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To celebrate Bob Dylan\u2019s birthday, a galaxy of stars choose their favourite ever Dylan tracks.<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-517292968.jpg” title_text=”Bob Dylan Holding Bass Guitar” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
Picking a favourite\u00a0<\/span>Bob Dylan<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>song is in many ways an impossible task. This being Dylan, an artist who five decades in is still producing some of his finest work, a list of just 60 tracks means that some of the greatest songs ever composed might not be present (whaddayamean there\u2019s no Isis\/I Want You\/Mississippi?!?<\/em>). But by handing the choices over to Dylan\u2019s fellow musicians and songwriters, we feel we\u2019ve given a different perspective (another side of, if you will) on Dylan\u2019s craft and enduring genius. And these aren\u2019t just any musicians, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some of the names below played on and helped record many of the songs featured, while modern-day acolytes including\u00a0<\/span>Beck<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/span>Bono<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Lucinda Williams<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>have lined up to pick their favourite Dylan numbers.\u00a0The closest we have to the heirs to his crown,\u00a0<\/span>Nick Cave<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Patti Smith<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>reveal a fresh perspective on his work, while Dylan\u2019s one-time mentor\u00a0<\/span>Pete Seeger<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>reveals the true story behind Dylan\u2019s decision to go electric.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, East Coast rapper\u00a0<\/span>Nas<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>recalls his teenage conversion with Bob, while contemporaries like the late\u00a0<\/span>David Crosby<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/span>Jimmy Webb<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>and\u00a0<\/span>Paul McCartney<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>(arguably the only serious challenger to Dylan\u2019s status as the world\u2019s greatest living songwriter) recall first-hand the seismic changes brought on by Dylan\u2019s songs.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Shadow Kingdom<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>showed that Dylan\u2019s mercurial magic is as potent as ever, so no doubt we\u2019ll be back here again soon with more revered artists waxing lyrical about their favourite song off his next masterpiece. Until then\u2026<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIf Dylan had recorded this in the mid \u201870s when I longed above all things for his return to electric rock\u2019n\u2019roll, I\u2019d have been thrilled.\u00a0 But good things come to them what waits.\u00a0 I was just as thrilled when I heard it the day it came out in 2001, a teasingly mid-paced barnstormer with a killer blues riff both humorous and sombre that runs like a monolith through every line, and graced by the master\u2019s wittiest, dryest lyrics since Blonde On Blonde. I\u2019ve sung it live myself and it\u2019s a supreme joy the way the lines want to tumble off the tongue, so well-constructed, full of rhythm, sass and cunning.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Bob Dylan\u2019s funniest song all about how he buys tickets to a picnic but ends up corralled into this ship, which sinks. He wakes up on the shore: \u2018My arms and legs were broken, my arms and legs were broken, my feet were splintered, my head was cracked, I couldn\u2019t walk, I couldn\u2019t talk, smell, feel, couldn\u2019t see, didn\u2019t know where I was. I was bald.\u2019 He was bald!\u00a0 <\/span>Dylan\u2019s great at going that one step further than anyone else. Like rhyming the same rhyme. \u2013 in The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, when he rhymes \u2018table\u2019 with \u2018table\u2019 twice in a row!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cPo\u2019 Boy\u00a0is\u00a0<\/span>one of my favourite songs to lis<\/span>ten to with my family, everyone waiting for\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>next punchline and\u00a0the<\/span>n loving it when he delivers. It\u2019s always great to hear Bob Dylan letting himself have fun with lyrics and rhyming and wit. It\u2019s what he does best. This\u00a0<\/span>song feels like an excellent exercis<\/span>e in storytelling, where you choose a word and\u00a0the<\/span>n build\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>story up and around it to finis<\/span>h on\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>rhyme you want to get.\u00a0The\u00a0<\/span>punchline. I of course have no idea how he really went about writing\u00a0this\u00a0<\/span>song, but I really love imagining it. It feels quite cosmic. A stream if narrative consciousness and two-liner dad jokes. The<\/span>re\u2019s such pleasure in\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>lis<\/span>t like nature of\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>way he rolls out all\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>anecdotes in\u00a0the <\/span>song. The\u00a0<\/span>line about Othe<\/span>llo and\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>pois<\/span>on wine has become something of a family catchphrase in our household.\u00a0It rolls along musically in such and easy going and amicable way that just goes so well with\u00a0the <\/span>irony of\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>lyrics. The\u00a0<\/span>twinkle in his\u00a0<\/span>eye. The\u00a0<\/span>ever-present twinkle in his\u00a0<\/span>excellent eye.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI chose this for our covers album [1987\u2019s Through The Looking Glass<\/em>] because I thought Julie Driscoll had written it. I\u2019d seen her perform it on Top Of Pops as a kid and I loved her Joan Of Arc look. Then I found out it was by fucking Bob Dylan! I liked the song, so it stayed anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just Bob on piano at first, then his band are trying to catch up. It comes off in such a great way. Lyrically there\u2019s a lot of reflection on city life. He\u2019s trying to figure out the world and ends up looking for he simple, things. \u201cBuild me a cabin in Utah \/ Marry me a wife, catch a rainbow trout\u2019. That\u2019s beautiful and concise but it has meaning on a greater level. Musically, it\u2019s textured to the point where it sounds like it had earth in it. I covered this song live when I did some solo touring and it made me thing that whatever artists you\u2019re talking about it\u2019s all about the subtleties. And Bob\u2019s music is full of subtlety.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI particularly like this song because I was so influenced by Woody Guthrie before I heard Bob\u2019s first record. I was 16 and living rough on the road with my best friend Gypsy Dave. I went home for a bit and Gyp wrote to me and said he\u2019d found a record of a new American folk singer who was doing what I was doing, singing Woody Guthrie songs and wearing a cap and a harmonica harness. I was already kind of committed to the mission before I heard Bob, but Song To Woody confirmed to me that I was not alone in wanting to bring true poetry and new, meaningful, social lyrics back to popular culture. Joan Baez introduced me to Bob. The famous scene in Don\u2019t Look Back where we\u2019re both playing our songs, you\u2019ve got to look closely. There\u2019s a drunk in the room who\u2019s berating Bob about him stealing the tune for With God On Our Side from Dominic Behan. Then Bob turns to me and I sing To Sing For You. Notice he takes not one drag of his cigarette all the way through… he\u2019s listening. Then I ask him to sing a song for me and he does [It\u2019s All Over Now, Baby Blue]. What people miss is that he listens all the way through to my song, acknowledges that it\u2019s good, but not with too many words. He was a bit curious and a little amazed that there was another Guthrie disciple arising out of Europe. But we were no threat to each other. When they used to say I was the British Bob Dylan, I used to quip, \u2018No, I\u2019m the Scottish Woody Guthrie.