The Top 10 Greatest Dylan Rip-Offs.

Bob Dylan is generally considered rock's finest songwriter & deservedly one of the most revered--& covered.

But what about those songs that aren't covers but adapt his unique characteristics--the bending voice, the wheezing harmonica, the complicated lyrics--for their own use, in varying levels of love & theft & parody?

It struck me that there were just enough decent examples of this to make a Top 10 list, as you find here. I decided to go with contemporaries or at least members of Dylan's own generation, as you could argue that entire artists have built a career out of ripping off his style. I also avoided direct parody--namely, "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2003 song "Bob," which used his 12-bar-blues early electric sound to unfurl a series of non-sequitur palindromes when viewed on cards a la Dylan's own video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues"--although some of these definitely court parody, even if they are not novelties in & of themselves.

Additionally, I stuck to ripping of the sound of Dylan in his classic mid-1960s era; I was very tempted to put on Dire Straits' "Sultans Of Swing," which is a rare Dylan sound-alike that evokes a later period of his music, but ultimately decided it was too much its own thing. Finally, I excluded any songs by Bob Dylan himself; hence no "Tweeter & The Monkey Man" (which itself is technically more of a Dylan-writing-Springsteen-in-turn-ripping-off-Dylan than a Dylan rip-off, per se, but I digress).

At any rate, here they are:

10. A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission) by Simon & Garfunkel

Paul Simon has always been the Bob Dylan-lite version--well-studied in both folk music & poetry, he took Dylan's style & made a kinder, gentler version for the masses to consume. Like so many others (including many of the people on this very list), Simon is unimaginable without Dylan. Simon seemed to acknowledge as much in this bizarre parody of the then-newly electric Dylan, spouting stream-of-conscious, name-dropping rhymes, wheezing into a harmonica, & even working in a few Dylan song titles while he was at it. But best of all was the disorganized ending in which Simon-as-Dylan croaks, "I dropped my harmonica, Albert," referring to Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman. A loving parody that probably sounded dated from the moment it was released.

9. Thrasher by Neil Young

Bob Dylan is the master of lifting other people's melodies & making them his own (a talent he in turn gleaned from Woody Guthrie), so here Neil Young returns the favor. On the first acoustic side of Rust Never Sleeps--the second side was electric, which itself seemed to mirror Dylan's first-side-electric-second-side acoustic 1965 album, Bringing It All Back Home--Young strums and plays harmonica on this winding ballad, which lifts the melody from "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," which was released on the above-mentioned Dylan LP. At one point, Young sings "On the sidewalks & in the stations," which again mirrors Dylan's like "In the dime-stores & bus stations" in "Love Minus Zero." One could interpret this as either a knowing wink to Dylan's original (like how Young had previously admitted to stealing the melody of The Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane" in his own aptly-titled "Borrowed Tune") or just evidence of how lodged Dylan's classic music was in rock's collective unconscious.

8. Catch The Wind by Donovan

Donovan has spent much of his career telling anyone who will listen that he wasn't influenced directly by Bob Dylan, but by the same people who influenced Dylan, namely Woody Guthrie & Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Whatever. The fact is, when Donovan's first hit single came out in 1965 (once Dylan had already moved onto more electric things), "Catch The Wind," it not only sounded like Dylan's earlier acoustic music, but it seemed to lift the melody from Dylan's own "Chimes Of Freedom"; furthermore, the title to Donovan's song seemed to riff off of Dylan's "Blowing In The Wind." Donovan would find something closer to his own voice when he went electric the following year, but in the meantime, the "Dylan vs. Donovan" hype of 1965 has been recorded (with a showdown towards the end!) in D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back" for all posterity to see.

7. Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street? by Bruce Springsteen

By the 1970s, it seemed that every third white guy with an acoustic guitar was being hailed as "The New Dylan." (For a definitive document, check out Greil Marcus's list of "New Dylans" in Dave Marsh's classic Rock Lists book; Bob Dylan himself makes the list about half a dozen times.) But no "New Dylan" was greater-hyped--or more initially disappointing--as Bruce Springsteen. Initially signed by legendary Columbia Records A&R man John Hammond (who had previously discovered Dylan), the label wanted a folk debut & Springsteen wanted it to be more rock. Thankfully, the album mostly goes Springsteen's way (as it's most tedious song, the acoustic ballad "Mary Queen Of Arkansas" is perhaps the worst Dylan rip-off in rock history); when it was released, Lester Bangs marveled it had more words in it than any other album that year. "Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?" is the most ridiculous of the lot, but at the same time, it's a loving use of Dylan's winding verses & surreal rhymes that ends in Spanish Harlem, the site of Dylan's own "Spanish Harlem Incident."

6. Song For Bob Dylan by David Bowie

On David Bowie's third album & first masterpiece, Hunky Dory, he performs three ritualistic killings of the father, in the songs "Andy Warhol," "Song For Bob Dylan," & "Queen Bitch" (about Lou Reed). His one for Dylan captures both Dylan's "voice of sand & glue" as well as the refrains, which find Bowie railing against a female subject in the second person, as many of Dylan's songs did as well ("It Ain't Me Babe," "Like A Rolling Stone," "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" etc.) A master mimic & trained theatrical actor, Bowie even hangs on words like Dylan & plays it straight where his other songs show off his voice's range. All is a fitting tribute, from someone who claimed to have been in the audience of Dylan's "Royal Albert Hall" concert in which someone shouted "Judas!"--a rare turn of one of rock's great center-stage performers placing himself in the audience seats. Now hear this, Robert Zimmerman, indeed.

5. Who's Driving Your Plane? by The Rolling Stones

Although Dylan & The Rolling Stones seemed to be very different forces in '60s rock--& beyond--they shared a kindred spirit of the blues. More than any other major white rock band, the blues was the touchstone of The Stones, & Dylan pulled the impossible trick of inspiring psychedelic rock without actually making it himself; he always stayed true to his roots, which means that once he plugged in, he would always come home to the blues. So while a song like "Jigsaw Puzzle" might be the more obvious choice for a list like this, I've always preferred the absurd, sexy "Who's Driving Your Plane?," an obscure B-side to "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?" which finds The Stones absorbing Dylan & meeting him on his (& their) own turf. & unlike their other psychedelic music of this period, The Stones tap into the stoned overdrive of the blues, pushing it into something more fierce--& timeless--than most of their other work during this time.

4. Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out) by The Hombres

The Hombres were a garage band from Memphis, Tennessee, that took the sound & vocabulary of Dylan & stretched it to its limits in this near-lampoon of a sound-alike. Like Dylan himself, they weren't afraid to borrow freely from other sources--the record's bizarre opening promise of "A preachment, dear friends, you are about to receive on John Barleycorn, Nicotine, & the temptations of Eve" was lifted from Red Ingle & His Natural Seven's 1947 novelty hit "Cigarets, Whuskey, & Wild, Wild Women." The Hombres' song that followed these words did well enough to make #12 on the national charts upon its release in 1967, & lead to an LP & a slew of follow-up singles, none of which would chart. The band members went their separate ways & in 2012, lead singer & organist B.B. Cunningham Jr. was shot & killed as a security guard in his hometown of Memphis.

3. Death Of A Clown by The Kinks

Kinks' leader Ray Davies' kid brother Dave Davies stepped out of the shadows to pen & sing "Death Of A Clown" on their 1967 LP Something Else By The Kinks. Lifted as a single, the song was a smash hit in the UK, where it made the Top 3 & opened the door for future singles by Dave Davies, only one of which, "Susannah's Still Alive," would chart. (Worth seeking out are his non-charting B-sides & fascinating obscurities like "Mindless Child Of Motherhood" & "This Man He Weeps Tonight.") But as a hit-maker, "Death Of A Clown" was Dave Davies' first, last, & greatest hit. He adopted the acoustic strum, the raspy croon, & even the carnival atmosphere of Dylan songs like "Desolation Row" to craft his song, which was brought down from any heights of pretension by its earnest vocal & brother Ray's perfectly sour harmonies.

2. Run For Your Life by The Beatles

Perhaps no one ripped off Dylan more than The Beatles (which makes sense because electric Dylan wouldn't exist without their gauntlet). "I'm A Loser" has the confessional lyric & wheezing harmonica & "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" has a tempo so familiar Dylan himself reclaimed it as "4th Time Around" & "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" finds them taking the hallmarks of Dylan & remaking it into their own vision. So why "Run For Your Life"? Honestly, it could have been any of these--or another. But "Run For Your Life" appeals for a few solid reasons: (1) It was the finale of both the UK & US album Rubber Soul, which found The Beatles "going folk" (especially in the US version) & seems to end the LP with a hat tip to the mentor; (2) it's the closest The Beatles would get to Dylan melodically, which seemed appropriate for the well-studied tunesmiths of Lennon & McCartney (just check the swooping of "Well, you know that I'm a wicked guy..."); (3) it begins with a direct lift of a line from Elvis's "Baby, Let's Play House" ("Well, I'd rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man"), which finds The Beatles literally picking up where Elvis left off. It speaks to a sort of shared trinity between Elvis, The Beatles, & Dylan while following the folk tradition of borrowed verses--a tradition on which Dylan literally built his songwriting career.

[Unfortunately, The Beatles don't allow their stuff to remain on YouTube for more than a millisecond so the closest I could get was this VASTLY INFERIOR alternate take of the song, but please, ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES & track down the original anyway; anyone who loves rock enough to make it through this list should have a copy of Rubber Soul anyway.]

1. A Public Execution by Mouse & The Traps

If initiation is the sincerest form of flattery, perhaps no song was more flattering to Bob Dylan than Mouse & The Traps' 1965 song "A Public Execution." Released within six months of Dylan's own "Like A Rolling Stone" & within four months of Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, Mouse & The Traps got to the Dylan-imitation game early & did it the best. Clearly modeled after "Like A Rolling Stone," "A Public Execution" takes all of the various elements we've seen so far & packed them into one succinct punch--he careening imitation vocals, the unusual & pretentious song title, the winding lyrics focused on the caustic put-down of a female in the second person--& puts it into a song that actually sounds not too far off from Dylan's own Highway 61 Revisited-era sound, if a bit more deliciously ragged.

A major hit in their native Texas (Mouse & The Traps hailed from Tyler, TX), it did well enough nationally to make #121 on Billboard's "Bubbling Under" chart & lead to a string of follow-up material, most of which, like "A Public Execution," were regional hits with little action nationally.

Their song reached rock immortality when Lenny Kaye put it on his seminal 1972 garage rock compilation Nuggets: Original Artifacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, along side B-level soundalike hits like The Knickerbockers' Beatles rip-off "Lies" & The Standells' Rolling Stones rip-off "Dirty Water."

In other words, "A Public Execution" did one thing that the girl in "Like A Rolling Stone" could never do: It found a home.

The Top 10 Greatest Bob Dylan Covers Of All-Time.

As Bob Dylan turns 76 this month, I thought it was as good a time as any to look back at the finest covers his music has inspired.

It was a daunting task. Dylan is the greatest rock songwriter of all-time, & his songs have become a kind of cultural currency that transcend rock music itself, or any other genre for that matter. As this list shows, Dylan's work has been remade not just in rock, but in pop, folk, jazz, & country, by women & men, black & white, Americans & foreigners, legendary & obscure, & in music that was major hits or hidden deep within the grooves of an LP.

Dylan himself has always been a shapeshifter, altering his sound, style, & voice on little more than whim. It only makes sense that his music has become a template for such a wide range of performers.

Of the many that didn't make it, there are three in particular I'd like to name--Jim James & Calexico's lovely mariachi remake of "Goin' To Acapulco," Guns N' Roses' absurd hard rock take on "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," & Nico's bittersweet version of "I'll Keep It With Mine"--all of which nearly made the list, & perhaps on a different day, or in a different mood, would have.

I only put out a few simple rules to govern this list: Only one song per artist, only one version of a song per list. There's so much good music to choose from, I didn't want to let this get overcrowded by an artist or a song. Other than that, anything was game.

Here's the list:

10. Elvis Presley: "Tomorrow Is Such A Long Time," 1966.

Bob Dylan once told Rolling Stone that Elvis Presley's cover of "Tomorrow Is Such A Long Time" was "the one recording I treasure the most." Dylan was a huge fan of Elvis early on & Elvis was certainly aware of Dylan, but rarely ever covered him because The Colonel largely forced him to record songs from the Hill & Range songwriting stable (which the owned stock in). One of the few times Elvis strayed was to record this as a bonus track for the Spinout soundtrack, resulting in a rare gem of his otherwise lackluster pre-comeback years. Just as Dylan's gift was his words, Elvis's gift was his feeling, & when the material was worth feeling, as it is here, Elvis gave it his all & made you believe every single word. The only bad thing that can be said about this performance is that it remains a tantalizing hint at would could have been had Elvis recorded more songs like this one.

9: PJ Harvey: "Highway 61 Revisited," 1993.

