This blog is not supposed to be all about Bob Dylan
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 (-)
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 (-)
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