Top Ten Tracks: Bob Dylan

So last week Bobby says he’s coming back to do an Aussie tour in Aug. tickets are on sale today! I don’t know about seeing him, again live? Seeing him back in the late 90’s which he was in his full rock ‘n’ roll mode was the best but I do think even then support act who was Patti Smith did topped him, just! Then the last time I seen him by mid-2000’s which he was so into turning all his songs into totally boring R&B shuffles and now in the last few years he’s just keeps releasing, well the last three new albums are golden oldie covers. I guess, he’s 70 something years old so it’s pretty great he’s still touring!

Anyway seems I’ve been getting into or done a few of these type of top 10 tracks posts now, who better to do next than him? I’ve picks out once again not just the greatest hits, I do like/love digging into back-catalogs of artists and finding something else to listen too! So here’s what’s become my faves over the years of listening to him and if somehow he did do a setlist of these I would buy a ticket but I very much doubt it!

No numbers again, just early 60’s to the 2000’s order…

Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues [1962]

I was very, very late to Dylan, I didn’t buy any albums until mid-90’s which was just in time for the official bootlegs. These releases could be better than what original released, for his early stuff like his debut self-titled album from the same year which that record was just full of covers but this song above seems like hundreds of song he wrote but didn’t release on his own albums. He’s a veryfunny bugger, you know?

Rocks And Gravel [1963]

Yet another left-over from his second album called Freewheelin’ which was full of his own songs then but this one a cover didn’t make the cut. So it’s not official release until the soundtrack to HBO’s True Detective but after the second season was air in 2015, unbelievable really!

Outlaw Blues [1965]

Now we get to his albums at the time of the mid-60’s and I would pick out this track, which most call a minor song then with the epics that he was writing back then. But this is my go to Dylan goes electric track, it’s just rocks the hell out of everything and I love it!

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again [1966]

This song is just him taking the whole rock ‘n’ roll thing to it’s limits! If I remember right this might just be the very first Dylan song I sat up and said who the hell is that? I think it was is some bad 90’s movie I’ve forget the name of now but I still totally love this track!

I Threw It All Away [1969]

When reading about Nick Cave’s music obsessions with Dylan this song just kept came up again and again, I can’t quote Cave but everyone else does talks about another song on this same album but when finally hearing it, I must had it on repeat for a day because it is that great, he’s right!

Isis [1975]

Desire on record from the in mid-70’s must have been the first real album in full I did hear when I got around to his albums after the official bootlegs Vol. 1-3 and Live 1966 Vol. 4 ones which was what I got first, you know?

Sara [1975]

I could have pick even more than just these two songs on this album because I do love it the most still. I think if and when I get back to my CA list I’ve just got to add it to them and I’ll write more about it then, OK? To me this song is Dylan’s ultimate love song!

Man In The Long Black Coat [1989]

By the 80’s he was a “Has-been” but this song is just epic, it floors me everything I hear it and they’re a few more 80’s that are almost as great and wasn’t all bad stuff like everyone says it is. Jewels are in there with all the rubbish he did write then but they’re just harder to find, almost impossible sometimes!

Highlands [1997]

The big late 90’s comeback after begin in the wastelands for years and years. This would the first new album at the time I got it and not an old one or those bootleg ones. It would have been around this time I seen him live with his full-on rock ‘n’ roll band and did they rock out that time, I remember running down the front because I wasn’t sitting in a sit for that, at the end of that night I must have been about five metres away from the great man and his big cowboy hat!

Things Have Changed [2001]

I think this one is last totally great epic song he’s wrote, after winning his Oscar for it nothing he’s wrote seem as great as this, some have got or been close but not better than this! Well, that’s my opinion about his songwriting since this song, some pretty good albums and some not so good albums or can you call them plain bad?

Dylan during The Rolling Thunder Revue Tour in 1975!

So who doesn’t have an opinion about Dylan? What are your fave songs or even albums? If you like to tell me? I would love to know, you know? Please!

Cheers 🙂