1941: Bob Dylan

Things should start to get interesting right about now

There’s a new Bob Dylan movie out here in the UK today. A Complete Unknown has been out for a while in America, and has been getting rave reviews from Bob Dylan fans both old and new since its stateside Christmas Day release.

I’m something of an old Bob Dylan fan myself, now, having been listening to his music for going on 20 years. He’s been by far and away the most important artist to me in that time, and has soundtracked virtually every major event in my life. To borrow his quote about Johnny Cash, he is, and always will be, my North Star - the greatest of the greats, then and now.

The hope with this film, amongst Dylan’s fanbase at least, is that it’ll introduce his art and his music to a whole new generation of listeners; to expose his music and his messages to ears who might not have heard him otherwise. A Complete Unknown will be a lot of people’s first exposure to Dylan. Mine was Bringing It All Back Home, which will probably feature heavily in the film considering the time period it covers. Not long after I was first beguiled and transfixed by his music, Dylan released the great Modern Times and I have been under his spell ever since.

Dylan might just be the most written about artist in history, and, in the run up to the new movie there has been even more written about him each day than is normal (admittedly, something I have contributed a vanishingly small portion of text to, myself). There have been Beginner’s Guides, Musical Maps and lists of similar artists to check out, Factual Corrections of the Movie, reviews, explorations of Dylan’s own films and much, much more, besides.

You’d think that after all these years, I’d have run out of things to say and write about Bob Dylan by now, but I figured in the run up to the film I’d put something together about him that I’ve never done before: an album ranking. Something that any new fans can flick through at a glance to get a sense of which record to take a chance on next, or, something an old fan can flick through at a glance to get a sense of how much better their taste in Bob Dylan albums is than mine.

He has a hell of a lot of records to listen to and to get lost in, and even more if you count the live releases and bootleg series entries (not to mention the never ending supply of unofficial bootlegs), which are not counted here (best live album: Hard Rain, best Bootleg Series is tied between Tell Tale Signs, Trouble No More and Springtime in New York).

This list just looks at the studio albums, and is by no means definitive. I’d probably order them all differently if I took up the task again tomorrow. The rhyme and reason with this ranking is a mixture of my personal preference, historical importance and context and with a slight consideration of general consensus, although that is the least important factor for me in the end. Dylan has such a great and varied body of work, so something featuring low down on the list doesn’t mean that I don’t like that album, it just means that I like the other ones a little more.

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40 - Down in the Groove (1988)

A patchwork of leftover songs and outtakes from other sessions spanning back three or four years, surely this isn’t anyone’s favourite Dylan album but I still absolutely and unapologetically love Had a Dream About You Baby. Let’s Stick Together is a fine, if perfunctory run through of this old blues song, whilst Silvio, Shenandoah and Rank Strangers to Me are all great performances.

39 - The Basement Tapes (1975)

Too Much of Nothing - this should really be higher on the list, but it doesn’t have the charm of the real Basement Bootleg Box versions, and too many overdubs and track omissions distort the body of work and the spirit of the recordings.

38 - Infidels (1983)

An album that would be much higher on pretty much everyone else’s Best of Bob Dylan list, and also on pretty much any other artists album ranking if someone else had released it. Jokerman is undoubtedly one of his greatest ever songs, and should really drag this album to a higher position all by itself. Sweetheart Like You is full of great writing, Man of Peace has got a real funky rhythm and an inspired vocal, and it absolutely zips along at a pace, whilst Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight is for the most part, a brilliant lyric and performance, too. Union Sundown and, especially, Neighbourhood Bully let this one down in a big way, though, and kept much better songs from making it onto the album. Something else that lets it down as well is the sparse, un-natural and soulless production which stifles the songs.

37 - Knocked Out Loaded (1986)

Sometimes, Brownsville Girl from Knocked Out Loaded is my favourite of all of Bob Dylan’s songs. It’s suitably perverse and typically Dylanesque that he would leave one of his best songs languishing on what is regarded as one of his worst albums, but this one is not all as bad as it’s made out to be. You Wanna Ramble, Driftin’ Too Far from Shore, Precious Memories, Maybe Someday, Got My Mind Made Up and Under Your Spell are all crazy but they’re all great fun, too. They Killed Him, however, is just crazy, and no fun at all.

