Top Ten Bob Dylan Songs

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Before he gets the death sentence for offending Serbs or Croats or Poles or whoever he upset, let's discuss the great songs of the Hibbing, Minnesota's second favorite son. (I'll always be a Kevin McHale man). 

 

It will be fun.

 

Also, I want to post a really lazy thread that will cause people to get ridiculously angry with each other.

 

Here we go.

 

1. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands - Just a gorgeous, hynotic, powerful song. It lasts 11 minutes but I always feel a little sad when that final harmonica solo starts.

2. Blind Willie McTell - It just shows how adrift Dylan was in the 80 that he wrote this incredible, cinematic song and then shelved it. This is my favorite kind of Dylan song - the odd little travelogue that crosses time and space.

3. Like A Rolling Stone - This has to be on here. It should probably be number one. It might be the most important song ever. I've heard it a gazillion times and still get a little excited when that snare shot comes in.

4. Tangled Up in Blue - Here is another odd little travelogue across time and space. I think this is his best song musically. The playing is just gorgeous. And his voice was never better before or since.

5. Visions of Johanna - This list could be all Blonde on Blonde. My second favorite song on that album. I just love everything here. The atmoshphere. The lyrics. The playing.

6. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Bob has written more great, mean, kiss off songs than anyone in history. This is the nicest one of those. It's also my favorite scene in Don't Look Back. Dylan has finally met the beloved new Dylan Donovan. Donovan and his mates are playing some of their songs hoping to impress Bob. Bob just throws this song out there, as if to say, "This is what I wrote while sitting on the toilet a few weeks ago."

7. Desolation Row - People who don't like Dylan think that every Dylan song is like this.

8. Idiot Wind - Meanest song ever written by a man to his soon to be ex-wife? Meanest song ever written by a man to his soon to be ex-wife.

9. Mississippi - This list needed some late period. Bob. This is my favorite late period Bob song.

10. Mr. Tambourine Man - I guess it has to be here. I mean, it's incredible. But I'm kind of bored by it now.

[rictus58]

I don't have a list to offer, but I say it would be more fun to list top 10 Dylan songs done by others. Since they usually do them better anyway

 

He had a song come out in the past year. Duquense Whistle. Not a great song..but man it's catchy.

[GoSkins0721]

Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I don't have a list to offer, but I say it would be more fun to list top 10 Dylan songs done by others. Since they usually do them better anyway

 

 

I hear this argument a lot, but I don't get it. The only really true example of this is Hendrix who took a weird, little folk song and turned it into an atom bomb.

 

Some of the Byrds' covers are really good.

 

But does anyone really like Turtles more than Bob? Garth Brooks? Hootie?

 

Here's the list regardless. (Note: I only listed songs I own)

 

1. All Along The Watchtower - Hendrix

2. I'm Not There - Sonic Youth

3. Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - Cat Power

4. Lilly, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts - Joan Baez

5. Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds

6. Maggie's Farm - Rage Against the Machine

7. One More Cup of Coffee - The White Stripes

8. Chimes of Freedom - Bruce Springsteen

9. Pressing On - Jon Doe

10. It Ain't Me, Babe - Johnny Cash

 

Damn, I just realized I left off Rod Stewart's Mama, You've Been On My Mind. But I don't know where to put it.

[zoony]

The chili peppers version of subterranean homesick blues is better

[rictus58]

The chili peppers version of subterranean homesick blues is better

As is Pearl Jam's cover of "Masters of War"

Neil young's "just like tom thumb's blues"

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

As is Pearl Jam's cover of "Masters of War"

 

 

Ugh. I don't really like that song, and I really hate that cover.

 

My favorite version of Masters of War is the incoherent version he did at the '91 Grammys. I love every single thing about that award presentation.

[Rocky21]

This is like a single disc of Zimmy's greatest hits. Can't Be Done. (But I apreciate the effort LKB)

[Predicto]

All of them.   The man is the closest living thing we have to Shakespeare.  

 

Well, no, that is way over the top.  But still, picking the ten best Bob Dylan songs is like picking the ten best Michaelangelo works.

