Dylan's 12 Best Songs

There was a movement a few years ago to nominate Bob Dylan for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

It would probably be a good choice, better than most in recent years. If the thought of Jim Morrison being “the best poet of his generation” is appalling, Dylan by contrast probably deserves that title.

His stuff is spotty, some of it wincy. He also lifts things wholesale; he is profoundly traditionalist, profoundly conservative, rather than an innovator. But the best is the best.

My personal, unordered selection of twelve favourite Dylan songs—an imaginary “greatest hits” album:


Gotta Serve Somebody - 1979

Relentless, hard driving, the soul of simplicity. It is the one Dylan song I most love to listen to, even though the lyrics are almost nothing at all. Though Dylan is most famous for his lyrics, here he shows that he doesn’t really even need them—he can do it all with one line and the music, if he chooses.


I Want You – 1966

Primal in the same way. Absolutely pitiless. What could be simpler?

“I want you,
I want you,
I want you
So bad”

Mr. Tambourine Man – 1965

Lovely terms like “the jingle-jangle morning.” It means nothing, and yet one immediately knows what it means. “Evening’s empire.” “The ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.” It’s primal in another sense: it captures something essential about the nature of art. The Tambourine Man is the archetype of the artist, and this is what he does: he takes us

“Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.

... 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.”

The saving power of art.


Visions of Johanna – 1966

Perhaps Dylan’s most poetic song. It captures the sense of lost love perfectly. Just get the opening line:

“Ain’t it just like the night,
to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?”

You can’t dislike it after that.

“Lights flicker from the opposite loft;
In this room the heat pipes just cough;
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off…”

“Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while…
But Mona Lisa musta’ had the highway blues--
You can tell by the way she smiles.”

Tomorrow is a Long Time – 1971

Again, just get the opening lines:

“If today was not an endless highway,
If tonight was not a crooked trail,
If tomorrow wasn't such a long time,
Then lonesome would mean nothing to me at all.”

The purest, the most perfect, of love songs.


You Ain’t Going Nowhere – 1971

Just wonderful nonsense verse:

“Genghis Khan and his brother Don,
They could not keep on keeping on;
We’ll cross that bridge after it’s gone…”

Absolutely none of it makes any sense—and the sense of that seems to be of being giddy with joy. Another feeling perfectly captured.


Blind Willie McTell – 1991

“Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, ‘This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem.’"

Like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” this one says something very deep about the nature of art; and also, in this case, about the nature of the world. I think, just because it was so powerful, Dylan was afraid to record it for many years. It came and comes too close to revelatory truth.

“Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell.”

To Ramona – 1964

This is a remarkable love song that also manages to work as a piece of philosophy. That’s a very dangerous thing to try to do. Dylan pulls it off.

“The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in trying
To deal with the dying,
Though I cannot explain that in lines.”

“I've heard you say many times
That you're better than no one
And no one is better than you.
If you really believe that,
You know you’ve got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.”

It Ain’t Me, Babe – 1964
Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright – 1963

These are a Dylan specialty—the anti-love song. Tinged with humour, extremely emotionally poised. Again, a very hard thing to do well, in poetry or song just as in life. Can anyone else but Dylan do this?

“I'm walking down that long, lonesome road, babe.
Where I'm bound, I can't tell;
But goodbye is too good a word, gal;
So I'll just say 'fare thee well.'
I ain't saying you treated me unkind;
You could have done better, but I don't mind.
You just kinda wasted my precious time;
But don't think twice, it's all right.”

Ballad of a Thin Man – 1965

This is theatre of the absurd as a song. And everything Jim Morrison and the Doors ever did can be taken from this one Dylan song.

“You raise up your head
And you ask, ‘Is this where it is?’
And somebody points to you and says
’It's his’
And you say, ‘What's mine?’
And somebody else says, ‘Well, what is?’
And you say, ‘Oh my God
Am I here all alone?’

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?”

And the tune is, in the way of “I Want You,” relentless.


Just Like a Woman – 1966

You just can’t beat the refrain:

“

She takes just like a woman,
And she makes love just like a woman,
Then she aches just like a woman;
But she breaks just like a little girl.”

Yes, he is a poet—and a good enough one to deserve the Nobel Prize. It is only a bias against pop culture that prevents it. But, in America, pop culture is the culture; and that is a good thing. It comes with real democracy.