For her 1993 album Rid Of Me, PJ Harvey took her band & legendary producer Steve Albini & went on an errand into the wilderness of Minnesota in the dead of winter & recorded most of the album live in the studio in a matter of days. The only song Harvey didn't write on it was the title track to Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, proving that the titular stretch of road could crop up pretty much anywhere. Harvey didn't so much cover the song as she tore it apart & made it new again, breaking off words & sounds & reassembling them with a range of dynamics that was at once raw, surprising, & beautiful. This is the moment at which Dylan, the great modernist songwriter of our time, goes postmodern.

8. Jeff Buckley: "Mama, You've Been On My Mind," 1993 [Released 2004].

When Bob Dylan's The Bootleg Series Volume 1-3 came out in 1991, it was a virtual treasure trove of music, song & demos that had circulated like secrets & rumors for years finally gathered in a single place for a set that proved Dylan's discarded music could rival his officially-released songs of virtually any era. It was around this time that a young Jeff Buckley began covering this song in his legendary early sets around New York City in The Sin-e & The Knitting Factory. Dylan himself played it live as an upbeat country stomp in the Rolling Thunder Review tours of the 1970s, but Buckley wisely goes by Dylan's original 1964 version (an outtake from Another Side Of Bob Dylan), a slow & stately rumination on how love can linger even once its source has gone. Buckley turns it from a measured dirge into an etherial psalm, which sounds all the more haunting now that it is Buckley who has long since gone.

7. Them: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," 1966.

Dylan's first kiss-off to the folk scene was covered the following year by Them, Van Morrison's original band, a bunch of Irish kids who snuck into American radios with the British Invasion. They (or rather, Them) recast the song as easy, chiming pop, which serves as the perfect counterpart to Morrison's rough-hewed vocals. It is easy to hear how the song was more than just a cover for Them, but as a template for Morrison, given works like Astral Weeks, which would follow just a few short years later. Plus, it provided Beck with a hot hook for "Jack-Ass" on his classic 1993 album Odelay.

6. Nina Simone: "Just Like A Woman," 1971.

I spent quite some time deliberating between Nina Simone's version of "Just Like A Woman" & the one by Richie Havens, but decided to go with this one. First of all, I think the song is all the more fascinating from a female's perspective, which casts the lyrics & melody into a new light. But while Havens' cover strikes no false notes, it ultimately is just that--a cover--whereas Nina Simone never really covered songs in a traditional sense. She was a true stylist, one who remade everything into her image. This remains true for all of her signature work, including this Dylan cover, which sounds at once passionate yet understated. In the end, she doesn't so much sing the song as she does report it as one more undeniable truth.

5. The Fairport Convention: "Percy's Song," 1969.

In the late '60s, Rolling Stone asked Phil Spector what artist he would most like to produce. He answered Dylan because, in his opinion, Dylan had been recorded but never produced. Around the time Spector was saying this, British folk-rock pioneers The Fairport Convention were working out their own version of Dylan-as-a-production-project & the results are staggering. Here, they take Dylan's unreleased 1963 sketch of demo, which was just that--a sketch--& fill it out with the most majestic oil paints imaginable. Built around Sandy Denny's stunning vocal, the voices & instruments build up & wind down, such that the one thing that made Dylan's version a bit of a chore--its verse-stacked-on-verse simplicity--made it the perfect setting for dynamics & drama. Harmonies that rival The Beach Boys' finest work are filled out by a sound that predicts The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's supergroup country opus Will The Circle Be Unbroken, all to tell the tale of a mis-charged youth facing a cold, cruel world. Only by the time The Fairport Convention are done with it, the song sounds like a beacon of warm hope.

4. Manfred Mann: "Mighty Quinn," 1968.

Purists will probably balk at this choice (let alone at #4), but at the end of the day, pop is pop. With so many serious singers who can seriously sing on this list--Elvis Presley, Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone--Manfred Mann tells the other side of the story, one in which the meaning of the words are sacrificed in favor of the tune, where dancing is held higher than introspection. Appropriately, they chose a Basement Tapes song, where Dylan's lyrical surreal absurdity was a peak, thanks to a casual way to life with friends & a whole lot of booze. Although (or perhaps because) it was perhaps the best-known of the Basement Tapes compositions, it was left off the official 1975 Basement Tapes LP, although it resurfaced over the years on various collections in various versions. & with lines like "it ain't my cup of meat," it's a very weird song. But listening to Manfred Mann sing it, you'd hardly notice--it's only once you slow it down & listening to the words streaming by that you realize how strong it really is. When Dylan heard The Beatles & decided to plug in & get a band in 1965, it was in a gesture to achieve pop greatness. By the time "The Mighty Quinn" was released in the first days of 1968, Dylan's pop idea had already come full-circle.

3. Johnny & June Carter Cash: "It Ain't Me Babe," 1964.

On some of the earliest known recordings of Bob Dylan in 1958, he complains about Johnny Cash being boring as compared to rhythm & blues singers like Little Richard. The following decade, Dylan changed his tune, as evidenced by a film of Dylan & Cash singing a version of Hank Williams' "Lost Highway" backstage in 1965 & even recording a duet for Dylan's 1969 Nashville Skyline album. Around that same time, Dylan made one of his precious few TV appearances on The Johnny Cash Show. One imagines that whatever qualms Dylan had about Cash had more to do with the staid whitebread tastes of his community than Cash himself. Johnny Cash is a rare American music icon, an instantly-recognizable, genre-defying pioneer of popular music. It was only a matter of time before Cash started singing some of Dylan's songs, & the first & best was his cover of "It Ain't Me Babe," sung with future wife June Carter. Cash is able to use the song to strike a deft balance between the deadly serious & the seriously comical, delivering the withering verses like an assassin, before landing on the "Babe" of the refrain with an absurd glee that does nothing to derail the performance. Perhaps it's the budding romance with June, perhaps it's the use of the then-hip lingo "Babe," but the song injects an energy into Cash just as he was beginning to get bogged down by the mid-'60s Nashville sound. It was also a major hit, easily making the Country Top 5, a year before Dylan picked up an electric guitar.

2. The Byrds: "Mr. Tambourine Man," 1965.

The Byrds covered Dylan so many times that you could make a Top 10 list of just Byrd covers (& Columbia Records once essentially did just that with The Byrds Play Dylan compilation). & while The Byrds' versions of "Chimes Of Freedom," "My Back Pages," & "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" are all tempting for various reasons, it has to be "Mr. Tambourine Man." Few songs are as influential in rock history--The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" all but launched an entire genre, folk-rock, marrying Dylan's lyrics to The Beatles sound, fleshed out with their own shimmering guitars. (The legend is that, when called "folk-rock," Dylan once quipped, "When did I ever jingle-jangle?") In the end, The Byrds didn't cover the song as much as they stripped it for parts: When held up against Dylan's sprawling original, The Byrds scrap everything except for a single verse & a few go-rounds of the refrain, but it's all wrapped up in such a delectable package that you'd never notice unless you were a investigative Dylan reporter (you're welcome). With Gene Clark's straightforward vocal, Roger McGuinn's shining electric twelve-string, & David Crosby's inventive harmonies, it not only established Dylan in rock in the months before Dylan plugged in, but it established The Byrds as one of the most influential groups of all-time. & as for the Dylan covers of the folk-rock genre--Simon & Garfunkel's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," The Turtles' "It Ain't Me Babe," Peter, Paul, & Mary's "Too Much Of Nothing," to name but a few--The Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" stands head & shoulders above the rest.

