Dylan's greatest track

Submitted by tbirtwistle on 06th October 2005

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Watching Scorsese's documentary, reading Rob Cawston's article and other academic studies, such as Greil Marcus' recent book, all seem to highlight "Like a Rolling Stone" as the definitive Dylan song. Although a fan of all Bob's work it his early "protest" songs that hold most resonance with me. My favourite dylan tracks are as follows 1) The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll 2) Girl from the North Country 3) Boots of Spanish Leather I was just wondering what other people's opinion of this is, i'd be interested to know...

774 reads

justasongandanceman

6 October 2005 - 4:46pm

Hmm, an interesting selection. Whilst I would say that the early protest songs are good, when Bob moved away from 'finger-pointing songs' for me his songs-writing improved. So for me it'll have to be Its all over now, baby blue Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again Tonight I'll be staying here with you Alright

Robertcawston

7 October 2005 - 10:49am

This is clearly too hard a task and one that runs against attempts to resist boxing Dylan up into nice little packages. I don't think you can ever single out the most influential songs, the most poetical, the most groundbreaking. Dylan's back-catalogue is so broad that all I can say is these are my favourite Dylan songs at the moment. So, although I was tempted to go with Man gave names to all the animals, I chose: High Water (even though it was also chosen by Andrew Marr in one of the numerous recent Dylan polls) Visions of Johanna You're a Big Girl Now Ask me again next week and things will have changed

tbirtwistle

7 October 2005 - 2:21pm

My initial question wasn't intended as a way to reduce Dylan's body of work into a neat little package, but as a way of initiating discussion about what everyone's favourite dylan material is. My selections were in no way a concrete top 3, but are the tracks that i return to time and again. With all the new interest in Dylan created by the "No Direction Home" documentary perhaps our selections could be pitched to Columbia Records as the people's choice of his greatest hits. All in one neat little package! p.s other favourites include shelter from the storm, sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, blind willie mctell and idiot wind.

henry.powell

2 March 2006 - 10:44pm

Sometimes I find Dylan's words create a picture of a rather sour man; finger-pointing, and distant from his own faults and traits ("distant" is the wrong word - "uninterested" would be more appropriate. On the other hand some of his words I find beautifully succinct and touching. 'Buckets Of Rain' is a favourite.