Since Bob Dylan is my all time favorite artist, in any medium, I should probably say something here. (And what medium is he in? I don’t believe for a moment this is a Nobel Prize in “literature”; this is a music prize—although perhaps the modern English professors say it’s one in the same.)
Tyler has his list of favorite albums, so here is mine:
1. Live at Royal Albert Hall (1966) (Actually Manchester)
2. Blonde on Blonde
3. Bringing It All Back Home (side two is the peak of his career)
4. Highway 61 Revisited
5. Freewheeling Bob Dylan
6. Another Side of Bob Dylan
7. Blood on the Tracks
8. Street Legal (most underrated, in my view)
9. Time Out of Mind
10. New Morning
I generally prefer the visual arts, and don’t have good taste in music. For instance, I love the sound of Dylan’s voice, whereas Joan Baez singing his songs sounds like nails on a blackboard to me. Most people seem to believe the opposite. Go figure.
I’m not a fan of the Nobel Prize in Literature (or the Peace Prize, Academy Awards, etc.) but I guess they are an inevitable part of life. If someone had to win, I’m glad it was Dylan. We are both from the upper Midwest.
Favorite unreleased songs — She’s Your Lover Now, Blind Willie McTell:
Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, “This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem.”
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, I heard the hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker’s bell
(Yeah), nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
.
There’s a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He’s dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There’s a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, God is in heaven
And we all want what’s his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I’m gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
PS. I’d like to see a Venn diagram for the overlap between people who love Bringing it All Back Home, and people who voted for Trump in the primaries.