1. Jimi Hendrix: "All Along The Watchtower," 1968.

A list like this can have no suspense. There is only one Number 1. & this is it: Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower." Dylan released his original version on John Wesley Harding in the waning days of 1967, his first album since his motorcycle crash. For all of those waiting for The Next Big Thing, they were shocked by a quiet little country record filled with mysterious songs that played like parables with no refrains. Gone were the Nashville studio musicians of Blonde On Blonde or the-soon-to-be-renamed The Band; in their place was Gordon Lightfoot's rhythm section & Dylan leading the group with acoustic guitar & harmonica. One of the first people to buy a copy was Jimi Hendrix, who devoured "All Along The Watchtower" & recast it from a sepia-tone little demo on John Wesley Harding to a shocking exercise in Day-Glo Technicolor. From the clattering opening riff through the wild flames of burning guitar throughout--at some moments crackling with heat, other moments scraping down into charred remains--Hendrix simply owned the song, tossing off the verses in his offhanded talk/sing style that made the words feel even more like his own. Dylan's original only hinted at Bible; Hendrix made the song into a maelstrom of biblical proportions. He also enshrined it as a rock standard ever since. Countless bands from international arena tours on down through some kids in the garage up the street from you right now play the song, so deceptively simple in structure, but limitless in meaning.

& among the many to follow Hendrix's lead was Dylan himself. After he heard Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower," Dylan realized that this was the way the song was always meant to sound & to this day, hasn't performed it with an acoustic guitar since.

Because, as the man said, Don't Look Back.

[Postscript: If you dug reading through this list, check out The Top 10 Greatest Dylan Rip-Offs.]

Lost Time Is Now Found Again: The Basement Tapes.

Bob Dylan contemplates the best way for you to prove your loyalty by spending $120.00.

Part 1: A Background.

It's taken some 47 years, but I can now write 4 simple words that have eluded nearly a half-century of rock scholars before me: The Basement Tapes exist.

This is no small feat. After taking the world by storm in 1966 with the loudest, greatest, & most controversial rock music anyone had ever heard (live, anyway), Bob Dylan crashed his motorcycle in upstate New York & hid out for the better part of a year, playing the family man while his backing group--then called The Hawks, now better known as The Band--began to join him. Together, they spent the middle part of 1967 into early 1968 jamming & recording, first in the Red Room at Dylan's house & then in the basement of a house rented by several members of The Band known as the Big Pink for the tacky color of its aluminum siding.

The music was a retreat from the groundbreaking rock & roll they had pioneered, exploring their rock, country, folk, & blues roots in a barrage of often spur-of-the-moment covers, & then on a series of strange & timeless originals. These were initially circulated as demos for other artists to record, but in time, Dylan & The Band's versions began leaking out, all but single-handedly creating rock music's bootleg industry (&, as some like to tell it, the alt-country & Americana genres).

In 1975, Dylan & The Band (or rather, Columbia Records) released The Basement Tapes, a double-album which attempted to put the whole thing to rest. It didn't. While it was extremely well-received & a big hit, hindsight has proven it to be a compromised product: Many of the most famous Basement Tapes songs were missing, such as "Quinn The Eskimo" & "I Shall Be Released," & the songs that were released featured overdubs & edits that over-polished the integrity of the originals. But most jarringly, among the 24 songs included were 8 recordings by The Band, which were passed off as part of the sessions. While The Band's music on the album is excellent, it would have been better heard on a compilation album by The Band, as it has a different sound, feel, & focus from the Dylan material.

Over the years, an additional 4 (undubbed) Basement Tapes recordings were released on various Dylan compilations, but the CD age brought several top-notch multi-disc bootlegs of material, first in 1989's 5-disc The Genuine Basement Tapes, & then 2001's 4-disc A Tree With Roots. While the former may have a bit more material, I've always preferred the latter since the sound was (mostly) remastered at a much clearer level.

But with Columbia releasing The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Complete Basement Tapes earlier this month, all such bootlegs are instantly rendered moot. Since Dylan's "Bootleg Series" began over 20 years ago, I was shocked that they hadn't ever done a definitive Basement Tapes until now--& was beginning to think that perhaps they never would. Perhaps it was too unwieldy, or required too many legal rights?

Well now, some 40 years after Columbia first released the original Basement Tapes double-LP, they have issued a deluxe 6-disc anthology that purports to contain every extant song & fragment of Basement Tapes material, housed in two small hardcover coffee-table books in a slipcase. The whole thing is a bit humbling--& like the Basement Tapes themselves, more than just a little surreal.

All that said, it is not a flawless set. Instead of trying to make educated guesses on who plays what, the producers of the set have opted to instead say that Dylan sings lead on everything, & as for the backing vocals & instrumentation, no one can be positive since The Band were all multi-instrumentalists. OK, I get it, but still a cop-out. Process of elimination & logic should've filled in the gaps, even if it contained numerous parenthetical question marks. After all, how many people in The Band ever regularly played bass on anything? (I count one: Rick Danko.)

Also frustrating is that, despite all of the photographs & reproductions of tape boxes & reels, there is nowhere that simply lists all of the numbered tapes in order & the material that each contains. We just have to take their word that it's roughly chronological, but with the 6th disc being made up of material with poor sound quality, the whole thing is intrinsically set up with gaps in the narrative. Again, I get it, but why not put an ordered list so that we can reconstruct the complete running order ourselves if we so choose?

Finally, I am not convinced that every shred of recording is in fact accounted for. I say this only because of one thing that I know is missing: The beginning of "See You Later, Allen Ginsberg," in which the person doing the answer call (I hear Rick Danko, but others could argue for Richard Manuel or Robbie Robertson), first pops in the words "Allen Ginsberg" for "Alligator." Dylan is caught off-guard, laughs hysterically, & relaunches the song as a surreal novelty. The new official version leaves out this early piece of the song, implying that it is Dylan who had considered this as part of the song from the start. Did Dylan not want to give away that it was another person's punchline? Or is it a scrap of tape that actually has been lost? Or something else entirely?