36 - Dylan (1973)

I actually really adore this album. Despite the fact that he’s taken his Bob Dylan mask off for these sessions, it’s one of the most fun Bob Dylan albums to listen to. He’s letting loose in the studio, having a blast singing the songs that he loves, what’s not to like? His rendition of Lily of the West is thrilling, Sarah Jane is a riot and his Mr. Bojangles is a jubilation. A wonderful snapshot of Dylan having blast in the studio.

35 - Good As I Been To You (1992)

There is a theme emerging here, that all of these albums could well place higher. This is the trouble with having so many albums, and so few truly bad ones. Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong are both essential releases in the story of Dylan’s late-career rejuvenation. With these albums he was returning to the well-spring of inspiration which had served him so effectively at the start of his career, and the performances here of such songs as Frankie & Albert, Sittin’ on Top of the World, Hard Times, Tomorrow Night, You’re Gonna Quit Me and even Frog Went a Courtin’ are duly inspired.

34 - World Gone Wrong (1993)

Picking up where he had left off the year before, this album is slightly darker, slightly wearier, and, very slightly better. World Gone Wrong is ragged and dirty. Love Henry is broken and beautiful. Blood in My Eyes is desolate and desolating. Lone Pilgrim is haunting and beautiful.

33 - Bob Dylan (1962)

A monumental achievement for someone his age, Bob Dylan’s eponymous debut pegged him as a folk singer but this is clearly a blues album. On In My Time of Dyin’, House of the Rising Sun and See That My Grave Is Kept Clean, Dylan displays a mystifying and staggering vocal prowess and dexterity on the guitar. Dylan has suffered his fair share of accusations of being a phoney, or of being a thief, but this is an incredibly authentic sounding blues record. Dylan climbs inside these songs here as if they were his own, and has been walking around inside them ever since.

32 - Under the Red Sky (1990)

I got this album quite early on in my Bob Dylan fandom because it has a cool cover, but I got it home and hated it. I barely gave it a chance after Wiggle Wiggle had finished, and even ended up taking the CD back to HMV to swap for a better album. Since then, I’ve grown to love the album, though. I love the contrast and blend of the hyper-slick production and Dylan’s decaying voice. I love the weird distorted depth and echo in the sound. I love the lyrics on songs like Under the Red Sky, Born in Time, 10,000 Men, 2x2, God Knows and Cats in the Well. I love the groove on Unbelievable. I love everything about Handy Dandy. I love the final line, “Goodnight my love, may the Lord have mercy on us all!”. I still don’t love anything about Wiggle Wiggle, though.

31 - Empire Burlesque (1985)

If this was a list of my favourite Bob Dylan albums, and not one that is also taking into consideration the historical impact and importance of the releases, overall quality of the works (although, I stand by the fact that some of Dylan’s finest writing can be found on this album) and a dash of general consensus, too, then this would be much higher. I adore Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love?). I adore the campy cover artwork and production values across the record. I adore the backing vocals and the cheesy drum sound. I adore Clean Cut Kid and When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky and Dark Eyes, and all the weird confluences between and juxtaposition of the film noir and cowboy references with that schlocky 80s production sound.

30 - Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

Speaking of cowboys, this one is a masterclass in atmosphere. The soundtrack album to Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, this is a fantastic collection of mostly instrumentals, interspersed with his astonishing ballad Billy (1,4 and 7) and of course, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. With a wonderful acoustic sound palette, this is a fantastically moving album, but it can also be a fantastically calming and soothing one, too. It’s great for listening to while you watch the world go by, and even better still when you’re watching Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.

29 - Fallen Angels (2016)

Another excellent mood-setting album, but instead of the brightness and lightness of the acoustic instrumentals from Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, the excellent electric guitars on this album evoke more of a moody twilight time. The whiskey has got your vision a little hazy, and the record is starting to crackle but you’re hanging in there and thinking back fondly on the good times you’ve had. Dylan’s vocal has got a little crackle in it, too, but it’s gorgeous on songs like Young at Heart, All the Way, All or Nothing At All, It Had to Be You and Come Rain or Come Shine. Alongside these heavy hitting standards, Dylan also un-covers some hidden gems, as in Polka Dots and Moon Beams, Skylark, On a Little Street in Singapore and Melancholy Mood.

