Rich Wallace's Blog - Posts Tagged "bob-dylan"

Forgot to mention in my first blog post that my novel War and Watermelon was released yesterday by Viking. It’s set in suburban NJ in the summer of ’69, and the main character, Brody (he’s 12) stays up nights listening to the Top 40 on WMCA and making his own lists of the best songs. I still do things like that sometimes.

For example:

A couple of weeks ago Rolling Stone devoted much of an issue to Bob Dylan in celebration of his 70th birthday. They also listed his 70 best songs. I did my own list of 50; our No.1’s were the same: Like a Rolling Stone. There was lots of other overlap. Can’t think of any other artist where I could even come up with 25 great songs. These are all gems, with the top 20 (or 30; heck I love them all) absolute classics. (For a great Dylan parody, take a look at Weird Al Yankovic’s "Bob" video on youtube.)

Here’s my list (3 of my top 5 are from “Blood on the Tracks”):

1 Like a Rolling Stone
2 Tangled Up in Blue
3 Mr. Tambourine Man
4 If You See Her, Say Hello
5 Idiot Wind
6 My Back Pages
7 Blowin’ in the Wind
8 Girl from the North Country
9 When the Ship Comes In
10 Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
11 Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
12 I Shall be Released
13 Hurricane
14 Dignity
15 Forever Young
16 Jokerman
17 Shooting Star
18 The Times They Are A-Changing
19 Shelter from the Storm
20 Workingman’s Blues
21 If Not for You
22 Tombstone Blues
23 All Along the Watchtower
24 A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
25 Most of the Time
26 You’re a Big Girl Now
27 Absolutely Sweet Marie
28 Simple Twist of Fate
29 Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
30 I’ll Remember You
31 Emotionally Yours
32 Lay Lady Lay
33 Positively 4th Street
34 Ring Them Bells
35 I Want You
36 Stuck Inside of Mobile
37 Highway 61
38 Boots of Spanish Leather
39 Make You Feel My Love
40 Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues
41 Just Like a Woman
42 Seven Days
43 Black Diamond Bay
44 What Good Am I?
45 Series of Dreams
46 With God on Our Side
47 Tight Connection to My Heart
48 You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
49 Not Dark Yet
50 Ballad of a Thin Man

So I am now on Facebook, if anyone cares, although I don’t have the slightest idea what to do with (or about) that. I joined because my son Jonathan sent me a link to his own top 50 Dylan songs, which he posted there. I’ve copied his rankings below, with the numbers in parentheses being the rankings that I gave them. (My list is farther below on this blog).

As you study the two lists, you’ll see that, although five songs made both of our top 10s, there is considerable variation between us. Two songs showed up in the exact same spot: My Back Pages at 7 and Ballad of a Thin Man at 50. (He has 51 songs on his list, but my top 50 has swelled to nearly 60.) Jonathan’s list tends to favor the more direct protest songs.

While I was driving to New Jersey last week, a station near Hartford, CT, played a set of Dylan songs, none of which were on my list but all of which might have been: Summer Days, Something There Is About You, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, Country Pie, and Nashville Skyline Rag.

Here’s Jonathan’s list, which Dylan scholars everywhere will appreciate:
1 Girl From North Country (6)
2 Mr Tamborine Man (3)
3 Changing of the Guard (-)
4 Lay Lady Lay (32)
5 Sara (-)
6 Like a Rolling Stone (1)
7 My Back Pages (7)
8 Brownsville Girl (-)
9 Thunder on the Mountain (-)
10 Tangled up in Blue (2)
11 Shooting Star (17)
12 One More Cup of Coffee
13 Workingman Blues (20)
14 John Brown (-)
15 Tombstone Blues (22)
16 With God on our side (-)
17 Political World (-)
18 Hurricane (14)
19 Gotta Serve Somebody (-)
20 Series of Dreams (-)
21 The Times, they are a-changin (18)
22 House of the Rising Sun (-)
23 Man in the Long Black Coat (-)
24 Under the red sky (-)
25 Masters of War (-)
26 Knockin on Heaven’s Door (10)
27 Blowin in the Wind (8)
28 Silvio (-)
29 Ain’t Talking (-)
30 Desolation Row (-)
31 Jokerman (16)
32 Dignity (12)
33 The Water is wide (-)
34 It’s all over now baby blue (-)
35 You Aint Going Nowhere (47)
36 All along the watchtower (23)
37 Where the teardrops fall (-)
38 Seven Days (41)
39 Don’t think twice, it’s alright (29)
40 Chimes of Freedom (-)
41 Most of the time (25)
42 One of us must know
43 Ring them bells (34)
44 Sad Eye lady of the lowlands (-)
45 The levees gonna break (-)
46 Everything is broken (-)
47 The Death of Emmett Till (-)
48 Maggie’s farm (-)
49 Idiot Wind (5)
50 Ballad of a thin man (50)
Talking’ WWIII blues (-)

And I am very grateful for my life.

Thirty-seven years ago I went with a bunch of my friends to Madison Square Garden to see Elton John. Midway through the concert, out comes John Lennon and they do "Lucy in the Sky," "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," and the greatest-ever version of "Saw Her Standing There." It apparently was the last live performance of Lennon's life.
I was with a very sweet girl named Dorothy. I wrote in my diary that night that it had been the best night of my life so far, and that I knew there would be many more to come. That's held true.

I spent today--and every day of the past twelve years--with the love of my life, Sandra, and every day gets better.

Great songs I listened to today:

"The Boxer" by Paul Simon

In the clearing stands a boxer,
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
"I am leaving, I am leaving."
But the fighter still remains

"The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze . . ." by Gilbert and Sullivan

Observe his flame,
that placid dame,
the moon's celestial highness;
There's not a trace
upon her face
of diffidence or shyness

"Lillian" by Ian Fitzgerald

She danced like the only one who heard the song . . .

"I Was Glad" by the St. Paul's Cathedral Choir of London. Had the pleasure of seeing them live during Evensong last summer.

"Idiot Wind." Dylan.

There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door
You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the war
After losin’ every battle