Given the sheer volume & ranging quality of this material, it's no surprise that the set has divided the critics somewhat into various camps. If you want to see the believers' side, check out David Fricke's over-zealous 5-star review in Rolling Stone; if you want the non-believer's side, check out Sasha Frere-Jones' misguided take in The New Yorker.

In truth, neither are correct--The Basement Tapes are not a masterpiece nor a joke shop of follies, but both & neither, & more, & less. Trying to paint them as all good or all bad defeats the purpose of their very construction & existence as a cultural artifact--they instead are just that, a cultural artifact, something that is at once artistic & accomplished, yet primitive & incomplete.

* * *

Part 2: A Review.

Disc 1: The Beginning.

The new Basement Tapes set begins with nothing less than Dylan & The Band going back to Sun Records where it all began, around 1955, & remaking rock & roll music from the beginning. Only instead of focusing on Elvis, Johnny Cash is their man. (Indeed, the sole Elvis song that makes the cut on these initial Basement Tapes excursions is "I Forgot To Remember To Forget," one of only 2 songs to be recorded by both Elvis & Cash during their respective times at Sun.) Various country tunes make their stream-of-conscious hit parade--an off-the-cuff take on Hank Williams' "My Bucket's Got A Hole In It," a lovely version of Cowboy Copas' more obscure "Waltzing With Sin"--but it's the Sun-era Cash who they keep going back to: His Old Testament prophecy of "Belshazzar," a driving "Folsom Prison Blues," & a wonderful reinvention of "Big River" across 2 takes that open the song up into a funky groove, with Dylan's words dragging things out like the winding river he follows. At 10 songs in, The Basement Tapes have already reached its first stunner.

Dylan & The Band conjure a Sun Records with no Carl Perkins songs, only his lead guitar work that can be applied everywhere (& was, thanks to The Beatles catalog). Even a force of nature like Jerry Lee Lewis is reduced to a ghost; he can only be heard through his own Hank Williams cover of "You Win Again," yet in the Basement Tapes, they remember the words to the second bridge ("You have no heart...") that Lewis himself forgets. It is a country & western swap-meet, with Johnny Cash standing over the proceedings--& what they lack in deep baritone, they make up for in sheer willpower.

The remainder of the first disc finds their way from country into folk, including a stark reading of "Bells Of Rhymney" at arm's length that sets the stage for the silly wordplay to come (even if every word is true to the Pete Seeger original) & a sweeping "Ol' Roison The Beau," which is the basis of pretty much every drinking song of the 19th century. Most lovely is a version of "On The Banks Of The Royal Canal," here called "The Auld Triangle," which becomes a song about how prison can transform into purgatory. In this way, it is the flipside of their earlier version of "Folsom Prison Blues," which took a grim prison ballad & turned it into a weekend getaway. In "The Auld Triangle," every word & note is measured carefully, the best verse coming towards the end, when the singer imagines the female prison with 70 women (which, as a modern listener, I can't resist by filling in with the extended cast of Orange Is The New Black). "& it's with them, where I'd like to dwell..." daydreams the singer. His prison life is so complete that even when he pictures himself with women, they too are in prison.

One of the first originals of the set is "Under Control," which I mention for the sole reason that it sounds so remarkably like The Eagles' "Life In The Fast Lane" (minus The Eagles' cheeky refrain & guitar lick), I can't help but wonder if Don Henley didn't somehow get a version of this Basement Tape on his hand & subconsciously turn it into his own rocker. Stranger things have happened in rock, such as, for example, the remaining 5 discs of this set.

Disc 2: The Weird.

This is where the strangeness sets in. Greil Marcus has famously described The Basement Tapes as tapping into "The Old, Weird America" of Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, & it is here where this "Old, Weird"-ness is fully heard. After a rollicking version of the Liverpool ballad "Johnny Todd" that is built on the same chord changes as half a dozen garage rock standards, Dylan sets his sights on John Lee Hooker's "The Big Flood," & in Marcus's perfect words, "turns a dank, still blues about death & ruin into a spelling bee." Dylan also renames the song after the place where it all went down--"Tupelo"--about a half-dozen years before Elvis Presley was born in the same streets.

There's "Kickin' My Dog Around," which is as complete & self-contained a statement as one can find in the Basement Tapes--"Every time I go to town, the boys keep kickin' my dog around/Don't know why I go to town, don't know why they kick my dog around"--to The Band's backing vocals that turn the proceedings into a dada version of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm." One can find "See You Later, Allen Ginsberg" (but NOT the earlier part of the tape where the joke is first created--only its silly aftermath, which strips it of its punch), which finds Bill Haley rubbing shoulders with the best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical...especially when they say the word "crock-a-gator."

"Tiny Montgomery" is the first original Basement Tapes standard to appear: Train-wreck words ("3-legged man in a hot tent-pole...") filling in the spaces between its deceptively simple message ("...tell 'em all Montgomery says hello"). This disc also first unleashed the joys of "I'm Your Teenage Prayer" for me, a profoundly weird (yet well-structured & performed) '50s-style doo-wop send-up, with the lead & backing singers competing for the listener: "Take a look at me, baby," sings one, "Take a look over here, baby," answers another right after. Such an obvious & simple idea--with all the shtick to be found in 50s records, how had no one thought to put the backing vocalists competing with the singer? It's almost enough to make you miss that the tagline--"I am a teenage prayer" sounds a few words short of a coherent statement.

The remainder of the disc is divided between music that is either lovely (the protest ballad "Joshua Gone Barbados," which Dylan sings with all of the passions as, well, Dylan singing it in 1963; the either entirely stupid or entirely brilliant "Baby, Won't You Be My Baby") or tedious ("Rock, Salt, & Nails," which seems to only be worth singing through to get to its wonderful closing couplet; "Try Me Little Girl," which Dylan uses to try a screeching falsetto). & then spread throughout is the material originally recorded by Ian & Sylvia, which is at once lovely ("Four Strong Winds" & "Song For Canada") & tedious (both takes of "The French Girl").

Disc 3: The Classic, Pt. 1.

After 3 of the finest folk covers of The Basement Tapes--a tender "Young But Daily Growing," a determined "Bonnie Ship The Diamond," & a weary "The Hills Of Mexico"--Dylan & The Band spend most of the disc getting into the most classic music of The Basement Tapes project.

