I’ve been listening to Bob Dylan’s music more now than ever before. Just curious, what’s your favorite song (if you can pick?) Perhaps you can even divulge why it’s your favorite. I know it’s hard. But you are stranded on an island with nothing but your iPod. It has just enough juice for one more song. No, you can’t pick Justin Timberlake, for everything deleted off your iPod during the crash, except for every Bob Dylan song ever produced. For me, I’ve got to say “Mr. Tambourine Man.” I don’t really know why it’s my favorite Dylan song though, it just hits me. In this case, no cover can do this song justice.
“Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.
Though I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming.
refrain
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship,
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wanderin’.
I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
refrain
Though you might hear laughin’, spinnin’, swingin’ madly across the sun,
It’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just escapin’ on the run
And but for the sky there are no fences facin’.
And if you hear vague traces of skippin’ reels of rhyme
To your tambourine in time, it’s just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn’t pay it any mind, it’s just a shadow you’re
Seein’ that he’s chasing.
refrain
Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I’ll come followin’ you.”
more posts coming soon. i’ll be posting some more upbeat tunes also:)
“Its All Over Now Baby Blue” its hard to pick just one of course. This one has eveything i love about Bob. Trippy lyrics, easy melody, the voice at its prime. Its been covered quite alot. 13th Floor Elevators, Them, Hole, and The Grateful dead have all done it. Its a masterpeice. Out of the gajillion great Dylan songs this one gets me everytime.
It changes each and every day. But right now, on a beautiful Sunday in San Francsico I’d have to say “Most of the Time,” from the vastly underrated Oh, Mercy record. It is sweet and sad and filled with the regret of decisions made and not made.
I’d have to agree with Eric, that’s something that changes all the time. Today it’s Isis. Yesterday it was Visions of Johanna. If you made made made me pick just one track it’d have to be something off Blood On The Tracks really, but it’d still take me an ages to pick one, and I’d undoubtably change my mind again…
haha, Stu I realize it was an unfair question. I guess we can just be grateful that we aren’t limited to one Dylan song.
Kevin, “Its All Over Now Baby Blue†is a great song. Good choice, even though it’s really hard to go wrong. I was recently listening to an Alan Lorber Orchestra instrumental of the song that’s kind of neat.
Eric, “Most of the Time” is a great song, as well. Best song on the High Fidelity soundtrack.
Thanks for taking the time to comment guys, and helping keep the music alive.
Not my all time favorite but my favorite most forgotten song, Tomorrow is A Long Time. It is a unreleased track that ended up on Greatest Hits Vol. 2. Maybe the most lovely song ever.
I’ve lately been getting into the Live 1966 bootleg (the legally released version from ’98), mainly the all-acoustic first disc. I love the versions of “Visions of Johanna,” “Desolation Row,” and “Just Like a Woman” even more than their studio counterparts. Those are three of my favorite Dylan recordings, and I also have to mention “Idiot Wind” because of how intense and chilling it is (I’m not condoning its misogyny). Does anyone have a favorite Dylan cover? I’ve been listening to a lot of Joan Baez lately, and she’s done quite a few, but I might have to say my favorite is The Band’s version of “I Shall Be Released.”
don’t think twice it’s alright
Absolutely anything on Blood on the Tracks. Also Visions of Johanna and Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.
I really love a lot of Dylan’s songs, as was said before there are a lot of picks you could go with. I would go with ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ though, followed closely by ‘Visions of Johanna’.
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