28 - John Wesley Harding (1967)

I know this is a great album, I just don’t know how much I like it. To my ears, it feels like there is something being held back here. Not in the songwriting, which is excellent, but in the performance. Dylan hits every note he reaches for, and his reedy voice is full of depth and warmth, but at times it feels like he still has another gear he could work up into, but never quite stretches to. Still, you can’t argue with songs like As I Went Out One Morning, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, All Along the Watchtower, The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, Dear Landlord and I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.

27 - Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)

This one is legendary for being recorded in just one Beaujolais imbued night in early June, 1964. There are incredible songs galore here (Chimes of Freedom, To Ramona, My Back Pages, I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) and It Ain’t Me, Babe) as well as some great, but far more minor, songs (All I Really Want to Do, Black Crow Blues, Spanish Harlem Incident, I Shall Be Free No. 10 and Motorpsycho Nitemare), and of course, one real stinker (Ballad in Plain D). Lots of laughs to be had with this album, lots of profundity and mesmerising wordplay to amaze you as well. The fact that I’ve got it down here in the Number 27 spot shows just how great the rest of his catalogue is.

26 - Self Portrait (1970)

“What is this shit?” Greil Marcus famously wrote of this album when it came out. Why, it’s a collection of recordings of Bob Dylan having fun in the studio, that’s all! Dylan is judged to a greater standard than most other artists because of the highs he can reach, but it’s nice to get a reminder every now and then that he is just a guy who loves making music. He loves letting loose and singing other peoples songs. He loves jamming with his band and working on new arrangements. Trying on new styles and new voices and new ways of playing the old numbers. Made up of joyous instrumentals, standards and covers and live versions of some of his biggest songs from his 1969 Isle of Wight performance, this album is a lot more laid back and enjoyable than any of its detractors are.

25 - Christmas in the Heart (2009)

My favourite of all Dylan’s folk albums, this one is a true wonder and a true joy. If you don’t have Christmas in the Heart in your heart, then I wonder if you even have a heart at all to begin with.

24 - Slow Train Coming (1979)

Just like he’d angered vast swathes of his audience by ‘going electric’ in the middle 60’s, Dylan annoyed his audience once again at the end of the 70’s by ‘going Christian’. A lot of people got off the Dylan train at this particular station because of the message of these songs, but the aspect that I find hardest to agree with is the one that even it’s harshest critics can seem to appreciate: its production. This album is so perfected and slick, and it’s had all its rough edges smoothed out. I love the rough edges in songs, though, and miss them here. There’s not a bad song in sight, however, and so, despite it being produced by the legendary Jerry Wexler - who made some of my favourite ever albums - and Barry Beckett, I much prefer the live performances of all these songs which put a little bit of that missing edge and bite back into them.

23 - Together Through Life (2009)

The album I named my book, and of course, this very newsletter after. Much like Self Portrait, this album arrived on the back of a string of groundbreaking works and critical successes and was accordingly adjudged to be a lesser work in comparison. Lesser works are fine, though! Not every album needs to change your life. Some move you while they’re on, and some continue to move you when they’ve finished, but both are just as important as each other. Anyway, there are plenty of great songs and moments here, like Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, Dylan’s delightfully devilish laughing in My Wife’s Hometown, when he goes “woo!” in It’s All Good, and, the lyric “you are as whorish as ever, baby you could start a fire”.

22 - Tempest (2012)

One of his weirdest albums, in that it’s definitely great but it’s not as fun as some of his albums which are undoubtedly worse than it (Knocked Out Loaded, Empire Burlesque, Under the Red Sky - here’s looking at you). Pretty much all of these songs were improved upon in concert, and none more so than Long and Wasted Years, which was a breathtaking showstopper night after night. Pay in Blood, Scarlet Town and, at times, even Early Roman Kings were often highlights in concert, too. Soon After Midnight never really did it for me on the stage, but even that one was incredible on last years Outlaw Tour. That intro on Duquesne Whistle is a real joy to listen to, as well.

