Did Dylan Write That?
A few Bob Dylan song listicles
Just for fun, let’s talk about Bob Dylan songs. I’m no Dylan expert or stan, but I like a lot of his work and I respect his talent.
Bob Dylan is THE American songwriter/poet of our (baby-boomer/hippy) generation. Mystical, deep, humorous, story-telling, symbolic, righteous, prolific: nobody else measures up to Dylan’s mighty stature. The Pauls (McCartney and Simon) are right up there with their incredible song catalogs, but Dylan was the voice of the times.
Dylan has written more than 600 songs and they are not all gems! But the creme of the crop are amazing. Let’s remember some of them.
I bet that I can name some Dylan songs that, when you hear them in your head, you hear a different performer than Dylan. You might not even realize that Dylan wrote these songs.
- Mr. Tamborine Man — I hear The Byrds
- Quinn the Eskimo (“Come on without, come on within, You’ve not seen nothing like The Mighty Quinn.”) — I hear Manfred Mann
- Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door — I hear Eric Clapton
- All Along the Watchtower — I hear Jimi Hendrix, of course!
- This Wheel’s On Fire (“Wheels on fire, rollin’ down the road…”)— I hear the theme music to the classic BBC comedy series, Absolutely Fabulous (AbFab to cool people)
Rick Danko of The Band shares the song writing credit for This Wheel’s On Fire. Did you know that The Band was Dylan’s backup band during the 1966 tour when Bob shocked the world by “going electric”?
- It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry (“Well, I ride on a mail train, babe, Can’t buy a thrill…”) — if this song plays in your head at all, it will probably be from the Al Kooper/Mike Bloomfield Super Sessions album; at least, that’s what I hear
If you are a Deadhead (a Grateful Dead stan), then Jerry Garcia’s thin, sweet voice comes into your mind when you hear:
- I Shall Be Released
- It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
- Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
- Simple Twist of Fate
- Positively 4th Street (I only just found it on YouTube but it will stay with me forever)
Here are some early Dylan hits that are very folksy and feature that classic horrible/weird/wonderful singing:
- A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
- Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right
- If Not For You
- I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
- It Ain’t Me Babe
- Just Like a Woman
- Like a Rolling Stone (“Once upon a time your dressed so fine…”)
- Maggie’s Farm
- Masters of War
- Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (“Everybody must get stoned!”)
And here are a few of his later songs, when his singing became quite good and the album production got more commercial:
- Forever Young
- Lay Lady Lay
- Shelter from the Storm
- Simple Twist of Fate
- Tangled Up in Blue
Fun fact: The last three of the five songs in the preceding listicle are from 1975's Blood on the Tracks, Dylan’s most commercially successful album. It also includes the story-song Lilly, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. At 9 minutes and 890 words, it is one of Dylan’s longest songs.
However, the winner of the longest recorded Dylan song is 2020’s Murder Most Foul, which has a running time of 17 minutes, and 1,384 words. The song centers around the JFK assassination and is Dylan’s most recent hit song — perhaps his only hit since he converted to Evangelical Christianity when he released Slow Train Comin’, a Christian-themed album, in 1979.
If you, like me, never attended a Dylan concert or bought a Dylan album, isn’t it amazing how many of these songs are instantly familiar to you?
And that’s it! Thank you for joining me on this short trip down the Bob Dylan memory lane.
Funny fact: I was inspired to this article by Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Where Have All the Flowers Gone? But that’s not Dylan! It’s Pete Seeger.