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI first heard this when I was making my first solo album [1974\u2019s I\u2019ve Got My Own Album To Do<\/em>] and it strikes me now as it did then \u2013 strong mini-novel with twists and dark turns like something Ray Bradbury would have written. I love that it gathers momentum and the lyric makes you picture mysterious mining town incidents, bank robbers and hookers. Dylan\u2019s very impressionistic as a painter as well as a songwriter, and fun to play with live. You never quite know where you are \u2013 which suits me fine! His band rocks and before going on stage, he always says to the MD, \u2018Just give Woody the keys to the songs and once he\u2019s on stage he stays \u2018til we finish\u2019. He gave me a cowboy hat, thrown on stage when we played Kilkenny, and he said to me, \u2018Every<\/em> time you play with me you get a free hat.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI got into Dylan when I was 13, and I loved the early, simple stuff best. By the time of Oh Mercy <\/em>in 1989, I\u2019d stopped buying Dylan albums and I only got it on a friend\u2019s recommendation but, as soon as I heard Everything Is Broken, I knew he was back. Most Of The Time is a beautifully simple song. You get this central idea that most of the time he\u2019s on the case, stronger than all that bullshit he has to deal with, but then it becomes a love song and you get this sense of a man with deep sense of longing, thinking of someone he lost long ago. I\u2019s not a pop song, but it\u2019s getting that way. I talked Daniel Lanois about making that alum and he said Dylan spooked him, he felt Dylan was inhabiting him like some ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt speaks of the wicked ness of the strong against the weak, of powerful nations and what they do \u2013 what the American settlers did to the Indian, the Spanish-American war, the American Civil War and First World War. It goes. To the heart of how little we value human life, how we kill for power, for greed, and invoke the name of God while doing so. In a way the song explores a kind of helplessness in the face of evil. It\u2019s the voice of the weak. He\u2019s obviously faced with a conundrum at the end and that\u2019s part of the song\u2019s power, that paradox \u2013 \u2018If God\u2019s on our side \/ he\u2019ll stop the next war\u2019. You have to see. It against the backdrop of a world in turmoil \u2013 the proliferation of nuclear weapons, anti-colonial struggles going on in Africa and elsewhere, and the Cold War at its height \u2013 but the strength of the song is that it\u2019s relevant and still speaks to the conflicts of our time. For me, that\u2019s why Dylan is the greatest protest lyricist ever.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-13.09.39.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-05-24 at 13.09.39″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some moments here \u2013 like where the guy is sitting on the park bench having these weird realisations \u2013 that you can actually feel them as he\u2019s having them. The way he sings the lines \u2013 \u2018She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones \/ \u2018Twas then he felt alone and wished that he\u2019d gone straight\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s just devastating. There\u2019s so many moments like that which are so painful, but they\u2019re really honest and they\u2019re said in a way that I don\u2019t think anyone had said before\u2026 or since. I don\u2019t think Dylan even knows where songs like that come from. A lot of his songs seem born of that spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my favourite Dylan vocal. Anyone who says he can\u2019t sing, listen to Pretty Saro. It\u2019s like Percy Sledge crossed with Hank Williams. It\u2019s got all the mystery that you want from Dylan, you can\u2019t quite figure about what it\u2019s about. Either the girl is from a higher social class or aspires to be, and he knows that he can never give her the security that she wants. And then at the end he says if I was the dream version of myself, the poet, I\u2019d be eloquent enough to explain it to you, but the fact that he got close enough to touch the dream was enough and that\u2019s what he\u2019ll take away with him. I don\u2019t know how much of the lyrics are his and how much are from the traditional version, but it\u2019s got that romantic and mysterious thing from Dylan which is what I like, it means you get to project your own version onto it. Self Portrait<\/em> was slated at the time, but it\u2019s all part of it. Real greats can see 30, 40 years ahead. You throw this curveball, but then that\u2019s what gets you to Blood On The Tracks<\/em> or whatever. Sometimes you\u2019ve got to write and you\u2019ve got to move three moves to get to where you want to.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBack in 1963 I got together with Bob and Theodore Bikel for a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi. A friend of mine was making a little documentary film there and the mayor told him, We never had a nigger problem here, it\u2019s outside agitators cause the trouble. Well, we had a little song festival in a cotton field and Bob sang Only A Pawn In Their Game which he\u2019d just written about Medgar Evers, the Mississippi Civil Rights activist who was murdered three weeks earlier. The song says just putting the murderers in jail wasn\u2019t enough, It was about ending the whole game of segregation. It was the first song I heard that connected the position of the black field hands with that of the poor whites in the South: \u2018He\u2019s taught in his school \/From the start by the rule \/That the laws are with him \/To protecthis white skin \/To keep up his hate \/So he never thinks straight \/ \u2018bout the shape that he\u2019s in.<\/p>\n Generally, Bob wanted to make a record that would make people think. He was very curious and quick to learn. He told me he\u2019d seen me singing when he was at university [University Of Minnesota, 1959-1960]. I remember that was a night when we were picketed by the American Legion – which got us a lot of free publicity. But I must have first met him in New York up in the Broadside magazine\u2019s office [Dylan\u2019s Talkin\u2019 John Birch Paranoid Blues appeared in the first edition, Feb, 1962]. I remember sitting there and Bob and Phil Ochs played their songs and I was thinking, I\u2019m in the same room as two of the greatest songwriters in the world! Two weeks later I had Bob on at a Carnegie Hall Hootenanny and there were so many artists on I had to tell everyone they were limited to 10 minutes and he smiled and said, I\u2019ve got one song that lasts 10 minutes\u2019- and he did A Hard Rain\u2019s A-Gonna Fall.<\/p>\n I was always impressed by his independence. He wasn\u2019t going to be any child of the lefties. One night someone introduced him saying, \u2018He\u2019s one of ours, and Bob got up and said, \u2018I don\u2019t belong to anyone.