21 - Oh Mercy (1989)

This is one you’re supposed to love a lot more than I do, and it’s here this high on my list through a combination of impeccable songwriting, general consensus and importance in Dylan’s career. His second ‘comeback’, having been written off again (when will people learn?) and this time seemingly for good. Featuring some of his career finest writing in Most of the Time - one of the most gut-wrenchingly honest and painful love songs anyone has ever written - as well as classics like Ring Them Bells, Man in the Long Black Coat, What Good Am I? and Shooting Star, as well as hidden gems like Where Teardrops Fall, this is a solid and atmospheric album. I don’t always love the atmosphere, though - Daniel Lanois’ swamp and murk can often be distracting and get in the way of getting to the heart of some songs.

20 - Triplicate (2017)

The completion of the late-career Sinatra/Standards trilogy, and a real mammoth collection to get into. Bob Dylan is perhaps the greatest singer of all time - or at least, of the modern era - and certainly one of the most important, so it’s fascinating to hear him tackle the greatest and most important songs ever written in popular music. Coming on the back of Shadows in the Night and Fallen Angels, Triplicate has some of Dylan’s best and most committed vocal performances from this entire period - and in some cases, of his whole career - and is a more varied and diverse selection of songs than either of it’s predecessors, but a handful of the tracks towards the end can start to feel a little one-note, and subsequently fall flat. As a cohesive, collective whole, though, it’s a wonderful achievement and a grand album to spend some time with.

19 - Shadow Kingdom (2023)

Dylan has always re-invented his songs in concert, so really it was only a matter of time before he’d do it in the studio, as well. Like true shadow versions of their earlier incarnations, these songs can deceive you and take your attention to places you weren’t expecting it to go. Dylan’s voice is sublime at times, and full of warmth and experience throughout. The versions of songs like Queen Jane Approximately, The Wicked Messenger, Watching the River Flow, and especially, Forever Young have become the definitive versions by which to measure all others against.

18 - New Morning (1970)

This is one of those albums that makes you feel like you’ve stumbled upon a secret treasure and a secret pleasure when you’re first getting into Dylan’s music. You’ve heard everyone rave about Blonde on Blonde and Blood on the Tracks but then you stumble upon New Morning and hear how much fun Dylan is having and wonder why more people don’t rave about this one, too. Maybe they’re trying to protect you from If Dogs Run Free, but nevertheless, If Not For You, New Morning, Sign on the Window and The Man in Me more than make up for that one.

17 - Nashville Skyline (1969)

With a clipped 26:46 runtime, it is easy to see at a glance why this album has on occasion been dismissed as a slight or minor work, but songs don’t need to be long to be mighty, and the lyrical prowess on display on things like I Threw It All Away, Tell Me That It Isn’t True and Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You - not to mention Lay, Lady, Lay - is staggering. These are great feats of writing, with stunning imagery, turns of phrase and deceptively simple ideas putting across a lot of weight and emotion. They’re backed up with great, locked in but laid back performances, too, and of course, finished off with Dylan’s new-found Country croon.

16 - Planet Waves (1974)

Considering how inextricably their stories are tied, it is a wonder that this is the only album that Dylan and The Band ever made together. This record is pitched somewhere between their incendiary live sound and their rootsier bunch of basement noise, and strikes a perfect blend of sounds from their future/present/past. On a Night Like this is a rollicking opener, Tough Mama is a funky, swampy groove, Hazel is a gorgeous lovers lament whilst Something There is About You, You Angel You and Never Say Goodbye are as earnest and exuberant as Dylan ever got with his rocked up infatuation. This is an album it’s easy to forget about or overlook among his other great works, but which fully commands your attention when it’s on.

15 - Shot of Love (1981)

Bob Dylan’s favourite Bob Dylan album, at least, at one time. The so called final piece in his gospel trilogy, but while the songs may have religious imagery in their lyrics, these are not gospel songs. This is rock and roll, through and through. This is maybe even the closest Dylan that ever came to emulating that raw, wild 50’s Rock n Roll sound, and this album, more than Infidels, set up and informed his punk performance on Letterman in ‘84. This was the warmest Dylan’s voice would sound for a long time to come, but throughout the album, he also dips into his trademark 60s sneer at times, as well.

