[Closed] Bob Dylan - what's his best album?

Highway 61.

It's when he went electric, and someone in the audience in the Manchester Free Trade Hall haile dhim as Judas.

But Queen Jane is a magnificent song.

Freewheelin, Blood on the tracks, Blonde on Blonde and as above.
Also John Wesly Harding is great.

desire is great, so's blond on blonde

None of them - most over-rated artist of the 20th Century imo.

Blonde on Blonde & Blood on the Tracks for me

Blood on the Tracks, Desire

Depends on how long youve got!
I can only really comment up to around 1980 however:

You could start with "The Freewheelin, Bob Dylan" and go from there.
Almost every album IMO up to 1980 is a masterpiece, with few exceptions.
"The times they are a-changin" shouldnt be missed, "bringing it all back home" and Highway 61 revisited" also, "Blonde on Blonde" is also very good.
"self portrait" has some good moments"
"Blood on the tracks", "Desire" (my all time favourite) and "street legal" are very good.
Bit religious after that and IMO a musical low period, although a few good tracks including "shot of love"
From "saved" until more recently I have less interest in although "modern times" is quite good.

He hasn't written it yet

Modern Times, Love and Theft and Time Out of Mind for me. (Quite appreciate that isn't a classic selection.)

Please can someone try and explain what it is that's good about Bob Dylan? His voice is grating, his harmonica playing is awful, and his lyrics/songs are pretty average at best.

He also comes across as a cock in interviews.

Please can someone try and explain what it is that's good about Bob Dylan? His voice is grating, his harmonica playing is awful, and his lyrics/songs are pretty average at best.

He also comes across as a cock in interviews.

However, this is a thread for people who do appreciate his abilities and I happen to believe he is one of the most influential musicians of the last 50 years.

I would genuinely like to be proved wrong though - I know loads of people whose opinions I respect who rave about him, but I just don't get it.

I've heard all the obvious well known stuff, so is there any less famous stuff that might convince me?

Agree with Grumm. Dylan's voice is rubbish. A poor man's Paul Simon.

[i]I just don't get it[/i]

It is a matter of taste, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. I don't get on with the Beatles. For me, the "grating" voice has a rawness and a character which compels attention to what he's singing, and the sheer range and poetic imagination of his lyrics makes that well worth while. I haven't seen a lot of interviews, but I do catch Theme Time Radio Hour when I can, and again, the sort of rambling poetic fluency of the associations he makes between pieces of music and the range of his taste are extraordinary.

There's not a lot to be said for setting someone up as he Best Thing Ever, because it does over-do it, invariably.

My absolute personal favourite is Working Man's Blues, which gets a listen on quiet evenings with the light down and a whisky on the go. 🙂

already mentioned on the live albums thread - but the "Live at the Albert Hall" Bootleg (now available on an official CD, and actually recorded at the manchester free trade hall) is amazing. 1CD of Bob on his acoustic, and another electric CD with "The Band", complete with booing audience. Really, really good

Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61, Freewheelin Bob Dylan and Blood on the tracks are my favourite studio albums

You see, maybe it's a bad version - but I checked out Working Man's Blues on youtube and found this.

I seriously wondered if it was a parody. If I went to a gig and heard something like that I would really wonder wtf was going on.

I'm normally pretty open-minded and there's little that I really can't stand musically, but I just think he's generally awful. Weird.

p.s. [url=

Dylan being a cock in an interview[/url]

Street Legal is tops, especially Where Are You Tonight. Blood on the Tracks is also a personal favourite.

Grumm, That interview is excruciating!

[i]If I went to a gig and heard something like that[/i]

Agreed, that's a frightful version. The studio recording is much better. I've a mate who sees Dylan live a lot. He reckons the man mucks about with his own stuff for the hell of it, and rather thrives on annoying his fans live. 🙂

Ah the sixties. Anti-social behaviour, the degredation of the family unit, the increase in violent crime, the credit crunch, the west's selling of its soul to the east, the dumbing down of education, the existential angst of the priviledged baby boomer, and the withdrawn nature of their children...all can be traced back to this Bob Dylan interview.

blood on the tracks

I can understand that some people don't get on with his voice or vocal style but to call his lyrics 'pretty average' is mind boggling!