There's "Million Dollar Bash," the closest the Basement Tapes have to a national anthem; "Yea! Heavy & A Bottle Of Bread," pure dada written by a man who simply loves words; "I'm Not There," an unfinished, unclear, unforgettable tale of love & devotion that is the most legendary Basement Tapes song of all; "Please Mrs. Henry," a drunkard's sing-a-long plea for acceptance into a boarding house; "Crash On The Levee," a blues about a universal flood & the personal toll it can take; "Lo & Behold!," a version of The Lady Vanishes, where the lady stays put & logic vanishes instead; "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," a perfect 3-chord proto-country rock standard featuring mail-order brides, easy chairs, & a tree with roots; "I Shall Be Released," perhaps the most famous of the Basement Tapes songs, well-known enough to have Elvis sing through a refrain in 1971; "This Wheel's On Fire," for my money, the best Basement Tapes song, period; "Too Much Of Nothing," with the perfect answering line, "can make a man ill at ease."

If you've made it this far into this article, chances are you already know all about these songs & have heard them a million times (& happily have never gotten any closer to their depths). But to hear them here is a small revelation, with no overdubs but a high-quality sound. Even if you can never imagine improving on your copy of A Tree With Roots, you should get this set if only because you can simply hear everything better. When "I'm Not There" (for many, the quintessential Basement Tapes song) was first released on the film soundtrack of the same name, I was disappointed at how low it was mixed, despite the fact it was now the 21st century. Someone must've gotten the memo because "I'm Not There" starts so loudly it becomes an entirely different, completely fuller, listening experience. Song-for-song, this may be the finest disc of the set (if not Dylan's entire career--yeah, I said it), in no small part because it is now that much greater to listen to.

& for me, the riddle at the center of "This Wheel's On Fire"--"& you know that we shall meet again, if your mem'ry serves you well," which impossibly places an unknown future into a known past--may just be the perfect Dylan line of them all, even if it may have been written by Rick Danko.

Disc 4: The Classic, Pt 2.

Picks up in the same classic territory as the previous disc left off: "Tears Of Rage," a funeral for a country that has forgotten Independence Day; "Quinn The Eskimo," the most unlikely UK #1 hit single (thanks to Manfred Mann) to use the phrase "it ain't my cup of meat"; "Open The Door Homer," reaching back to Jack McVea's 1946 vaudeville-inspired rhythm & blues hit "Open The Door, Richard" (the first song to have a fade-out) to spin advice about memories & toilet-flushing; "Nothing Was Delivered," the fallout of a faulty bill of sale, in which the victims still wish good health for the seller. All were released in various versions over the years (although "Henry" was in a version by The Band), & all deserved to be.

But after 3 takes of "Nothing Was Delivered" with varying success, the entire disc (if not Basement Tapes project) pivots on one transition: The one between "All American Boy" & "Sign On The Cross." As the earlier bootleg sets attested to, these songs were apparently recorded back-to-back, one beside the other on their respective Basement Tapes reel. To my ears, they provide the Basement Tapes' greatest one-two punch.

"All American Boy" is a goof on Bill Parsons' 1958 talking blues about getting a guitar, learning hot licks, getting hooked up with a manager with a big cigar, & becoming a star until you get drafted into the Army--in other words, it was a song about Elvis Presley. Dylan draws a line around the song so that the bottom falls out, the guitarist becomes a drummer, & everything goes from strange to stranger in a drunkard's reverie: "Clean your hand & come up tight, roll smoke & down at night/Hold on a train on a whiskey jar--settle it down, there you are!"

Dylan was comfortable with the talking blues form, as he had learned it from Woody Guthrie & then perfected the form himself in songs like "Talking New York Blues" & "Talking World War III Blues." Each of those songs had a point, but here any larger messages are lost. What we have instead is the sound of someone making up a song as they go along, to amuse his bandmates, to amuse himself. & yet, the careless, casual randomness of the words create a distinctively Basement Tapes feel--a secret America where reason go out the window in favor of a land where anything can happen--or, as the case may be, nothing can happen. A lot. It is a strange, timeless sound & it is this element that connects so well with the early folk & blues records of The Anthology Of American Folk Music.

& then, at one of the throwaway answer parts of the song, sung in a goon's voice that sounds like Richard Manuel (even if Garth Hudson confirms it is Robbie Robertson), he free-associates with Uncle Sam coming in from the original song's version: "Uncle Sam," he begins, followed by, "In this land." & then he adds 4 more words--"Ripping up draft cards"--& everything, the song, the Basement Tapes, goes from a timeless America to one that is decidedly 1967. Dylan comes in & interrupts him, as though to save the song from any modern interjections, & finishes it out with a return to the strangeness that has defined it thus far; the fact that Dylan can successfully return to this level is not only lucky, but remarkable. "You'd be a fine drummer," he drawls at the end. "Picker man's a-commer. Dog hummer." It is at once timeless, strange, & kinda dumb.

The next sound we hear is a reaching guitar winding together the instruments of "Sign On The Cross," & suddenly, everything is completely different. The irreverence has given way to reverence, all balanced on a stately gospel progression, the soft thunder of the drums rumbling underneath. It is a song of subtle, small gestures & extreme focus, & contains what is probably the most beautiful vocal that Bob Dylan will ever record.

"Sign On The Cross" is a song about religion & devotion, but more in the way that it is sung & played than any lyrics in & of themselves. Like the best Basement Tapes music, the words are obscure & sometimes nearly unintelligible, but are carried by the emotion. In this regard, it is a sort of answer record to that other long, mysterious, & legendary Basement Tapes song, "I'm Not There," only where that song finds extreme isolation, "Sign Of The Cross" finds community. By both implying & eluding proper organized religion, it serves as a powerful reminder as to why we have organized religion in the first place; as a religious song, it is Dylan's finest, with the possible exception of "Every Grain Of Sand."

But then, about halfway through, Dylan steps on the mood, pulling himself out of the song by breaking into a weird spoken break about the sign of the cross, delivered in a smiling African-American dialect that turns the song from a serious deliverance into a silly performance. You can't tell if he's celebrating the sound of an old southern preacher or mocking it, & in truth, it's probably both. It is a distancing method between the singer & the song, holding this sacred performance at arm's length as though it may all just be a joke after all--it looks into the Sign On The Cross & finds an All-American Boy.

& then just as effortlessly as Dylan slips out of his serious persona, he slips back into it, returning to the reverence in a bridge about the prisons & penitentiaries too that drives the whole thing home (literally, as it brings the song back to the root chord for a final verse). Yes, you can hear him giving muffled chord changes to his bandmates here & there & even a near-flubbed note or two, but "Sign On The Cross" sounds like one of the more rehearsed numbers on the Basement Tapes recordings. For almost any songwriter, it would go on to be a centerpiece of their career, but for Dylan, it would be recorded one time & largely forgotten, not even properly released until a few weeks ago.