 

Well, that's over the top too.  But I really do like Dylan, a lot.   Here's my 10 off the top of my head.  They are more the stereotypical ones than LKB chose, because I'm shallow like that.

 

1)  Like a Rolling Stone.   No song in history has lyrics more bitter and insightful.  

2)  Blowing in the WInd.  Pretty much the defintion of folk music.

3)  Subterranean Homesick Blues.  Did Bob Dylan sort of invent rap music too?  So good that even terrorists love it. 

4)  Positively 4th Street.  You don't wanna get on Bob's bad side.  He can slice you up like a total jerk.

5)  Maggie's Farm.   The worst high school garage band in the world could cover this song and it would sound clever and good.  I really love the ska version by the Specials.

6)  A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall.   Dylan ould have been perfectly at home writing and living 17th century England, except for that whole Jewish thing.

7)  Just like a Woman.   Beautiful and so sad. 

8)  The Times they Are a Changing.   Dylan had so many good protest songs.   This one captured the moment when the civil rights movement became inevitable.

9)  Knocking on Heaven's Door.  No, the Guns and Roses version is not better.  In fact, it's terrible. 

10) Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 - who doesn't like yelling along: "Everybody Must Get Stoned!" even though we know that's not what he meant? 

[Bliz]

Here's a pretty good cover, of a song I like a lot

 

 

some other good ones.

 

 

[gortiz]

god, why don't you ask me who I love more Art Monk or Gary Clark! I love the question, but it's impossible, it really is, being that his carreer is so long and changed up so much. 

 

Not one person has mentioned a song from the last 20-25 years and man there are some good ones ... I don't see any of his topical songs, The Lonesome Death of Haite Carroll, Hurricane?

 

Grooms Still Waiting at the Alter 1986

Cities on fire, phones out of order,
They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border.
What can I say about Claudette?
Ain't seen her since January,
She could be respectably married or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires.

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/grooms-still-waiting-altar#ixzz2md8HjHvn

 

Dignity (80's)

Fat man lookin’ in a blade of steel

Thin man lookin’ at his last meal
Hollow man lookin’ in a cottonfield
For dignity

Wise man lookin’ in a blade of grass
Young man lookin’ in the shadows that pass
Poor man lookin’ through painted glass
For dignity

Read more: http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/dignity#ixzz2md8mCpOe

[Elessar78]

Moonshiner

[Dan T.]

Some favorites that immediately come to mind.

 

- Shelter From the Storm - Sometimes when I send wedding congrats cards I Inscribe them "Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm. Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm."  And then I say a silent prayer that the marriage doesn't end like the song does.

 

- A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall - the best of his plaintive protests against the world as it was. 

 

- You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go - achingly beautiful.  And Shawn Colvin's version should be on that list of Dyan covers. 

 

- Tangled Up in Blue - snapshot of the backroads of the American landscape.

 

- Like a Rolling Stone - I always thought he was more powerful when it was just him, his acoustic guitar, and his harmonica.  This is the definitive exception to that.  I probably included this one because I was blown away by the interactive channel-surfing video just released a couple weeks ago.

 

- When the Man Comes Around. This is a Johnny Cash song written/spoken/sung by Johnny Cash, but I bet Bob Dylan wished he wrote it.  It's as Dylanesque as any Dylan song.

[Forehead]

I guess I'm one of the "uncultured."  I think Bob Dylan was a master lyricist but I can't stand his voice, or the half-sing, half-talk cadence he occasionally used.  That being said, I do really enjoy Blowing in the Wind a lot, but I think that's more because my father played it a lot when I was a kid and we were out driving somewhere.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

god, why don't you ask me who I love more Art Monk or Gary Clark! I love the question, but it's impossible, it really is, being that his carreer is so long and changed up so much. 

 

Not one person has mentioned a song from the last 20-25 years and man there are some good ones ... I don't see any of his topical songs, The Lonesome Death of Haite Carroll, Hurricane?

 

 

I like the Rolling Thunder version of Hattie Carroll. My favorite finger-pointin' song is "Pawn in their Game." 