14 - Desire (1976)

Opening with one of Dylan’s greatest ever songs and vocal performances, Desire is a unique album in Dylan’s catalogue, but one which captures his essence and spirit so well, and maybe even better than any other. With a carnivalesque feel, a clear Romani influence and Dylan’s own brand of old-weird Americana shot through the heart of the songs, this record is a fine work of storytelling, singing, violin playing, bass, drumming, harmonies, rhythms and melodies.

13 - Bringing It All Back Home (1965)

At this point in his career, Dylan had the Midas touch. Building on the more introspective elements that he had introduced to his songwriting on Another Side of Bob Dylan while still retaining his keen eye for sociopolitical commentary, Dylan also famously introduced an electric band to his sound with the first half of this album as well (sorry for the A Complete Unknown spoiler). Subterranean Homesick Blues is a frenetic opener and leads the way into one of his most witty, acerbic, biting and, at times, tender albums. Maggie’s Farm, Mr. Tambourine Man and It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue might be the most famous of the bunch, but It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) has to be in the conversation for Dylan’s greatest ever song.

12 - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)

The album that put Dylan on the map as a major talent, an important songwriter and a writer of important songs. Blowin’ in the Wind, Masters of War, A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, Oxford Town and Talkin’ World War III Blues were, and remain, some of the most vital, excoriating, poetic and important songs in the Civil Rights movement canon, whilst Girl From the North Country, Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright and the blues standard Corrina, Corrina show Dylan at his absolute emotional best.

11 - Street-Legal (1978)

A musical twin to Leonard Cohen’s Death of a Ladies' Man, which came out in the same year, this is another album that feels like you’ve stumbled upon a lost or secret wonder when you first find it. With its mystical images, full big-band sound, wonderful backing singers and Dylan belting every lyric, the album sounds enormous, ethereal and other-worldly. Sometimes the closer, Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat), is my favourite Bob Dylan song.

10 - Modern Times (2006)

This is Dylan’s 21st century update on Highway 61 Revisited. This is the sound of that album with forty extra years hard travelling and experience. The blueprint was there all along - the blues iconography and inspirations, the sociopolitical commentary and world-weariness, the true romantic imagery and deep running literary roots - and here Dylan takes it all the way to the end of the line. His voice is as ravaged as he wishes it was on his 1962 debut, but it’s still got a tenderness and sweetness when he wants to wield it as well. This is a great album, his band are on fire and are given room to show off their chops, but Dylan remains the star of the show throughout.

9 - The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964)

A shocking and revelatory work of anger, organisation, unrest and protest, this is probably the finest collection of political songs that anyone has ever put together. Armed with just his guitar, harmonica and most importantly, his voice, the title track is not only a prognostication but a battle cry; a rallying call to anyone who sympathises with the struggles of the next nine songs to lend their hand in building a better world. This is a mature work, an understanding work, a dark work, a realistic work, an empathetic work, a raging work, and ultimately, a work of genius.

8 - Shadows in the Night (2015)

Dylan might not have written these songs himself, but listening to how committed his singing is in these performances, he might as well have done. He makes them entirely his own. When he sings I’m a Fool to Want You or What’ll I Do or That Lucky Old Sun, he isn’t singing something written by Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf and Joel Herron, Irving Berlin or Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie, he’s telling a story lived by Bob Dylan. Thanks to his excellent band, warm voice and the genius producer Al Schmidt, this is perhaps his most perfectly crafted album in terms of the atmosphere it evokes, and the singular through line that holds it all together. This is a living, breathing body of work, and, to me, it is perfect. To me, it’s the sequel to Blood on the Tracks and should be held in just as high regard.

7 - Time Out of Mind (1997)

For someone who has been singing about death since well before their first album came out, this album is regarded as morbid by even Dylan’s standards. Ironically, though, it’s the album that brought his career on back to life.

A masterclass in rebuilding your repertoire to suit your ageing voice, and everything that comes with it. This is a towering achievement by anyone’s standards, and is full of songs which stop you in your tracks whether it’s the first or the thousandth time you’ve heard them, such as Love Sick, Standing in the Doorway, Tryin’ to Get to Heaven, Not Dark Yet, Cold Irons Bound, Can’t Wait and Highlands.

6 - Saved (1980)

This usually features somewhere towards the bottom of these lists, and I have even seen it dead last before, but I think that is because so often people listen to Bob Dylan albums through the reviews they have read and through the general consensus, rather than with their own two ears.