After "All American-Boy" & "Sign One The Cross," we get more weird classics: The rocking "Odds & Ends" that is so perfect, it led off the official Basement Tapes release, while summing up the project in 6 words or less ("Lost time is not found again"); "Get Your Rocks Off," which is at once lazy, filthy, unsettling, & hilarious; "Clothesline Saga," which inverted Bobbie Gentry's then-contemporary #1 hit "Ode To Billy Joe" into a song that Christopher Ricks uses to illustrate "Sloth" in his mad, beautiful Dylan's Visions Of Sin; you can hear "Apple Suckling Tree" converge over 2 takes until it's one of the homespun-yet-funky moments in the entire project; a cut-off "Don't Ya Tell Henry" with some awful/amazing horns; & finally, a version of "Bourbon Street" that takes the horns of the previous song & drives them into the ground like a steamroller in a graveyard.

If the Basement Tapes ended there, no one would blame Dylan & The Band--& in a way, they do.

Disc 5: The Homecoming.

The first half of the 5th disc begins with never-before-bootlegged material from early 1968, with Levon Helm back in the group & the proceedings more organized. For the first time, the songs sound less like a bunch of guys rummaging through a garage sale & more like a singer & his band going over songs for a setlist.

3 of the first 4 songs reinvent Dylan standards in profound ways: There's a "Blowin' In The Wind" that must be heard to be believed--running for 6-&-a-half minutes over a funky bar groove, it takes the endlessly-covered song to places where no one else has had the vision to take it, setting the words out like a test, & watching them bounce off the music & each other until everything rolls along into the next line; they do a version of "One Too Many Mornings" that plays like a subdued version of "The Royal Albert Hall" concert, it's got all of the vigor of the loud-&-electric stage version, but washed in a lazy Sunday afternoon--Richard Manuel does a stunning job taking the first verse & makes you wish that more verse-trading had happened over the sessions; & finally, Dylan leads an "It Ain't Me, Babe" that sounds like a dry-run for The Rolling Thunder Review. Appropriately, the one non-Dylan song in the string is called "Satisfied Mind."

Dylan then leads the group through 2 takes "Ain't No More Cane," which is being rightfully lauded as one of the finest "new" moments of the box set, & then on to "Santa-Fe," one of my very favorites of the classic Basement Tapes songs, unfinished yet natural, & then onto songs that feel more contained & organized. Even the one that isn't, "My Woman She's A-Leavin'," is tightened up a few songs later as "Silent Weekend," which takes the blueprint of Charlie Rich's "Lonely Weekends" & applies it to a Wilson Pickett demo, only with internal rhymes that are as funky as the groove. Perhaps most odd is a version of "900 Miles From My Home" that takes the shell of a traditional folk song & welds it into the melody of Dylan's then-recent composition "John Wesley Harding." We can feel the curtains being closed & the floor being swept on the Basement Tapes.

But there's one last stretch of the Basement Tapes sound with Levon Helm in toe, as the parlor-ballad-turned-folksong "Wildwood Flower" is turned back into a half-forgotten slurred parlor tune & the 6 white horses of "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" make their way into the 6 white horses of "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain." The Old, Weird America lives.

One final Basement Tapes classic can be heard, "Goin' To Acapulco"--its late appearance in the chronology informing Helm's quoting it in his autobiography, This Wheel's On Fire ("It's a wicked life/But what the hell/Everybody's got to eat")--looking beyond the border of America to fuel one last journey.

The set ends where it should, with the 2 takes of "All You Have To Do Is Dream," which lifts the title of an Everly Brothers song & turns it into a paean to confusion & floorbirds.

Disc 6: The Rough Stuff.

As mentioned before, the material with the worst fidelity was taken out of order & put into a final disc, which concludes the set. Song-for-song, it is easily the junkiest volume of the box, but that's not to say it doesn't reveal its odd charm. Weird hooks like the bounce of "2 Dollars & 99 Cents" & the nonsense syllables of "Jelly Bean" take us back to repetitive almost non-songs like "Old Lady & The Devil" & "King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" of The Anthology Of American Folk Music, in both fidelity & feel. There's a lot of Dylan instructing, or putting out ideas & riffs, & in some cases, like "Hallelujah, I've Just Been Moved," it pays off, while in others, like the long & listless "That's The Breaks," it doesn't. & then there's stuff like the 19th century-sounding waltz of "Pretty Mary" that I bet most people would hate, even if I dig it.

From the previously released bootlegs, one can find the unfinished & elusive "King Of France," which I've always associated with The Band's own poor-fidelity version of "Ferdinand The Imposter"--both rough but well-worth a listen. "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" finally unleashes the presence of Woody Guthrie that has been felt all along--the wandering mind, the talking blues, the ability to try & accept anything that comes your way, especially if it originates from your own mind--& does it justice. & a version of The Rays' 1957 hit "Silhouettes" is quadrupled from a fragment to a nearly 2-minute clip where you can hear the doo-wop sound that Dylan & The Band are constantly returning to, played like "Heart & Soul" by a 7-year-old piano student.

Thrown in at the end is the 2 takes of "The Spanish Song," which for my money is the worst thing on the Basement Tapes, & probably not a coincidence that it's listed as the final music on the set. Thankfully, one final secret track revives a completely different "900 Miles From My Home" from the previous disc, turning it into an exploding fiddle piece that in sound & spirit matches only Robertson, Manuel, & Danko singing "Old Time Religion" in The Last Waltz, before ending on a take of "Confidential," another trip back to another half-forgotten early rock & roll song, ending things where it probably should, on a doo-wop cover, where Dylan & each member of the Band probably began their own musical journey over a decade earlier.

* * *

Part 3: A Conclusion.

As one reviewer has suggested, the 139 tracks from the recent Basement Tapes box set can be seen as an invitation from which you can make your own collection (just like The Beastie Boys actually did with their trailblazing Sounds Of Science anthology in 1999, but I digress). Although a smaller, 2-disc Basement Tapes Raw has been released alongside the deluxe box, I believe there's room for one more product that would bring it all home: A disc that collects the original versions of all of the Dylan songs from the 1975 Basement Tapes release in their most familiar versions, along with 8 more of the most classic originals. & like the original 1975 set, all 24 songs fit on a single disc. I call it:

The Basement Tapes "Masters"

1. Tiny Montgomery

2. Million Dollar Bash [Take 2]

3. Yea! Heavy & A Bottle Of Bread [Take 2]

4. I'm Not There

5. Please Mrs. Henry

6. Crash On The Levee [Take 2]

7. Lo & Behold! [Take 2]

8. You Ain't Goin' Nowhere [Take 2]

9. I Shall Be Released [Take 2]

10. This Wheel's On Fire

11. Too Much Of Nothing [Take 1]

12. Tears Of Rage [Take 1]

13. Quinn The Eskimo [Take 2]

14. Open The Door Homer [Take 1]

15. Nothing Was Delivered [Take 1]

16. Sign On The Cross

17. Odds & Ends [Take 2]

18. Get Your Rocks Off

19. Clothes Line Saga

20. Apple Suckling Tree [Take 2]

21. Don't Ya Tell Henry

22. Santa-Fe

23. Silent Weekend

24. Goin' To Acapulco

& there you have it. Running at 1:19:37, it nearly covers the entirety of a single compact disc. I of course would've loved to include "All-American Boy," but ultimately did not because it is not credited to Dylan.

