My Top Ten Favourite Songs by Bob Dylan (Pt. 9)

Bob Dylan is many things to many people. I have already explained to you what he means to me and who he is to me in the previous section in this series. I love how many people are loving and appreciating these posts on my top 100 favourite Bob Dylan songs.

I also appreciate the fact that I have met a lot of new Bobcats, either forming or well into their Dylanology journey—through this series. I have also gotten the chance to speak on the internet to my favourite Dylanologists who have authored some incredible books on Bob Dylan. This means that I am a very happy Bobcat and have enjoyed writing this series as much as physically possible.

If you are on that Bob Dylan group chat I have on my Twitter (which is about say, four other people?) you will probably find this list very familiar as it is the same one I sent you all a pretty long time ago. The difference between me and other Bobcats is that my top 100 has never really changed. I'd like it too but I can't find it in my heart to remove or replace any songs, so the list just grows in various ways. But the list I'm using is the same one I put on the group chat a pretty long while back now.

Hopefully, I can get up to 100 and we can all have a nice time celebrating the end of the series on my favourite Bob Dylan songs, and get back to me having a go at some Dylanology (though I regret I'm not that good). I have various theories about Bob Dylan songs and to be honest, I always get scared to share them because there's so many people who know a lot more about his songs than I do. Also because I'm not incredibly intelligent - I just sit around listening to Bob Dylan's music most of the time. (Laughs in Bob Dylan referencing).

This is going to work the same way as the other posts, I'm going to talk a bit about the song and the album title will be in brackets after the song title. I hope you enjoy Part 9 of our journey into my top 100.

81. "Things Have Changed" ('Wonder Boys: The Soundtrack')

"People are crazy, times are strange. I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range. I used to care but things have changed."

Bob Dylan won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for this song. Yes, he did that because he's Bob Dylan and you're not. I love the sound of this song because to me, it sounds like it belongs in a film noir of the 1940s. It has some really dark and sultry lyrics and a brilliant backing set of drums. It sounds absolutely incredible. There was a live version of this song performed in Oregon in 2000 (I think) and Clinton Heylin called it something like "mediocre" (I believe). It was pretty good, he's just being mean. I love this song and I'm sure you will too.

82. "Oh, Sister" ('Desire')

"Oh sister when I come to lie in your arms, you should not treat me like a stranger..."

One of the under-appreciated songs on Desire, this song was ruined for me after someone wrote that it was about incest. I don't understand how the hell this song is about incest but it seems to me that whoever wrote that has some dark problems. I feel like this song is more about death than anything else - for some reason it always evoked the sound of someone dying and telling their sister to carry on without them. I bet I'm wrong about that, but that's what it sounds like to me. I hope you don't make fun of my theorising.

83. "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking" ('Slow Train Coming')

"Gonna change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules."

Bob Dylan's ultimate Gospel Song. This song is so clearly gospel that I'm surprised that it was ever questioned as a song. It's beautifully written and brilliantly composed. Bob Dylan's voice is also nearing it's best and he sounds like he's really doing what he wants to do. Bob Dylan has a great career and this song is an incredible addition to that catalogue. I love listening to this song because I think it's a brilliant message to which we attribute a man who has changed and become more spiritually connected. To be honest, I don't think Bob Dylan was ever not spiritually connected. He always had something to say about that topic and therefore, has always been this way—he's just singing about another part of himself. It's always been there.

84. "She Belongs to Me" ('Bringing it All Back Home')

"She's got everything she needs she's an artist, she don't look back."

This song sounds incredible because you can really hear Bob Dylan's vocals coming through loud and clear. I think this is one of the best recorded songs on the album because of that point. It may be a simpler and slightly shorter song than the rest but that doesn't take away from the fact that the song, in its own right, is absolutely iconic. It is a severely under-appreciated song that gets over-shadowed by the protest songs sometimes and well, I think it deserves more respect as being one of Bob Dylan's great love songs.