\u2019 I realised he was a genius turning out one great song after another. Blowin\u2019 In The Wind is still one of the greatest songs of the 20th century. I used to sing Masters Of War occasionally myself and Hard Rain. Bob had drawn lessons from Woody, he knew a good song tells a story or paints a picture and, like Woody, he could combine tragedy and humour. And he didn\u2019t try to be too specific or too clear. I have a little skating rink in my yard and when John Wesley Harding<\/em> came out I remember skating around listening to it over and over on the outdoor speakers thinking, What does this mean? A good song is like a basketball backboard, you bounce your life against it and you catch new ideas rebounding back at you.<\/p>\n There are a lot of reports of me being against him going electric at the \u201865 Newport Folk festival, but that\u2019s wrong. I was the MC that night. He was singing Maggie\u2019s Farm and you couldn\u2019t understand a single word because the mike was distorting his voice. I ran over to the mixing desk and said, Fix the sound, it\u2019s terrible! The guy said, \u2018No, that\u2019s how they want it.\u2019 And I did say, If I had an axe I\u2019d cut the cable! But they didn\u2019t understand me. I wanted to hear the words. I didn\u2019t mind him going electric.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t get too deep into his music until I got into the Nashville records. Those are the ones that really got to me, because I was so into country music when I was younger and hearing those records for the first time… I always liked his kind of throwaway love songs. For somebody who\u2019s a giant like him, who writes those great cinematic songs like Visions Of Johanna that draw you into a strange world, to just toss out a good little tune…that\u2019s an aspect of Dylan I always really appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBob Dylan always does songs in different keys, like he\u2019ll change three, four different keys in a song, and he will change the lyrics on the fly, so when we cut Jokerman, we recorded it and then we had a break overnight. He came in the morning and said, \u2018Oh, gentlemen, could you just run Jokerman for me again?\u2019 Nobody know the tape was spinning; we were just running down the music and he said, \u2018OK, that\u2019s it\u2019 – it was the take we didn\u2019t know we were taking that he used. It was a surprise; I think we were playing the run-down a bit looser, \u2018cos it was just a run-through, but he probably liked something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always cherished this song. The first time I heard it was when I\u2019d just moved to Detroit and was living in a hotel room with Fred [\u2018Sonic\u2019 Smith]. I put on Bob\u2019s new record, and Changing Of The Guards was the first song… it just moved me to tears. I would never presume to know what his songs are about, but it has such a mix of tarot card and Joan of Arc imagery. The song starts, \u2018Sixteen years…,\u2019 and Joan of Arc was 16 when they shaved her head and burned her at the stake. No matter how bitter or melancholy his songs are, there\u2019s always so much resilience, a sense of him striking back. Like the line that goes, \u2018Gentlemen, he said, I don\u2019t need your organisation, I\u2019ve shined your shoes.\u2019… The downtrodden hero always manages to have the last word. I don\u2019t really analyse his songs, but I\u2019ve been following him since I was 16-years-old and I don\u2019t question what he does. He can do what he wants as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThis has always, always been a favourite Dylan song of mine. The Byrds got an acetate because our manager Jim Dickson knew Bob. At the time I didn\u2019t like it, but Roger, then known as Jim McGuinn and always an insightful guy, picked it to record on Turn! Turn! Turn!. Such a great opening verse, really a beautiful lyric all around. It is kinda like Dylan Thomas poetry, as if he wrote lyrics for popular music.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever I hear that song, I always picture Dylan on the balcony of some high-rise Manhattan penthouse, kicking it with Marlon Brando and Lenny Bruce and a gaggle of long-legged socialites, taking it all in and just dreaming of fishing by a stream somewhere. Now here he is in Woodstock with his friends – look at The Basement Tapes cover: what a joker Bob is, how are you gonna play a mandolin with a bow? And they look like the kind of guys you\u2019d want to invite over to your parents\u2019 for a barbecue and a softball game. This was one of the times, I think, when Dylan knew he was going to have to take an interest in his own music, and seized the moment to just play with his friends. Perhaps he\u2019s looking back on all those interchangeable people at the million dollar bash and nursing the motherlode of all hangovers \u2013 the \u201860s.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cTalking about Dylan is too complicated for just a few words. You can see why everybody writes books about him. It seems that anyone who likes him at all has a relationship with him, whether they admit it or not. He\u2019s been that useful, meaningful and exasperating all your life long. No wonder he resents his fans. And this song is the one for me that\u2019s the most revealing of his bewildering powers because it\u2019s the one that has the greatest distance between its emotional impact and its actual words. How does he make those silly words so affecting?<\/p>\n \u2018Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast.\u2019 Where is the poetry in that? The metaphor is obvious and the observation commonplace. But in the song it breaks your heart. I think maybe it\u2019s something about both his openness and the way his mind skips around in his condition, somehow indicating the shape of everything, and I mean everything. It\u2019s how the lines turn into each other. For instance, the whole beginning of that stanza goes, \u2018Time is a jet plane, it moves too fast\/Oh, but what a shame if all we\u2019ve shared can\u2019t last\/I can change, I swear.\u2019 No one line is much more than banal, but it\u2019s how they follow from each other that makes that \u2018I can change, I swear\u2019 choke me up every time. Or is it his delivery? Or the melody? Or the weird way saying \u2018You\u2019re a big girl now\u2019 is inherently sarcastic, when obviously what\u2019s going on is he wants her more than anything? It\u2019s all the currents, in something apparently so simple and ordinary. There\u2019s no explaining it.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s got so much coolness and chills, and endless great lines and great vocals. And there\u2019s an irresistible charming irony in the word-master Dylan claiming that he \u201cain\u2019t talking,\u201d as if whatever he\u2019s saying is not even the tip of the iceberg of what he could be telling us. To close the album like that is great mic drop.\u00a0It seems like an echo of the sparse apocalyptic feeling of John Wesley Harding. Is there really any such thing as a bad Bob Dylan album, from any period? You might like some more than others, but his general standard of quality stands up against anybody in any genre.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-13.10.41.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-05-24 at 13.10.41″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Some time ago a crazy dream came to me \/dreamt I was walkin\u2019 into World War Three.