 2009.

They ask me how I feel

And if my love is real

And how I know I’ll make it through

And they, they look at me and frown

They’d like to drive me from this town

They don’t want me around

’Cause I believe in you

They show me to the door

They say don’t come back no more

’Cause I don’t be like they’d like me to

And I walk out on my own

A thousand miles from home

But I don’t feel alone

’Cause I believe in you

I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter

I believe in you even though we be apart

I believe in you even on the morning after

Oh, when the dawn is nearing

Oh, when the night is disappearing

Oh, this feeling is still here in my heart

Don’t let me drift too far

Keep me where you are

Where I will always be renewed

And that which you’ve given me today

Is worth more than I could pay

And no matter what they say

I believe in you

I believe in you when winter turn to summer

I believe in you when white turn to black

I believe in you even though I be outnumbered

Oh, though the earth may shake me

Oh, though my friends forsake me

Oh, even that couldn’t make me go back

Don’t let me change my heart

Keep me set apart

From all the plans they do pursue

And I, I don’t mind the pain

Don’t mind the driving rain

I know I will sustain

’Cause I believe in you

Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music