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.
(Excerpt) Read more at associatedcontent.com ...
*sniffle*
/wipes snot
Okay.
[hope you’re doing better now....very sorry for your ordeal. been there, myself]
I Shall Be Released
The man was a God-send...literally.
I doubt I’d still be here if not for him.
My dad once made a boastful crack about being able to “fix everything but a broken heart”.
Hubby snorted and said “Yeah? I can fix -everything-”....:)
My favorite Dylan song: ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’.
Hands down.
Also: ‘Sara’ and ‘Girl From The North Country’ are in my top ten.
Bob Dylan - Just Like A Woman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUUk-dxO4mM&feature=related
Bob Dylan- If Not For You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adIDEhgsCS0
Whoa! Almost forgot ‘Buckets of Rain’!
Ahh, what the heck - - there’s too many masterpieces to list....
Dylan is old friends with Joan Baez, too. Dylan is non-partisan and about as libertarian as it gets. I get the impression that he doesn’t like politics or anybody associated with it, and I think he abides political simpletons like Seeger and Springsteen solely for their music, not their politics.
This is the 1986 tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The intro to the song is priceless and Dylan just nails it.
Wherein my team (Rank Strangers) currently is standing at #4 on the European tour.
Yikes, Lay Lady Lay is one of the WORST songs he ever did.
My top 10 (random order), though not necessarily as Dylan sang them:
Mr. Tambourine Man
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
Idiot Wind
Desolation Row
Gates of Eden
My Back Pages
When the Ship Comes In
Chimes of Freedom
Baby Blue
One thing I love about Desire is the backing vocals of Emmylou Harris. I was a Dylan fan long before I was a fan of Emmy’s. So there was this period of time when I was listening to Emmy but not really knowing it explicitly as she sang on Linda Rondstadt records and Dylan records. Later on when I figured out who she was her voice was already known to me, as I’d already heard so much of her backup work. And what a voice it is!
I’ll check it out - I was watching the version I think from No Direction Home - a young Dylan singing Visions while on tour in England. The drawing out of the words is obviously something Dylan clearly had in mind in writing and interpreting this song. You can tell it never happens by accident - it’s something that he very deliberately does. I think it’s a Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse thing to go along with the artistic nature of the song. Dylan is distorting, bending, shaping, twisting and elongating words, just as the modern painters got away from representational art as a means of getting to a deeper emotional truth.
Hehe. And the 0bama administration as well. There was an article in the British papers talking that seemed to ape the line “Puts her hands in her back pockets - Bette Davis style”. I read it as an implicit comparison of the current administration to the song.
" ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat ...." Maybe some FReeper will help me out (TIA)
“Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” could have been made into a movie.
AMEN
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