Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: oldhippie
Date: 04 May 20 - 03:27 PM

My favorite, Desolation Row, is ranked #5, I'm good with that.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: JHW
Date: 04 May 20 - 03:46 PM

Thanks for the reminder. Alternatively I have 'Younger than that now' CD. 30 and more songs by Bob Dylan but sung by other people.
Favourite track Not Dark Yet sung by Steve Philips at the Grosvenor, Robin Hood's Bay. I shall go downstairs and play it.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jo-Jo
Date: 04 May 20 - 03:47 PM

Correction Talking WW3 Blues.
Two songs which might be considered rubbish are: All the Tired Horses - the same line repeats all thru, but I love it!
The other: Wigwam, this is a 'song' consisting just of La La's but again I love it. Only Dylan could get away with that. The true test is that ppl STILL buy his music, made him very rich - wish I could do that!
My Faves list above is by no means exhaustive. Like Marmite you either hate or love Dylan.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 May 20 - 04:20 PM

What about the Christmas one!

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 04 May 20 - 05:31 PM

I’m not sure I understand the point about cliches in ‘Blowing in the Wind’, but do agree it has some flaws, and is only considered a great song because it had a great impact, appearing at a pivotal moment in music and politics. Verse One poses three questions of which two are bland and seemingly innocent, but the third is suddenly much darker. However, the next two verses don’t quite follow that pattern, and mix up the inoffensive questions and the ones packing a punch. Check out ‘Don’t Think Twice’ where each verse has a closing rhyming triplet, descending from an inoffensive comment to a great put down on the third line - I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul, you just kind of wasted my precious time, etc.

But overall, his output puts most modern songwriters to shame, bearing in mind he has discarded many songs that are better than many others could produce - Waggon Wheel, Abandoned Love, Up to Me, Series of Dreams, Wanted Man, Blind Willie McTell, Love is Just a Four Letter Word, etc, etc. You could probably produce an alternative list of fifty great songs he himself didn’t think were good enough to keep.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 May 20 - 05:48 PM

Check out ‘Don’t Think Twice’ where each verse has a closing rhyming triplet, quote,
dylan did not write most of that that it was written by paul clayton
dylan settled out of court, alittle bit of plagiarism by bobbie there

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 May 20 - 05:52 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTZ_hMiI8Tg good old bobbie nicking other peoples work,plagiarist

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 04 May 20 - 05:57 PM

Bob Dylan clearly took "inspiration" from this song to write the words and music of "Don't think twice, it's all right".    And,, he paid a good amount later on to Clayton
the controversy was due to the fact that Dylan copyrighted the tune is his own name, with no mention that he'd taken the melody from Paul Clayton, nor any reference to to the negro song that originally inspired Clayton's song.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: gillymor
Date: 04 May 20 - 06:43 PM

"You could probably produce an alternative list of fifty great songs he himself didn’t think were good enough to keep."
Good point, Jerry. He also gave McGuinn the opening line of what became "The Ballad of Easy Rider".

The Guardian article is pretty interesting to me with tidbits about
the songs but I notice the author also left out another of my favorites "Down in the Flood".

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 04 May 20 - 06:49 PM

Well, I never said he’d written ‘Don’t Think Twice’, and as for plagiarism, yes many of his early songs are rewrites of other songs or melodies (eg Fare Thee Well, Hollis Brown, Hard Rain, Girl From the North Country, Ballad in Plain D, Farewell Angelina, Bob Dylan’s Dream, Song to Woody, Masters of War, and even Blowing in the Wind). The chord sequence to ‘Twice’, and it’s implied melody, is a standard ragtime song pattern, which I agree can be traced back beyond Paul Clayton to black blues songsters.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: RTim
Date: 04 May 20 - 07:37 PM

If Masters of War is NOT in the top 50 listed (which it isn't..)...then I don't think you should take that list for much...IMO

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 20 - 01:59 AM

ballad in plain d is poor ,what is it supposed to be a rewrite of?.
borrowing a trad tune is one thing, taking somebody elses composition and calling it your own is plagiarism.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: Allan Conn
Date: 05 May 20 - 02:58 AM

So many great songs on that list but even more great songs left off. It is all personal opinion of course. For instance "Blood On The Tracks" ia a wonderful album and I know "Idiot Wind" is widely lauded as a highlight on the album and it is on the list at #3 here for best Dylan songs. It is though for me one of my least favourite tracks on that album. Maybe it is more the delivery of the song that I don't get so much as I have heard an alternative more laid back stripped down version and actually really liked that. Other great songs from that period though not that album would include "One More Cup Of Coffee" which I love.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 05 May 20 - 03:03 AM

‘Ballad in Plain D’ uses the broadly same melody as ‘I once Loved a Girl’, and takes that first line, and twists a few later ones (‘are birds free from the chains of the skyway’) as a springboard for a largely new song. How far that’s plagiarism is a matter of opinion, especially when the original is presumably not covered by copyright anyway. He went on to be completely original though, after that initial phase of copying others.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,fasteddy
Date: 05 May 20 - 03:26 AM

Senor, Black diamond bay, Trying to get to heaven, Mississipi, Working mans blues....? Where do you stop?