 

I also put two post-80s songs on my list. And thought about adding "Highlands". So ......pffffffftttttttttttt.

 

Predicto is the one who listed ten songs from Greatest Hits Volume I and Volume II.

 

If it didn't have that terrible 80s production, "Tight Connection To My Heart" would be on my list as well.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

 

 

Well, that's over the top too.  But I really do like Dylan, a lot.   Here's my 10 off the top of my head.  They are more the stereotypical ones than LKB chose, because I'm shallow like that.

 

 

Little known fact: Every album on Predicto's Ipod is titled "Greatest Hits" or "Best of."

[gortiz]

I like the Rolling Thunder version of Hattie Carroll. 

Man, one of the best live versions of any song ever, so great. Nice call LKB. 

 

Mandolin, the guitar out in front of the mix, the bass line, the drums,  geez.  talk about searching for the sound. 

[gortiz]

I guess I'm one of the "uncultured."  I think Bob Dylan was a master lyricist but I can't stand his voice, or the half-sing, half-talk cadence he occasionally used.  That being said, I do really enjoy Blowing in the Wind a lot, but I think that's more because my father played it a lot when I was a kid and we were out driving somewhere.

 

man, you are almost there ... just saying you like Blowing in the Wind is like saying you are casual Skins fan and Gibbs's second run with the team was pretty good ... not knowing all about the first run!!  But I hear you .. .it's an acquired taste. 

[Forehead]

man, you are almost there ... just saying you like Blowing in the Wind is like saying you are casual Skins fan and Gibbs's second run with the team was pretty good ... not knowing all about the first run!!  But I hear you .. .it's an acquired taste. 

 

Well, for what it's worth, and this won't endear my any more I'm sure, his old tapes also had a lot of Joplin on them.  Same deal...I love Piece of My Heart, I appreciate how much Joplin threw herself into her work...her voice makes me want to stab my brain with a screwdriver.

[Predicto]

Little known fact: Every album on Predicto's Ipod is titled "Greatest Hits" or "Best of."

 

Little known fact - there's a reason that certain songs are remembered as "greatest hits."   

[Spearfeather]

In no particular order:

 

One of Us Must Know ( Sooner or Later )

 

Tomorrow Is a Long time

 

Knocking On Heavens Door

 

Isis

 

One Too Many Mornings

 

Tangled Up In Blue

 

Cold Irons Bound

 

It's Allright Ma ( I'm Only Bleeding )

 

Like a Rolling Stone

 

Lay Lady Lay

 

 

Some not as well known, that I like:  Band Of The Hand, Sweetheart Like You, Saved, John Brown, I Threw It All Away

[Spearfeather]

Here's a pretty good cover, of a song I like a lot

 

Isis - White Stripes

 

But this version, at the 4:30 mark is sooooo much better.

 

[Riggo-toni]

I don't have a list to offer, but I say it would be more fun to list top 10 Dylan songs done by others. Since they usually do them better anyway

My thoughts as well. Other than Positively 4th Street, there's not much he does himself that I can stomach. Love the Byrds covers of his tunes, both Hendrix and Dave Mason versions of Watchtower.

Still, it's kind of interesting to learn that Jakob's father made records....

[Chew]

knocking on heaven's door and like a rolling stone are some of my favorites.  brings back so many memories.

 

I haven't lived in DC for nearly 15 years...but wasn't the classic rock station 94.7? 

 

when I played in a gogo band, I would steal a lot of chords and guitar riffs from classic rock to play on my keyboard....and as you would expect, most folks in the gogo community had never heard them before.  they thought i was original.... LOL.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

My single favorite live Dylan performance will always be "I Don't Believe You" from the Royal Albert Hall show.

 

That smart-ass "It used to be like that; now it's like this" comment before the song pretty much sums up Dylan's entire touring career. I just love the way he stretches some of those words. And I'm not sure that any band has played any songs louder than the Hawks played those songs on that tour. I imagine the folkies reacting like the kids in Back to the Future when Michael J. Fox started doing the Eddie Van Halen stuff.