Posted on 04/13/2009 8:04:27 PM PDT by pissant
Bob Dylan, the poet laureate of rock music, has written some of the greatest songs of all time. Whether in the form of a send-off to a former friend, a protest song, or a feel-good ballad immortalizing a good relationship, Dylan consistently delivers interesting, often timeless music. The following is a list of some of Dylan's best from early in his career.
10) Lay Lady Lay, on the country music album Nashville Skyline, features a softer-voiced Bob Dylan (he had temporarily quit smoking during his recuperation from a near-fatal motorcycle accident). It is a very interesting and very, well, strange song. At once haunting and tender, it is one of his best. One thing about Bob D: his most impressive or hardest-hitting songs, rhetorical-wise, are about women. Lay Lady Lay is one of the tender, mellow ones. More on this later.
9) Masters of War (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan), is an unabashed protest song. No rhetorical or lyrical pussy-footing here. Dylan lays out exactly how he feels about war and the concomitant wartime profiteers. No oblique or cryptic lyrics to be found in this song. It resonates today.
8) Ballad of a Thin Man on Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan's second electric album. People did not know how to take it. The lyrics are about as cryptic and surrealistic as you can get, yet are interesting and make sense, sort of. Pounding piano and a strong organ riff carry the song, but amidst the whirlpool of sound, Dylan's delivery and timing shine.
7) Blowing in the Wind (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan), perhaps Dylan's most famous song, is a cry for peace, love, and equality in the generalized, vague, and all-encompassing vein of John Lennon's later Imagine. I mention it because it is a great song and one worth listening to.
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Dylan saved the best for last on the Vol. 8 collection -- that's the highlight of the album, imo. And yep, the alt. take of Series of Dreams is superior to the Oh Mercy version.
As long as I don’t have to look or listen to him, I don’t care!
I saw him do an acoustic version in the late 80s that was incredible as well.
And you don’t ping me????
B^(
But judging by the outtakes of Oh Mercy, that should have been a double album. Same with Infidels. But the up side is we get “new” music later in the collections.
One More Cup Of Coffee and Hurricane from the lp Desire.
Damn SISU, I didn’t even remember you were a Dylan fan. In fact, I see you so seldom here I thought maybe you got purged during Rudygate. LOL.
How are things in the wetlands?
Many cover Dylan. Few add anything of substance.
Except for Jimi’s “All Along The Watchtower” :)
While I like U2’s and Guns N Roses’ take on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, only Dylan’s original can properly serve the score for Slim Picken’s dying scene in “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid”.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways,
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’,
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’,
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Very much so, personally.
After my ex left, pretty much nobody bothered calling me to see how I was or anything.
About 3 months later, a ‘man in a long black [biker] coat’ came along and I just “disappeared” with him.
She never said nothing
There was nothing she wrote.
She gone with the man
In the long black coat.
:)
YOU don’t ping ME any more, either!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!.....:-((
One more Cup of Coffee is great. The only one I can do without on Desire is Joey. Sara is pretty awesome though.
Dylan, whose voice was once described in Rolling Stone magazine (I think) as sounding like a cow with its head caught between fence posts -— is proof that a Great Rock & Roll singing voice is not necessarily a *great* voice :)
Darn right. Amazing song, the original.
Maybe I’m nuts here buy I really like “If Not For You.” I suppose because it touches my life experience so deeply.
Wet of course! No...I’ve been lurkin’ mainly...(went thru the big D last summer and slowly collecting my life again!
8^)
Amazing that he was so young when he wrote that. It’s the poetry of world weary man.
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