\u2019 I love where he goes,\u2018And I drove 42nd Street in my Cadillac \/ Good car to drive after a war\u2019. For a guy who wanted to be in The Teddy Bears with Phil Spector, he\u2019s certainly moved some minds and mountains, hasn\u2019t he? I\u2019ve got his autobiography [Chronicles Vol.1], but I don\u2019t want to read it. I read something about him being a piece of work who lied and danced with Mimi Farina a bit too often. I thought, I don\u2019t need to know this; I just need to know A Hard Rain\u2019s A-Gonna Fall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, the folk scene immediately after Bob Dylan was a lot of Bob Dylan impersonators, impersonating someone who was already impersonating someone else. Then, immediately after that, Bob became Bob and did something so completely Bob that no-one could imitate him. I got The Witmark Demos bootleg from Currituck Co.\u2019s Kevin Barker and I love the sound of that version [from June, 1964] too. It sounds like it was recorded on a Radio Shack hand-held tape recorder. They were recorded for Witmark Publishing, not for Dylan to release but for other people to listen to and hopefully record. I\u2019ll Keep It With Mine was written for Nico and like all of Dylan\u2019s tunes it\u2019s perfect. To go with the song, Kevin, a musicologist extraordinaire, also showed me some footage of a party where The Byrds are doing keg stands and, over there in the corner, you can see Dylan and Nico making out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI first heard Not Dark Yet on holiday in Sri Lanka at Christmas. Somebody had the album and I just got obsessed with that track. In some respects, it\u2019s not as brilliant lyrically as some earlier songs, but those have an air of pretentiousness to them. Like on Blonde On Blonde, you think, is that exactly what Dylan wanted to say? I don\u2019t think he needs allusions to intellectual content to convince us he\u2019s clever. But the lyrics to Not Dark Yet are really simple. It\u2019s exactly what he is: an old man and he\u2019s tired. It\u2019s Dylan speaking authentically from where he is now, in this time of life, looking at what he\u2019s been and seeing where he is at, and expressing it in terms which resonate with many people: \u2018Shadows are falling and I\u2019ve been here all day \/ It\u2019s too hot to sleep, time is running away\u2019. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever heard music quite as languorous. It feels very big-old-river, moving very slowly, like the Mississippi when it gets very close to the sea, edging along. It\u2019s very Louisiana, hot and sweaty. It\u2019s the most incredible atmosphere that you get drawn into. You absolutely sense that the sun is just beyond the horizon, it\u2019s not quite dark, but it\u2019s just going down and he\u2019s sitting there, hot as fuck, and it\u2019s the end of his life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we did Knockin\u2019 On Heaven\u2019s Door, that was such a moment. We were in the dark, looking at a big screen with the film showing, and Bob\u2019s playing this song, with these changes, and those words. My God! Then, the fact that Katy Jurado, the Mexican actress, she\u2019s got these big ole eyes like my mom, and her husband is this white guy, this sheriff, and he\u2019s dying at the edge of the river. And Bob\u2019s singing… and, man, I just started crying. I\u2019m playing, but I\u2019m crying hard. And I\u2019m thinking, Don\u2019t blow it, don\u2019t blow the take! A few years later, I did Short People with Randy Newman. And I was in the same situation, but I was laughing instead of crying. I was hearing Randy say these words that had me cracking up, and I\u2019m thinking, Don\u2019t ruin it, this is a good take!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just relentless, as a six-minute torrent of surrealistic images. You can tell it was written at the height of Pop Art, with these incredible iconic characters: Galileo, Cecil B. DeMille, Beethoven all thrown together. And there\u2019s a lot of humour in it \u2013 all that stuff about knitting a bald wig for Jack The Ripper. There\u2019s a real punk quality to it too \u2013 Dylan had youthful energy pouring out of him and the band are missing cues. I was listening to it and it struck me how much Dylan influenced the early Velvet Underground. There\u2019s a really similar sound and intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBrownsville Girl, I would suggest, is a song that altered songwriting. It\u2019s a completely new kind of song and also has this spectacular line, because he can always make you burst out laughing: \u2018If there\u2019s an original thought out there, I could use it right now.\u2019 Brownsville Girl is a beautiful rhapsody about this Hispanic woman with her teeth like pearls, and then, in the middle of the song he says, \u2018She ain\u2019t you, but she\u2019s here and she\u2019s got that dark rhythm in her soul.\u2019 So this song is not really about the Brownsville Girl, but rather it\u2019s addressed to this other woman who seems to be his muse. And his muse, of course, he refers to obliquely in Tangled Up In Blue, where he talks about the Italian poet whose every word came off the pages like burning coals. And at some point you realise that \u2013 of course!- this Italian poet is Dante. Every word that Dante wrote was for his muse, Beatrice, and there\u2019s a Beatrice there in most Bob Dylan songs. Whether she\u2019s real or imagined isn\u2019t important to me, but it\u2019s extraordinary. In your twenties you\u2019re not so much interested in ideas like that: you\u2019re more interested in The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019. But Bob Dylan is there for you at every stage of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a movie isn\u2019t it? The mariachi accompaniment and even the way he pitches his voice, a bit like Alfonso Bedoya, the leader of the bandits in Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, conjures the Mexican desert – \u2018Hot chilli peppers in the blistering sun\u2019 – you\u2019re straight there! The picture of him and that girl on the one horse makes me think of Marlon Brando and Pina Pellicer in One Eyed Jacks. I wonder if the whole Spanish milieu that he likes could be a device by which Dylan can leave the patrician world of North America with its Judeo- [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBlowin\u2019 In The Wind was the first song I heard from Bobby. I fell in love with it because of the message. We could really relate to that, especially my father [Pops Staples]. Pops couldn\u2019t understand how someone like Bobby could write such heavy songs as such a young man. He\u2019d say, \u2018Where did this little guy come from writing a message like that?\u2019 But that song had an effect on a lot of people. When Sam Cooke heard Blowin\u2019 In The Wind he said, \u2018Now if a young white guy can write a song like that then I got to get my pen in hand.\u2019 And that\u2019s when he wrote A Change Is Gonna Come.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBob Dylan is someone I grew up with. I used to sing his songs when busking on the Metro in Paris and I always had a huge aspiration to record something of his one day. I chose You\u2019re Gonna Make Me Lonesome\u2026 because it\u2019s a love song and Dylan\u2019s love songs are special because there\u2019s ofren a twist of bitterness. On this one he admits that things are not going to be perfect either now or any time. It\u2019s amazing the was Dylan can take something very simple and turn it into something very important. I love the melody too. I think Dylan doesn\u2019t often get enough credit for his melodic strength.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-13.13.39.