I've never seen Bob Dylan live and as much as I like his 60s and early 70s music I don't think I could face it

He does seem to love messing about with his material, melodies, arrangements etc - I suspect I would be dissapointed (see also Van Morrisson)

but to call his lyrics 'pretty average' is mind boggling!

Please post some examples of his amazing poetry then.

Did some one mention Paul Simon? That song thief? He'ed have been nothing without Dylan and even more importantly, he'ed have been nothing if Dylan had not met Martin Carthy.

Personally I really like his voice - but I can understand why others don't. His lyrics are brilliant, easily one of the best lyricists ever.

Thats a brilliant interview, hes being a cock intentionally, giving the interviewer a hard time and having a laugh.

Best albums in my opinion -

Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin Bob Dylan
Another Side of Bob Dylan
Bringing it all back home
Blood on the tracks
Desire
Street Legal

grumm, its fair enough to have different taste, I personally think The Beatles are over-rated.

A few of my favorites that you might want to try though -

Song to Woody
Motorpsycho Nitemare
I Don't believe you (She acts like we never have met)
Bob Dylans 115th Dream
Love Minus Zero/No Limit
One more cup of coffee
Don't think twice, its all right
Maters of war
Disease of conceit

Anyone who doesn't like Dylan should make sure their speaker cables are the right way round 😉

As with everything he has done, Paul Simon was being pioneering when he stole Martin Carthy's Scarborough Fair without acknowledgement. He anticipated illegal music file sharing by thirty years.

This thread made me go play some Dylan, Blood on the Tracks. So many good songs, Simple twist of fate, Your gonna make me lonseome when you go, Meet me in the morning. There all good but my favorite has got to be Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. Shelter from the storm, nearly forgot, superb.

Please post some examples of his amazing poetry then.

I wouldn't necessarily call it amazing but I do like Mr Tamourine Man

[i][b]Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin'.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Though you might hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin'.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind, it's just a shadow you're
Seein' that he's chasing.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.[/b][/i]

<Please post some examples of his amazing poetry then.>

I'm not really into quoting anything other than 'the life of brian' script, sorry.

... and the bezan shall be huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there will be a great rubbing of parts. Yeeah...

badnewz - Member
As with everything he has done, Paul Simon was being pioneering when he stole Martin Carthy's Scarborough Fair without acknowledgement. He anticipated illegal music file sharing by thirty years.

Well if you look at that way I supose your right, though I suspect he'll have not been the first. What I find is the real genius about Simon is that he got Martin Carthy to teach him the song before he stole it.

Right ok, those lyrics to Mr Tambourine Man are pretty good, nicely written. If they were sung by someone with a good voice they would sound great.

a couple of my favourites

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring, is livin' there, I hear
Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so.

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart.

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay.

I see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I've never gotten used to it, I've just learned to turn it off
Either I'm too sensitive or else I'm gettin' soft.

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she's passin' back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time.

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

Interesting, the lyrics work better for me written down than when having to listen to his voice. Still not sure about the 'amazing poet', 'voice of a generation' etc etc thing though

Hi Brooess,

My favourites are the pre-motorcycle crash albums and it really depends if you like the more folky early stuff or post-famous incident already mentioned above stuff when he 'went electric'.