85. "Please, Mrs. Henry" ('The Basement Tapes')

"I can drink like a fish, I can crawl like a snake, I can bite like a turkey, I can slam like a drake..."

This song is hilarious. I have no idea what it's about other than there's some drunk guy who wants Mrs. Henry to hear him out about something. But he speaks so incoherently that it would be impossible for Mrs. Henry to figure out what he's talking about. I love this song on The Basement Tapes because of the fact it just sounds funny. It's like a little comedy - kind of like the 70s answer to Rainy Day Women #12 and 35. It's funny and incoherent and just a bit of fun. It's not taking itself too seriously, but it's not completely out there either—not if you're really listening.

86. "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" ('Blood on the Tracks')

"The festival was over, the boys were all plannin' for a fall..."

This song is good, Simon Armitage is just mean. Of course, what I'm talking about is the essay book on Bob Dylan named: Do You, Mr. Jones? (Bob Dylan with Poets and Professors) edited by Neil Cocoran. You've probably heard me talk about this awesome essay many times in which Simon Armitage, the poet, does a verse-by-verse analysis of Tangled up in Blue. He makes some pretty snarky comments about this song and I don't like them. He says something like it's the weakest or the worst song on the album, but it adds some colour to what is a spiralling depth and I think it's a beautiful story. Unfortunately, Armitage could never get behind it - I hope he's changed his mind since then though.

87. "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" ('Blonde on Blonde')

"My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums..."

A brilliant and timeless love song that Bob Dylan wrote for his then-wife, the model Sara Lowndes. The beautiful Sara Lowndes has possibly been the subject for many Bob Dylan songs, but this one is the very best. The lyrics are beautiful, the song is brilliant and the whole sound of it fits perfectly with the rest of the album and manages to make for an amazing story of love and courtship. It's an incredible song and I hope that you listen to it as well and love it as much as I do.

88. "Tombstone Blues" ('Highway 61 Revisited')

"The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course. The city fathers, they're trying to endorse the reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse. But the town has no need to be nervous."

I love the imagery in this song. If I'm correct in suggesting that Tombstone is, in fact, Arizona. I'm not sure whether that's correct but that's definitely what I think. It makes for a brilliant range of images, especially the more religious/biblical ones that litter the song and colour it with a tone of arrogance. I love this song as well because of its sound. You have that guitar at the beginning of the song that lets you know that you're in for a new Bob Dylan sound, something different to the previous album.

89. "Mozambique" ('Desire')

I like to spend some time in Mozambique, the sunny sky is aqua blue. And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek; it's very nice to stay a week or two and maybe fall in love just me and you.

Clinton Heylin called this song the worst/weakest song on the album, but I beg to differ. I actually think that there are no weak or worst songs on this album and that this song is just as good as all the others. To be honest, I was quite surprised he said that about Mozambique and not Joey since Joey is the one hated by most Dylanologists and yet, nobody has told me why. Mozambique sounds so good, especially when that drum beat gets louder at the end of the first verse. This is far from the weakest song on the album—it's brilliant and I love it.

90. "Scarlet Town"

In Scarlet Town, where I was born, there's ivy leaf and silver thorn. The streets have names that you can't pronounce; gold is down to a quarter of an ounce.

This song is dark, brooding and timeless. It is one of those songs that you listen to at night—it's meant to be played at midnight in jazz clubs. It's one of those songs. It's one of the strongest songs on the whole album and sounds really good lyrically and musically. I have not seen other Bob Dylan fans give it much credit but I like to think that people enjoy the song for what it is. It is dark, it is a story, it is like one of those film noir songs—it is pure brilliance and I love it.

Conclusion

My Twitter is @3ftMonster if you would like to contact me and talk to me about what you're favourite Bob Dylan songs are. I always love to discuss other people's top ten (or more if you like!) and things to do with being a Bobcat and reading Dylanology. I'm still practicing my Dylanology at the moment, I have no idea when I'll be ready because it seems really difficult to get right. I hope I'll be ready to theorise soon but for now, I hope you enjoy my Bobcat raving to Bob Dylan's best songs!