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-05-24 at 13.13.39″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of beauty in this song. I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s about, and I\u2019ve never bothered to work it out, but even though it\u2019s about being stuck somewhere with the blues, it\u2019s a triumphant song, with a really powerful chord progression. So when you\u2019ve got that going for you, with the killer lyrics and the band going for it, it\u2019s defiant blues, very exhilarating. At the moment, I\u2019m so in love with the drummer: Kenny Buttrey. Sometimes get choked up, literally, just listening to the drummer, the way he does a little snare roll, or something. I know it sounds silly, but I love that song and how it pulls me in, but once I\u2019m in there I always focus on the drummer. It\u2019s a song with so much soul, but the more I listen, I always go back to those killer drums.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cWe spent a lot of time getting the ambience right, recording the neighbourhood crickets – the genuine sound of the New Orleans night. It\u2019s a song that was directly inspired by the environment and mood of the city. Bob came to the recording of Oh Mercy with a number of songs fully written but Man In The Long Black Coat was composed entirely in the studio. It was a hot steamy time down there – and that\u2019s exactly how the song sounds. On Oh Mercy Bob is generally standing inside the songs but on this one he\u2019s standing outside, observing. It\u2019s a fascinating subject for a song, the idea that someone might escape the confines of the ordinary world by a sudden impulsive act. It\u2019s a song about a turning point, one moment that might change a life forever- like running away to join the circus.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI heard about Dylan from Jack Nitzsche\u2019s wife Grazia who made me listen to Freewheelin\u2019. It wasn\u2019t his voice, which was difficult to get comfortable with, it was his songs. What we were hearing on the radio at that time was great, highly-polished pop, like Goffin-King kind of songs, but Dylan was 180 degrees in the other direction. Then, when I heard She Belongs To Me, I was struck by the fact that it has such a natural groove. To me, a natural groove record would be something like Little Richard, R&B stuff, but here\u2019s this Greenwich Village folkie, who has turned the lyric-writing thought process upside down, and suddenly he\u2019s making songs with a natural groove. You could finger-pop to this track. Dylan\u2019s melodies can be difficult to digest sometimes, because he\u2019s not a singer who writes, he\u2019s a writer who sings, but this is a great tne. Carl Wilson and I really loved Belong To Me. I remember in the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel when we were playing Hawaii, and we had a record player in our suite and just played it and over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI must have heard it at a time when I dressed like he does on the cover of the Freewheelin\u2019 album. I wanted my life to be like that cover. There is something of the same romance about the song; a straightforward enough reminiscence of a lost love, without any cynicism or defeatism. I like the mentions of the girl\u2019s hair and coat and, I guess, the third person thing works nicely because it\u2019s all kept so simple and defenceless.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d already had my world as a songwriter completely rearranged by Masters Of War and Chimes Of Freedom.. But with I Don\u2019t Believe You, Dylan established an unprecedented relationship between man and woman in song. Before Bob, things had been pretty benign, often one-dimensional, between the sexes. It was absolute love or utter heartbreak. What little shading there was usually came from the woman\u2019s point of view, laying out the case against her man. Dylan turned the tables in this sense, offering romantic critiques of women, and he did it with a degree of emotional awareness and insight. He made it more real, and opened up vast new territories for songs to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n To write songs about things that are close or painful, you have to be at a level where you can say something about it that everybody will be able to identify with. You can\u2019t always take your most personal experiences and do that, but Bob Dylan was good at it. As a matter of fact, he was the one that showed us that your personal ruminations and experiences, if put in a vibrant enough context, were valuable. Because people hadn\u2019t been doing that before: people had been saying \u2018Yes, I love you, you love me, we will be together, 1, 2, 3.\u2019 But you start talking about There must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief… Well! Now we\u2019re getting down! We\u2019re talking about neuroses, psychoses, and other \u2018oses! He showed us that if you put these things in the right context, in the right emotional patterns and the right combinations of words, this is as valuable as anything else on this earth.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Every Grain Of Sand was the first religious song I\u2019d heard which transcended all religions. It asks the universal questions that lead all people into exploring God, eternity, mortality. I first heard it when\u00a0Shot Of Love\u00a0came out and I loved it right away, but then I sang it at Johnny Cash\u2019s funeral so it has a special meaning for me. It was my choise, but his family wrote to me to tell me how important that song was to Johnny. It\u2019s always been interesting to me to think of Dylan\u2019s Christian phase. I\u2019d done the born-again thing when I was 17. There was a youth movement I got wound up in until it started to really bug me that some of my friends were going to heaven and some weren\u2019t. I became what they call a backslider pretty quick. The music on every Grain of Sand ebbs back and fourth \u2013 it\u2019s almost a waltz \u2013 but the song\u2019s great strength is the text: \u2018Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s almost Dickensian. I\u2019ve called him on a couple of occasion to talk about songwriting and he\u2019s been amazing. It\u2019s like playing tennis with someone who\u2019s better than you, it brings your game up.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThe first time I heard Bob Dylan – it was 1965, and a young poet, a student of my dad\u2019s, came over to the house with a Dylan record – it changed my life. Here was someone who had taken both of the worlds I was from – the traditional folk music world and the creative writing world – and put them together and made it work. From that moment on, I decided I wanted to write songs like that. I\u2019m still working at it. To Ramona is just a love song, not one of those inte3nsely heavy, metaphorical songs, but it\u2019s the ultimate love song. And there\u2019s just something about it \u2013 the rhyming, the imagery, everything is wonderful. That was Dylan at his inimitable, quintessential best, right there. Awesome and beautiful.”