& besides, it wouldn't be the Basement Tapes if it weren't missing a few odds & ends.

"Dy1an"

When historians look back to the first decade of the 21st Century, they may be surprised to see that the best-selling album of that period was a compilation of what was already 30-year-old music.  It was a compilation released in 2000, The Beatles' 1.

Although the compact disc had been around for some 20 years, The Beatles' 1 capitalized on it in a way that was as innovative & obvious-in-hindsight as the Beatles' own best music.  The compact disc had always been 80 minutes (allegedly so that a single disc could hold everybody's favorite golden oldie, Beethoven's Ninth), but here was an album that used the running time space to stuff it with a sort of desert-island treasure trove.  &, unlike pretty much every other "all-you-need-in-one" comp that followed in its wake, The Beatles' 1 had both the depth & the focus: It purported to be simply a running order of every Beatles UK & US #1 hits (which it wasn't quite, but I digress).

At first, Elvis jumped in the fray with his own defensively-packaged "but I was there first..." (true) & "...& had more #1 hits" (also true) disc called ELV1S, lest anyone had any doubt. Michael Jackson then followed suit with an album of #1 hits...& "Thriller," which technically only made #4.  The door was opened for ever-diminishing returns: The Supremes oddly included lengthened edits of their hits (that is, versions that technically didn't hit #1); Mariah Carey's #1 album had all number one hits, but tacked on a few extra (& who really wanted to listen to those—or the old ones either?); The Bee-Gees' "#1" album included songs from albums that hit #1.  By the time Three Dog Night did their obligatory all-in-one album, they at least had the decency to call it The Complete Hit Singles (even though one of their number-one songs was CALLED "One").

Out of all of the artists not to take part in the #1 album sweepstakes, the biggest was Bob Dylan, for #1 obvious reason: He has never had a number one hit single ("Like a Rolling Stone" & "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" each hit #2).  The closest he's come is a close-but-no-cigar (& now outdated) "Best Of" album & a second attempted stab with a single disc summary of the three-disc Dylan.  Neither of them were perfect, which is all that Dylan deserves.

But have no fear—I've spent time crafting my own "perfect" Dylan career overview—a "Dy1an"—if you will, which lasts 79:11.  What follows were my guiding rules:

1.  Only one song from each album may be included.

2.  Every top 10 US pop hit must be included.

3.  Every decade must be included (not counting the one we're currently in).

With that, I made my list.  You're welcome.

1.  "Blowin' In The Wind," The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, 1963. His breakthrough composition, & for many, his signature achievement.

2.  "The Times They Are A-Changin'," The Times They Are A-Changin', 1964. His second-most celebrated folk anthem—the opening "theme song" of his pre-electric sets & a #9 UK hit.

3.  "Mr. Tambourine Man," Bringing It All Back Home, 1965. His last true acoustic anthem &—thanks to The Byrds' legendary #1 cover—one of the few Dylan songs anyone can hum.

4.  "Like A Rolling Stone," Highway 61 Revisited, 1965. The greatest rock song ever recorded? Rolling Stone seems to think so, biased though it may be... #2 US & #4 UK.

5. "Positively 4th Street," Single Release, 1965. A #7 US hit (#8 UK) that was his final kiss-off to the folk world, which was never released on a proper studio album.

6.  "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35," Blonde on Blonde, 1966. #2 with a bullet (#4 UK), powered by its "Everybody must get stoned!" refrain.

7.  "All Along The Watchtower," John Wesley Harding, 1967. The most famous Dylan song that no one's actually ever heard Dylan's version.  Probably including Dylan himself.

8.  "Lay Lady Lay," Nashville Skyline, 1969. The biggest song of his "Nashville" period as well as his final Top 10 hit (#7 US, #5 UK).

9.  "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," Pat Garret & Billy The Kid, 1973. Perhaps the most-covered Dylan song outside of the 1960s, which hit #12 in the US (#14 in the UK).

10.  "Forever Young," Planet Waves, 1973. A classic cut from Dylan's first number one album, if you can believe it (I sure as hell can't).

11. "Tangled Up In Blue," Blood On The Tracks, 1975. His finest song since the 1960s off of his finest album since the 1960s, & a minor US hit (#31) to boot.

12. "Hurricane," Desire, 1976. Included only as a nod to its popularity & representing different parts of the span of his career; personally, I find it lackluster & the weakest of all of his stone-cold "classics."

13. "Gotta Serve Somebody," Slow Train Coming, 1978. The best song of his Christian period, as well as his first & best of his "list songs" that he loved to do into the '80s & '90s ("Everything Is Broken," "Dignity," etc.).  Also gave him his first Grammy, if you can believe it (I sure as hell can't).

14. "Blind Willie McTell," Infidels Outtake, 1983 (Released on The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3 in 1991). What to do about Dylan in the '80s?  He had some minor hits & a sort-of comeback album with Oh Mercy, but this song, recorded for Infidels but not released until the early 1990s, is generally considered his finest song of the decade & often polls in the top 10 of critics' lists of the best Dylan songs.  & this being Dylan, I like the idea of a song that was a true obscurity, saved by bootlegs, & better than many of his most famous songs.

15. "To Make You Feel My Love," Time Out Of Mind, 1997. Dylan's REAL comeback album & 1st (& only, so far) Album of the Year win at the Grammys.  Is it just me or has this song become ubiquitous with movie closing credits?

16. "Things Have Changed," Wonder Boys Soundtrack, 2000. Dylan's 1st (& only, so far) Oscar win.  Also my vote for his most underrated song, period. Listen to again. & again. This thing is epic.

17. "Mississippi," Love & Theft, 2001. Dylan's finest song of the new millennium, despite new songs from each new album being marketing ever since. Released on September 11, 2001, it leaves Dylan standing at the brink of a new era, which seems like just the place to leave him.

Plus, I think that every album since Love & Theft has basically sucked.