My favourites are in rough order are:

Bringing it all back home; one side (in the old LP days) electric and funny the other folky and serious. Particularly like It's alright ma (Disillusioned words like bullets bark, As human gods aim for their mark,
Made everything from toy guns that spark, To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark, It's easy to see without looking too far, That not much
Is really sacred) and Bob Dylan's 115th dream

Blonde on Blonde: electric: Some great songs on there, Visions of Johanna, 4th time around (his p-take of the beatles Norwegian Wood) and Just like a woman

Highway 61 re-visited: already mentioned above, great tracks are Tombstone Blues and Highway 61 re-visited (Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son", Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on", God say, "No.", Abe say, "What?", God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but, The next time you see me comin' you better run", Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?", God says, "Out on Highway 61.")

and finally the Freewheelin Bob Dylan: entirely folky but great stuff like 'Blowin in the wind', Bob Dylan's Blues, Talkin' World War III Blues and 'I shall be free' (Well, sometimes I might get drunk, Walk like a duck and smell like a skunk, Don't hurt me none, don't hurt my pride, 'Cause I got my little lady right by my side, (She's a tryin' a hide pretendin' She don't know me)

Don't worry about the haters, they just don't get it. You have decided you like him so knock yourself out with the tracks above.

I just don't get him, never have done.
I know Lenny Henry did a radio programme on just this topic, but I remein unmoved.
HiS voice on his Old Time Radio Hour playing on the radio weekly (BBC?) is just %^&*() awful.

If they were sung by someone with a good voice they would sound great.

Maybe you prefer [url=

McGuinn's[/url] voice on this [ruined] version?

No I prefer the [url=

Shatner[/url] and [url=

Costner[/url] versions.

Try this - Cash and Dylan

[url=

Miles[/url]

[i]Blood on the tracks[/i] here.

Grumm! Wash your mouth out!!!!

My favorites are Blood on the tracks, Freewheelin', John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, Highway 61, I could go on.

He's important because he bridges the gap between so many musical styles of the 20th century, also if you've listened to his radio shows he has the best taste in music ever. Fact!

I understand what people say about his voice. He doesn't have a 'good' voice, however he is a great singer.

Grumm - the great poet thing is pretty much correct, if you read the odd bit of poetry then I think you should agree. As you say "works on paper".

"The voice of a generation" That the label he does not like and one of the reasons he'ed be very difficult in interviews. In other interviews done by people with no preconceived idea who or what is/was he is very open and genuine. I do recall seeing him interviewed by a guy for a BBC world service Africa programme and he was the perfect interviewee(?). Thinks in that film Don't Look Now(?).

Which album was Positively 4th Street on? I really like that song...

Another vote for the Freewheelin album.

Bob Dylan to me is just a great lyricist, I had to agree that his musical skills are lacking but it doesn't really matter when listening to him properly.

I'm with Grumm, never got Bob Dylan at all. Dull overwrought 6th form poetry sung through a nasally whine that could pass the test of a "Cruel and Unusual Punishment"

Also I'd like the jury to take into consideration that I can't really listen to Led Zeppelin without being strapped to a chair first, and Van Morrison is more or less un-listenable to as far as I'm concerned.

he has the best taste in music ever. Fact!

Agreed.

I must admit that my favourite stuff is mostly outtakes and live versions (i.e. Blind Willie McTell and the first electric Newport stuff) plus the proper folk stuff.

However album wise:

Freewheelin'
Bringing it all back home
Highway 61
Blonde on Blonde
Blood on the Tracks

I do like Street Legal and, somewhat bizarrely, Slow Train Coming...

Whilst I like Desire I'd not rave about it.

He is definitely an acquired taste. If you don't 'get' him I guess you never will.

grumm, you just really don't like him do you?
That's OK

I hate his harmonica playing. His guitar skills aren't great. His voice hurts my ears. He's written some shitty shite.......
I still think he's a master/genius.

SB

[i]The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan[/i] is one of my favourite albums by anyone, after that I would go for Highway 61.

> ransos - I don't think Positively 4th Street is on any albums except compilations

" Some people don't live or die, some people just float, so she went with the man in the long black coat"

Rhymes see 😉

Highway 61 Revisited
Blood on the Tracks
Oh Mercy