My Top Ten Favourite Songs by Bob Dylan

I don't normally do personal lists, but this one is personal. If I've already spoken to you on social media then you probably know what is roughly going to appear on this list. Everyone knows how much I love and adore Bob Dylan and how much I love reading and writing about him. I love the way he sings in stories, as someone who holds degrees in this stuff (see my profile) I respect the talent he has and the intelligence he gives off.

I would love to discuss all of my favourite Dylan songs here, but I will give you a one to 10 view of my own personal favourites in this single part. When we move through this series, we will explore more Bob Dylan songs I love to listen to. Again, this is more of a personal list so I'm not discussing what the songs are about, and sometimes, they do change places due to what I'd like to listen to on the day. I think I've made up quite a general list of songs though!

When I say this is personal, I will be talking briefly about my life with each song, telling small anecdotes of somewhere I heard it or someone I talked to about it. Maybe it has something to do with my degrees. Sometimes it has something to do with my life. These are taken straight from my own diaries and personal journals!

Each Bob Dylan song means something different to each person and that's why they're so important. So, I hope that Bobcats and Dylanologists alike can enjoy this list, because we always did feel the same, we just started from a different point of view.

Let's get into the first ones, one to 10, and this list will be told forwards as to not cause confusion (and I mean mine, not yours). The album will be in brackets after the song. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it:

1. "Mississippi" ('Love and Theft')

"Only one thing I did wrong, stayed in Mississippi a day too long..."

"Mississippi" is possibly my favourite song of all time, and that's by any singer ever. It is a beautiful song filled with poetic imagery and it sounds so smooth. I love this song because I remember exactly where I was the first time I ever heard it, and this is a complex story. I heard it when I was in a shop for film merchandise (which is now closed down unfortunately) and the person behind the counter had put it on whilst I was looking for an Exorcist Doll. I remember it so well because when I listened to Love and Theft for the first time, I recalled the song. By then, the shop was long gone, but the song was still there. It is a beautiful song as well!

2. "Jokerman" ('Infidels')

"Jokerman dance to the Nightingale tune. Bird fly high to the light of the moon..."

Infidels is a wonderful album and the seminal song "Jokerman" is just as important as it sounds amazing. It is true that nobody really knows what this song is about—I have read everything from it's about one of Dylan's friends, to his ex-wife, and even it's Dylan talking to himself earlier on in his career. But I remember hearing this song ages ago; I wrote an essay on it for school and then I based one of my analytical essays on it for a short one of my MA modules. It has been fun interweaving this song into my education!

3. "Idiot Wind" ('Blood on the Tracks')

"You're an idiot, babe. It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe..."

This song is the teen-angst song of Bob Dylan. It's a brilliant (whispers) divorce song.

I love this song because the first time I ever encountered it I was reading a book called 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the only reason I listened to it is because someone sent it to me saying that I should pay attention to the song. I don't remember for the life of me who sent it, but they did some good. I remember being so obsessed with the lyrics to this song that it took me forever to actually finish that Marquez novel. Really, I actually put it down and had to re-read it the following year just to remember what happened in the book!

4. "Joey" ('Desire')

"King of the streets, child of pain..."

I'm ready to get a beating from all the Dylanologists and probably by some various Bobcats as well. This song isn't well liked, and for the life of me, I do not know why. I adore this song because the first time I listened to it, it was like hearing a story being told to you about this guy called Joey on the wrong side of the law, but still trying to be the good guy. I love people telling me stories, and so, I adore this song as well. I have to admit it's my favourite song from the album and I listen to it very often. I love the sound and I love the lyrics. It's a beautiful song.

5. "Visions of Johanna" ('Blonde on Blonde')

"...on the back of the fish truck it loads whilst my conscience explodes..."

For my undergraduate, I wrote an entire story piece based on this song and nobody even realised (laughs in evil Bob Dylan). I wrote it using multiple characters in a Victorian environment at the turn of the 20th Century. I blended the plots from "Desolation Row"and "Visions of Johanna"into the story, and even the lecturer was stumped. I was offended. Anyways, this song is one of the most beautiful and brilliant epics Bob Dylan has ever written. On his magnum opus of the mid-60s, Blonde on Blonde,it makes for an amazing addition to the album with that wicked harmonica over the top of the empty spaces in the song. Bob Dylan fills musical gaps perfectly with that sound.

6. "Simple Twist of Fate" ('Blood on the Tracks')

"How long must he wait? One more time for a Simple Twist of Fate..."

I love this song because it's like a blank slate. It's Bob Dylan starting with that acoustic sound that made him famous all those years ago. He uses that sound and writes those lyrics atop of it; he writes so poetically in this song—I love it. I used this song in one of my own pieces of writing I did about Bob Dylan himself on my MA and it wasn't a marked assignment. We had to write about someone we respected in the industry of writing and it was literally the only reason some of my lecturers liked me.

7. "Where Are You Tonight?" ('Street-Legal')

"The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure, to live it you have to explode."

I love this song because of it's brilliant sound and amazing images. The song is really gospel-like and Bob Dylan's voice sounds beautiful on it. I remember hearing this song for the first time and then realising that people didn't really like this album that much, then I kind of hid the fact that I liked the song. It was a strange state of affairs, but it happened. After a while, I saw people were alright with it and told a few people in my close circles about the Dylan songs I enjoyed. Like "Joey,"it wasn't a well-liked song in the Dylanology circles. But I like it!

8. "Shelter from the Storm" ('Blood on the Tracks')

"...hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn. Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm."

This song has been appreciated by everyone from me to Stephen King, and has become something as an icon of songwriting skill and intricacy. One of the seminal songs of the 1975 revival album Blood on the Tracks, it has constantly been hailed as one of the greatest songs ever written. My own personal experience with this song is that I listened to it whilst writing my dissertation and stayed up all night, mostly playing this song on repeat. It really helped, it's just one of those songs. During my undergraduate dissertation, it was that certain song that I knew the words to speak when I needed to stay awake and work.

9. "Early Roman Kings" ('Tempest')

"All the early Roman kings, in their sharkskin suits. Bow ties and buttons, high top boots..."

I love this song because it has a great song (looks at Bob Dylan in "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters)—my God, I wonder where he got that sound from... I wonder. Anyways, this song got me through a lot, especially at university when I used the ideas of the philosophy from the actual early Roman kings to study attitudes towards polytheism in different parts of the ancient world. I was in love with this song and I still am. I know there are some people who don't like his newer stuff, but seriously, if you are one of those people, I do not care. I love this song.

10. "Positively 4th Street" ('The Greatest Hits')

"Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes, you'd know what a drag it is to see you."

This is basically the Bob Dylan diss track to all the people in Greenwich Village that didn't like his going electric. I love this song because I had it on repeat all through my history of western philosophy classes on my MA. I don't know why, but it was one of those songs that kept me awake through that sheer boredom. I even managed to pay attention a few times and discuss Orientalist Theory by Edward Said with my lecturer. Given the fact I paid no attention to anything else, but still seem to know a lot about the history of western philosophy I'd say I did pretty well.

Conclusion

As I write this, I'm already planning part two and, well, if you know me, this series is never gonna end, we will be here forever. I hope you enjoy these little anecdotes of my life with Bob Dylan in it. These come directly from journals and diaries I keep. I do like detailing my life, especially when it comes to songs. I love the way there's always a song for a memory and, well, these memories all have something to do with Bob Dylan. There are other memories associated with other artists, but let's stick to Bob Dylan for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!