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 May 20 - 05:17 AM

I got a good way through last night and knew a few more than I thought I did. I just did not recognise the titles. Listening while reading is not ideal but there were one or two I heard that were not up my street on first listen. I am reserving judgement on them :-)

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: gillymor
Date: 05 May 20 - 09:52 AM

I'd put My Back Pages way higher than 47. One of The Byrds best covers, IMO.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 20 - 11:38 AM

However despite my criticisms, i have to say that because of dylan , i discovered woody guthrie ,rambling jack elliott, and i belive through his popularity a lot of people were introduced to folk music and discovered other better folk performers

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 06 May 20 - 04:23 AM

Yes, quite so, but not just Folk performers, but also rock, blues, country, ‘Americana’, rhythm and blues, gospel, and even the ‘Great American Songbook’. We tend to be quick to criticise the folk episode in his long career, but that was only about four years out of about sixty as a performing artiste.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 20 - 07:22 AM

I was criticising some of his song writing[not all] but not from a folk perspective
from a song writing perspective as a popular songwriter RayDavies was more consistent, an opinion of course,but one based on analysis of some of his songs, my prefered are
times are a changing
masters of war
boots of spanish leather,
tambourine man
and this his best effort in my opinion
Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran a-plenty
But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty
In the north end of town my own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth my mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother
The iron ore poured as the years passed the door
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming
'Till one day my brother failed to come home
The same as my father before him
Well, a long winter's wait from the window I watched
My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut as I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner
Oh, the years passed again, and the giving was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born, the work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason
Then the shaft was soon shut, and more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Till a man come to speak, and he said in one week
That number eleven was closing
They complained in the East, they are paying too high
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down in the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing
So the mining gates locked, and the red iron rotted
And the room smelled heavy from drinking
Where the sad, silent song made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking
I lived by the window as he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
'Till one morning's wake, the bed it was bare
And I was left alone with three children
The summer is gone, the ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're all folding
My children will go as soon as they grow
Well, there ain't nothing here now to hold them

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 06 May 20 - 12:57 PM

I always liked that one too, although it’s not perfect. It has a few dodgy rhymes and some clumsy scansion in places, highlighted by the perfect scansion in preceding or following lines. However, its strength lies in choosing to tell the story of miners through a witness to it all, as well slowing down a jig tune (The Ten Penny Bit?) to a haunting waltz.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 08 May 20 - 03:13 AM

Oh no! Even more to choose from! Bob has announced a new album titled Rough And Rowdy Ways.

He has also released a single titled False Prophet, his third during the coronavirus pandemic, following on from Murder Most Foul and I Contain Multitudes.

All three tracks will appear on Rough And Rowdy Ways, which will arrive on June 19, according to Dylan’s official Twitter account.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 08 May 20 - 04:29 AM

I like Wheels on Fire (as per the Julie Driscoll version). Not everybody realises it is a Dylan song.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 08 May 20 - 05:48 PM

Wheel’s On Fire was one of the Basement Tapes collection, which he apparently didn’t intend to put out as recordings, so his manager touted a lot of those discarded songs for others to record. Songs like the Mighty Quinn, Too Much of Nothing, Keep it With Mine, You Ain’t Going Nowhere, If You Gotta Go, etc then provided hits for the likes of Fairport Convention, Manfred Mann, The Animals, The Byrd’s and others. As you say, many people wouldn’t know they were Dylan songs.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: gillymor
Date: 08 May 20 - 05:57 PM

The Band included a notable version of it on their debut LP, Music From Big Pink, though it wasn't one of my favorites from that great album.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 May 20 - 07:25 AM

rough and rowdy ways, bet zimmerman cannot yodel he is not much of a singer these days , now listen to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=073MdJzs5xU

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: gillymor
Date: 09 May 20 - 07:46 AM

Love is Just a Four Letter Word, not sure if it was mentioned here, is another good one that I don't think Dylan either recorded or performed in public. Joan Baez did a fine job with it.

Subject: RE: Bob Dylan's 50 greatest songs
From: Dunkle
Date: 04 Oct 20 - 10:15 AM

Didn't look at the list, but I enjoy Tomorrow Is a Long Time, Boots of Spanish Leather, Chimes of Freedom, Tangled Up In Blue...