<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThe Tom Robinson Band’s version was pure pragmatism. Everyone knew it. It was the standard left-wing benefit-for-somebody-who\u2019s-in-prison song, with the great advantage that it has the same chord sequence running all the way through, so you can teach it to a scratch band in five minutes flat. We were supporting the Free George Ince [wrongly charged with murder, 1973] campaign, so it seemed appropriate. Coming out of the\u00a0Basement Tapes\u00a0sessions, Dylan\u2019s version has those other-worldly textures.You also get that sense of him \u201cwalking out of the machinery\u2019, as Peter Gabriel sings in Solsbury Hill. I think, having read Chronicles, where for the first time you get his version odfd that period, e could just not have carried on anymore regardless of the motorcycle accident. There was a madness in the expectation, the pressure, the people breaking into the house and ruining his marriage with Sara. The songs from this period use these amazing metaphors for explaining, or coping with his situation. So on\u00a0John Wesley Harding, Dear Landlord is for his manager Albert Grossman, and in I Shall Be Released he\u2019s talking about being in prison but per haps a prison of other people\u2019s expectations. What l envy most about Dylan is his lightness of touch. Like rhyming \u2018language\u2019 with \u2018sandwich\u2019 [on Sign Language, duet with Eric Clapton on the latter\u2019s No Reason To Cry, 1976]. He\u2019ll put in an absurd or meaningless line just to get the song going and to get on to the next bit. You get to the essence of the song without ever getting tied down in the mechanics of the rhyme scheme or the business of musical structure. Which is why he\u2019s so great to cover. His songs are not arrangement-dependent. Anyone can interpret them.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201c[In Greenwich Village] me and Bob were friendly but I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s close to Bob. One night I went to the Gaslight and he pulled paper out of the typewriter and gave me five typed pages and asked what I thought. I said, \u2018This is fabulous \u2013 it\u2019s like you have written [Anglo-Scottish ballad] Lord Randall for 1962\u2019 and he had. He asked what he should do with it and I said, \u2018Put a tune to it.\u2019 Two nights later he got up at the Gaslight at one in the morning and sang it for the first time \u2013 A Hard Rain\u2019s A Gonna Fall. It was clear where he was heading.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI first heard The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019 in a movie called The Wanderers, which I saw when I was about 14-years-old. The song came at a very important point of the movie, where the characters had been running the streets forever, and had gotten old. It had come full circle with their lives, so they had to make a change. The verse that blew me away was: \u2018Come senators, congressmen\/Please heed the call\/Don\u2019t stand in the doorway\/Don\u2019t block up the hall\/For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled.\u201d The words he\u2019s saying are words of awakening, but when you add that to the conviction in his voice, you can hear that this is a man fighting to get the truth out. To make a record like that, you have to genuinely have it in your heart to not just love your music and your cause, but to be a part of it, and that\u2019s what he does. You can\u2019t fake that record.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThis sparkles with that dreadful mystery that\u2019s Dylan\u2019s own. Hearing it for the first time has never left my mind. Suddenly I wasn\u2019t a 15-year-old listening to music anymore: I was hearing poetry. \u2018Lights flicker from the opposite loft\/in this room the heat pipes just cough\/The country music station plays soft.\u2019 And there\u2019s a pay-off line with Dylan. He says: \u2018But there\u2019s nothing, really noting to turn off.\u2019 You listen and think, What the fuck was that?\u00a0All the time, this young man of 24 was thinking of a lost love. Maybe apocryphal, maybe genuine – but he\u2019s a poet and he has licence to create. Every pay-off at the end of every verse just says there\u2019s nothing here. Nothing exists. It\u2019s all fantasy. Am I awake? Am I asleep? All I\u2019ve got is visions of Johanna, which keep me up past dawn. The man can\u2019t sleep! He\u2019s lovesick. But is he really? Or is this poetry? This isn\u2019t Wordsworth or Keats. Dylan is beyond them.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk into the room\/With your pencil in your hand\/You see somebody naked\/And you say Who is that man?\/You try so hard\/But you just don\u2019t understand\/Just what you\u2019ll say\/When you get home…\u201d I haven\u2019t played it in years but I can still remember the words. At the time, all us London hipsters assumed it was about the Melody Makers\u2019 Max Jones. It\u2019s an unspoken rule that the trade-off for fame and fortune in the music business is that you have to be able to accept criticism, but not every artist subscribes to that, and Dylan obviously didn\u2019t. With Positively 4th Street around the same time, it was clear Dylan was pissed off about a lot of things- and he was writing like a maniac. Musically it\u2019s beautiful. I love the skinny sound of the record – it suits the title. When I saw Dylan the Albert Hall in 1966 he played it, and I think it was the only song that he played on piano. There\u2019s this old-fashioned barrelhouse feel, which works really well with the words. And when the organ comes in on top… that\u2019s wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cDylan was recording Idiot Wind and I thought this is so powerful. When has Dylan ever been this\u00a0raw? The amount of rage coming out of him was so powerful. And when you hear something being cut in the studio where it\u2019s directly from his mouth into that beautiful microphone and coming out of those huge speakers \u2013 you never hear it like that again. The power was overwhelming. And he gets to the end of the song and waits a few seconds and then turns to us in the control room and sarcastically says: \u2018Was that since-e-e-re enough?\u2019\u201d Maybe it had been so powerful for him emotionally that he had to take away some of that intensity.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-13.11.19.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-05-24 at 13.11.19″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cBringing It All Back Home\u00a0just might be my favourite album of all time. I discovered him whilst at private school as a teenager. A lot of people hated it when he went electric, but I liked it. I saw him at Long Beach with his electric band whilst on acid, and I really dug it. I know he must\u2019ve been on acid when he wrote Subterranean Homesick Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cWriting protest songs is difficult because they often have a very limited life-span. But when Dylan sings \u2018you can hide behind walls, you can hide behind desks, I just want you to know, I can se through your masks\u2019, you instantly think of The White House and Downing Street today. He attacks the biggest targets going, and there\u2019s nothing polite about it. It\u2019s a young man\u2019s rage – outrage really – not Where Have All The Flowers Gone? There\u2019s no choruses, and the guitar playing is unrelenting. His guitar playing swings and rocks really hard. The writing itself is great. He\u2019ll take a word like \u2018word\u2019 which from the perspective of someone who writes songs is a very hard word to rhyme, but he rhymes it with \u2018hurled\u2019, and that\u2019s a way around the problem, and its not just a way around the problem, but is a great couplet too. I remember seeing him for the first time at the Newport Folk festival at about the time this song came out. He was just this young guy stood on stage with a guitar, but he had balls, and any young person will admire someone who has balls. Let\u2019s hope so anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my favourite Dylan song. The production is so clean, fluid and uncluttered, and there is an ease and innocence to Dylan\u2019s voice in its phrasing, in its tone that is in no Dylan recording before or after. There is a perfectly measured emotional pull to the singing. This is a guy doing the job God put him on Earth to do, and doing it well. This song is about craft; Dylan removes himself, the burden of his hisyory, his myth, from the process of songwriting to craft a song unparalleled in its gorgeousness. It\u2019s mathematics, music by numbers, and all the more affecting for it. It\u2019s Mozart man up against the wracked Beethoven of his other work.