Dylan list

Outside Hibbing, Minnesota, 1998.

The seventieth birthday of Mr. Bob Dylan arrives on Tuesday. I'm not sure I have a great more to say on the subject right at the moment — a long essay on Dylan appears in my book Listen to This — but I thought I'd offer a quirky, highly personal playlist of fifteen Dylan songs I can't live without, in versions that may or may not be commercially available:

1. Tangled Up in Blue (original New York version)
2. Simple Twist of Fate
3. You're a Big Girl Now (original New York version)
4. Idiot Wind (original verson)
5. Freeze Out (original version of "Visions of Johanna" w/ The Hawks)
6. Baby Let Me Follow You Down (live in Manchester, 1966)
7. Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
8. Million Dollar Bash (take 1 from the complete Basement Tapes)
9. Sign on the Cross
10. Abandoned Love (live at the Bitter End, 1975)
11. The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar (live at the Fox Warfield, 1980, w/ Michael Bloomfield)
12. Blind Willie McTell
13. Not Dark Yet
14. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll (live at the El Rey Theater, 1997)
15. Ain't Talkin'