\u00a0Nashville Skyline\u00a0was an audacious record, lyrically and musically, flying in the face of those who thought it was Dylan\u2019s moral duty to be the drum major of his generation. I can put this song on first thing in the will serve me as a song should, lift me up, make me morning or the middle of a dark night, and the song better, make me want to carry on. The song serves the listener as it should and that\u2019s its genius.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI have to say, I prefer the demo versions that are out there to the one on\u00a0Blood On The Tracks. They\u2019re quite slow, down-beat versions of the song and that\u2019s what I love about them. They\u2019re just acoustic guitar, bass and vocals, and they\u2019re just beautiful. They Sound more emotional, more contemplative whereas the version on\u00a0Blood On The Tracks\u00a0is quite bouncy. He changed a lot of the lyrics after this version. The demos are written in the third person, like he\u2019s telling a story about someone else, then when you hear it on\u00a0Blood On the Tracks\u00a0he uses \u2018I\u2019, which makes you wonder whether it was actually about him all along.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cI heard\u00a0Time Out Of Mind\u00a0pretty much as soon as it came out; I\u2019m a \u2018rush out and buy Bob\u2019 kind of person. I love the whole record, but Love Sick is my favourite. Beautiful. Everything. The words, the melody, the passion in the singing. I loved it immediately. For the longest time I thought it was called I\u2019m Sick Of Love, because that\u2019s what he sings. But being love sick and being sick of love are two entirely different things. And yet obviously the same to an old romantic like Mr D. And that is such a brilliant writer\u2019s thing to do. Love is hard for all of us but it\u2019s very, very hard for an artist. He talks about being tired and hearing the clock tick – this is someone with lots to do, lots of work, he\u2019s got no time for anything and on top of that there\u2019s this\u00a0love, and he can\u2019t do a thing about it. The lyrics are actually very straightforward. Someone else singing it might make them sound sappy, but the way Dylan sings – very intense and strong and not at all detached – it\u2019s a statement, and a great one, about love.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was 11, at Sevenoaks school, the A level boys in the art classes were allowed to play whatever music they liked, which was\u00a0Highway 61 Revisited\u00a0and\u00a0Blonde On Blonde. We didn\u2019t have a record player at home, and I\u2019d never heard anything like it. It led me to being absolutely focused on art and music. What got me was the sound of his voice: suddenly you had someone who put songs together that played with words-I wasn\u2019t sure what he was saying, but I knew he was being brilliantly sarcastic and clever, and sneering at the people who were boring, and I loved it. Highway 61 Revisited itself was just so funny. Highway 61 bisects the American North and South, and represents an escape, particularly from where Dylan lived, the tedium of living a constrained, pre-defined life. But in that context, I saw so much. Like the way he plays with the story, and the whole issue of race. And how he was embracing rock\u2019n\u2019roll, when he was being accused of being a Judas – what was that all about? It was almost segregationism in the folk scene. With my Gang Of Four lyrics, I\u2019d always try and make something internally contradictory, constructing narratives out of words that seem to be logically inconsistent, which is what Dylan so cleverly did. He wasn\u2019t trying to be obvious, which is easy. He was being complicated without being necessarily vague. There was this sense that you were involved in a cultural conversation. Dylan created the conversations to beat all conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cThis was when I understood how deep Dylan\u2019s well really was. It wasn\u2019t a folk song, it wasn\u2019t protest, it was just a great love song, which of course had an immediate impact on me. I had just dropped out of college to commit to what I hoped would be the life of a songwriter. I was very much in love with a girl who was inspiring a lot of the music I was writing, and this song seemed to cut right to the heart of what I was feeling emotionally at the time. All these years later I still marvel at what an absolutely stunning piece of writing it is. What a fortuitous nexus of rhyme and purpose is the chorus: She takes just like a woman\/She makes love just like a woman \/Then she aches just like a woman \/ But she breaks just like a little girl.\u2019 As songwriters we live for the moment when words to fall together like that, as if they\u2019ve been waiting for just that arrangement. The way everything leads toward that last line is masterful. That would be enough for most writers, but the third verse reveals Dylan\u2019s strategy to be much larger. When he says \u2018Please don\u2019t let on that you knew me when \/l was hungry and it was your wold,\u2019 he steps on-camera and addresses this person directly to deliver one final twist. There\u2019s a lifetime of listening in these details and layered subtleties. Any serious student of songwriting will find a complete education in this one composition.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cJust before I started writing, in 1964, I started playing the guitar to myself by practising The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll.I heard it purely by chance up in Bangor as a student, we played him all the time, listening to early Dylan before he\u2019s really filtered into the mainstream. He was so powerful melodically. His voice was amazingly mature for such a young man but with tracks like like Hattie Carroll he was trying to say something with lovely tunes and a great vocal sound. Before the protest they were actual songs that you could get lost in. Take away Dylan\u2019s persona and they still stood out. Over the years I\u2019ve come to realise that his music is about access. Hattie Carroll? It\u2019s five chords. Even in 1964 I knew four of them. When you first start out, you can play Dylan. His songs are about the people and for the people so it makes sense that they\u2019re accessible, that they\u2019re easy to play. Even a more recent track like Mississippi [from 2001\u2019s\u00a0Love And Theft] you can climb inside. There are gems scattered throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2024\/05\/Screenshot-2024-05-24-at-13.12.45.png” title_text=”Screenshot 2024-05-24 at 13.12.45″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”ss-custom-header” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” text_font_size=”35px” header_2_font=”Cabin|700|||||||” header_2_font_size=”35px” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n60. <\/strong>Lonesome Day Blues, <\/strong>Love And Theft<\/em>, 2001 \u2013 As selected by The Waterboys\u2019 Mike Scott<\/h2>\n
59. <\/strong>Talkin\u2019 Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues, <\/strong>Time Out Of Mind<\/em>, 1997 \u2013 As selected by Badly Drawn Boy<\/h2>\n
58. <\/strong>Po\u2019 Boy, <\/strong>Love And Theft<\/em>, 2001 \u2013 As selected by This Is The Kit\u2019s Katie Stables<\/h2>\n
57. <\/strong>This Wheel\u2019s On Fire, <\/strong>The Basement Tapes<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by Siouxsie Sioux<\/h2>\n
56. <\/strong>Sign On The Window, <\/strong>New Morning<\/em>, 1970 \u2013 As selected by The Black Crowes\u2019 Rich Robinson<\/h2>\n
55. <\/strong>Song To Woody, <\/strong>Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1962 \u2013\u00a0As selected by Donovan<\/h2>\n
54. <\/strong>Lily Rosemary And the Jack Of Hearts, <\/strong>Blood On The Tracks<\/em>, 1975 \u2013\u00a0As selected by Ronnie Wood<\/h2>\n
53. <\/strong>Most Of The Time, <\/strong>Oh Mercy<\/em>, 1989 \u2013 As selected by David Gray<\/h2>\n
52. <\/strong>With God On Our Side, <\/strong>The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019<\/em>, 1964 \u2013 As selected by Linton Kwesi Johnson<\/h2>\n
51. <\/strong>Simple Twist Of Fate, <\/strong>Blood On The Tracks<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by Neko Case<\/h2>\n
50. <\/strong>Pretty Saro, <\/strong>Another Self Portrait: The Bootleg Series Vol. 10<\/em>, 2013 \u2013 As selected by The Coral\u2019s Jame Skelly<\/h2>\n
49. <\/b>Only A Pawn In Their Game, <\/strong>The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019<\/em>, 1964 \u2013 As selected by Pete Seeger<\/h2>\n
48. <\/strong>I\u2019ll Be Here Staying Here With You, <\/strong>Nashville Skyline<\/em>, 1969 \u2013 As selected by Beck<\/h2>\n
47. Jokerman, Infidels<\/em>, 1983 \u2013 As selected by legendary reggae drummer Sly Dunbar<\/h2>\n
46. Changing Of The Guards, <\/strong>Street-Legal<\/em>, 1978 \u2013 As selected by Patti Smith<\/h2>\n
45. Lay Down Your Weary Tune, <\/strong>Biograph<\/em>, 1985 \u2013 As selected by The Byrds\/The Flying Burrito Brothers\u2019 Chris Hillman<\/h2>\n
44. Million Dollar Bash, <\/strong>The Basement Tapes<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by Green On Red\u2019s Chuck Prophet<\/h2>\n
43. You\u2019re A Big Girl Now, <\/strong>Blood On The Track<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by Richard Hell*<\/h2>\n
42. Ain\u2019t Talkin\u2019, <\/strong>Modern Times<\/em>, 2006 \u2013 As selected by Jeffrey Lewis<\/h2>\n
41. Talkin\u2019 World War III Blues, <\/strong>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1963 \u2013 As selected by Robert Plant<\/h2>\n
40. I\u2019ll Keep It With Mine, <\/strong>Rare And Unreleased: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3<\/em>, 1991 \u2013 As selected by Devendra Banhart<\/h2>\n
39. Not Dark Yet, <\/strong>Time Out Of Mind<\/em>, 1997 \u2013 As selected by Gang Of Four\u2019s Andy Gill*<\/h2>\n
38. Knockin On Heaven\u2019s Door, <\/strong>Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid<\/em>, 1973 \u2013 As selected by Dylan\u2019s then drummer Jim Keltner<\/h2>\n
37. Tombstone Blues, <\/strong>Highway 61 Revisited<\/em>, 1965 \u2013 As selected by Teenage Fanclub\u2019s Norman Blake<\/h2>\n
36. Brownsville Girl, <\/strong>Knocked Out Loaded<\/em>, 1986 \u2013 As selected by Bono<\/h2>\n
35. Romance in Durango, <\/strong>Desire<\/em>, 1976 \u2013 As selected by John Cooper Clarke<\/h2>\n
Protestant values and enter the more elemental Catholic-Latin world where he\u2019s the impulsive doomed hero, in trouble by his own actions. He\u2019s obviously shot her husband or something and although he\u2019s made it across the desert he\u2019s clearly about to die but he\u2019s blinded by love and optimism, and shit frightened underneath it all and the present tense is shot through with both this beautiful regret and projections into the future. He\u2019s dying not only of a fatal gunshot wound but with the mortal sin of murder on his soul, the face of God with his serpent eyes of obsidian. In Romance In Durango, like all the best westerns, the people are complex, but the morality of the Old World they inhabit is clearly defined.\u201d<\/p>\n34. Blowing In The Wind, <\/strong>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1963 \u2013 As selected by Mavis Staples<\/h2>\n
33. You\u2019re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, <\/strong>Blood On The Tracks<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by Madeleine Peyroux<\/h2>\n
32. Stuck Inside The Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again, <\/strong>Blonde On Blonde<\/em>, 1966 \u2013 As selected by Frank Black<\/h2>\n
31. Man In The Long Black Coat, <\/strong>Oh Mercy<\/em>, 1989 \u2013 As selected by Oh Mercy\/Time Out Of Mind producer Daniel Lanois<\/h2>\n
30. She Belongs To Me, <\/strong>Bringing It All Back Home \u2013 <\/em>As selected by the Beach Boys\u2019 Bruce Johnston<\/h2>\n
29. Girl From The North Country, <\/strong>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1963 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0The Blue Nile\u2019s\u00a0Paul Buchanan<\/h2>\n
28. \u00a0I Don\u2019t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met), <\/strong>Another Side Of Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1964 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0The Lovin’ Spoonful’s\u00a0John Sebastian<\/h2>\n
27. All Along The Watchtower, <\/strong>John Wesley Harding<\/em>, 1967 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Terry Callier<\/h2>\n
26. Every Grain Of Sand, <\/strong>Shot Of Love<\/em>, 1981 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Sheryl Crowe<\/h2>\n
25. To Ramona \u2013 <\/strong>As selected by\u00a0Lucinda Williams<\/h2>\n
24. I Shall Be Released, <\/strong>Greatest Hits Vol.2<\/em>, 1971 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Tom Robinson<\/h2>\n
23. A Hard Rain\u2019s A-Gonna Fall, <\/strong>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1963 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Tom Paxton<\/h2>\n
22. The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019, <\/strong>The Times They Are A-Changin\u2019<\/em>, 1964 \u2013 As selected by East Coast rapper Nas<\/h2>\n
21. Visions Of Johanna, <\/strong>Blonde On Blonde<\/em>, 1966 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Steve Harley*<\/h2>\n
20. Ballad Of A Thin Man, <\/strong>Highway 61 Revisited<\/em>, 1965 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Al Stewart<\/h2>\n
19. Idiot Wind, <\/strong>Blood On The Tracks<\/em>, 1975 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Blood On The Tracks\u00a0engineer\u00a0Glenn Berger<\/h2>\n
18. Subterranean Homesick Blues, <\/strong>Bringing It All Back Home<\/em>, 1965 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0The Doors\u2019\u00a0Robby Krieger<\/h2>\n
17. Masters Of War, <\/strong>The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan<\/em>, 1963 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Loudon Wainwright III<\/h2>\n
16. I Threw It All Away, <\/strong>Nashville Skyline<\/em>, 1969 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Nick Cave<\/h2>\n
15. Tangled Up In Blue, <\/strong>More Blood, More Tracks: The Bootleg Series Vol.14<\/em>, 2018 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Gaz Coombes<\/h2>\n
14. Love Sick, <\/strong>Time Out Of Mind<\/em>, 1997 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Marianne Faithful<\/h2>\n
13. Highway 61 Revisited, <\/strong>Highway 61 Revisited<\/em>, 1965 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Gang Of Four\u2019s\u00a0Jon King<\/h2>\n
12. Just Like A Woman, <\/strong>Blonde On Blonde<\/em>, 1966 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Jimmy Webb<\/h2>\n
11. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, <\/strong>The Times They Are A-Changin<\/em>\u2019, 1964 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Bill Fay<\/h2>\n
10. Murder Most Foul, <\/strong>Rough And Rowdy Ways<\/em>, 2020 \u2013 As selected by\u00a0Villagers\u2019\u00a0Conor O\u2019Brien<\/h2>\n