I defy anyone to go back and listen to Saved, Covenant Woman, Solid Rock, Pressing On and Saving Grace and then tell me that isn’t some of the most impassioned, impressive, enervating and powerful singing you’ve ever heard Dylan do; to go back and listen to What Can I Do For You? and tell me that isn’t his best and most heartfelt harmonica playing or to go back and listen to the music that Tim Drummond, Jim Keltner, Spooner Oldham, Fred Tackett and Terry Young - not to mention the heavenly Queens of Rhythm, Carolyn Dennis, Regina Havis, Clydie King and Monalisa Young - are making on songs like In the Garden and tell me that isn’t one of the best bands Dylan ever assembled.

You don’t need to love Jesus or convert to Christianity to love Saved. I’m not a religious man but I still love Mahalia Jackson’s music, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elvis’ How Great Thou Art and, best of all, Bob Dylan’s Saved.

5 - Blonde on Blonde (1966)

An album of undeniable genius, I don’t find myself coming back to this one so much as time goes by, but every time I do I am reminded of how fantastic it is. Putting the mercurial in “that thin wild mercury sound”, Dylan is at his hazy, casual but emphatic best here. He’s intoning ironically, drawling and bawling, he’s twisting and shouting and tying the world up in knots. He’s one step ahead of everyone at this point in time and he knows it. He’s putting us all on, and he’s laughing while he does it, but he is gleefully irresistible, incorrigible and irrefutable on songs like Visions of Johanna, One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later), I Want You, Stuck Inside of Mobile (With the Memphis Blues Again), Just Like a Woman, 4th Time Around and Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. These are some of the rare Bob Dylan songs which were better in the studio than on the stage.

4 - Highway 61 Revisited (1965)

It’s almost perverse that one man could have written so many great, classic, important, scene-changing and genius songs in such a short time as Dylan did in the early to mid 1960s.

For anybody else, Like a Rolling Stone would have been the single greatest thing they ever did in their life, but for Bob Dylan it was one of many such songs which burst out of him, seemingly effortlessly. It’s probably still the best of the bunch, but an argument can be made for plenty others as well. No one has ever summed it better than Bruce Springsteen, when he said that hearing Like a Rolling Stone for the first time was “like someone kicked open the door to your mind”. Despite it’s needling lyrics and narrative, it is one of the freest and most joyous expressions of the human spirit ever caught on tape, and it is just the first song on the album! What follows are eight further perfect pieces of work; eight further pieces of poetry set to heady, blues-based and revelatory rock music.

3 - Blood on the Tracks (1975)

Maybe even more astonishing than that initial explosion of inspiration is that Dylan has not only tapped back into such genius throughout his career, but that he has maintained it, as well. There is not really a comparable figure in modern music in terms of prolonged, varied and consistent excellency.

Just as Like a Rolling Stone was an incredible album opener ten years previously, Tangled Up in Blue was and is, too. Dylan's blending of times and tenses in the narrative - as well as his towering vocal performance - is the main focus of the song but the drumming is phenomenal, too, and kicks the rhythm on to higher gears with each new verse.

And after starting out at the highest of heights, Dylan never lets up or drops his level for an instant. He is fearsome and brutal and awesome and furious and broken and mighty and otherworldly and omnipotent across these ten thrilling songs. Simple Twist of Fate is a time-lapse of twelve years of grief condensed into just a few short, devastating minutes. Idiot Wind is a wrathful venge of scorn and blistering dark magic. If You See Her, Say Hello is a tender, broken and beautiful carving of grief while Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts is a movie captured in the motion of nine whirlwind minutes. Buckets of Rain is the calm after the storm, but as soon as it’s over you’re ready to get back in the rain again.

2 - Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)

This might just be the crowning achievement of Dylan’s whole career. The sum total of all the songs he’s ever sung - not just his own but of everyone else’s, as well - and the perfect distillation of who Bob Dylan wanted to be, who he is, who he has been, and who he will be, once the man has moved on and all we have left is the music.

If you need a place to start when approaching Bob Dylan’s catalogue, you can choose to start at the beginning with his debut album, or you can go a little further in, to his most celebrated works - Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks - but you might just be best off starting here, right at the end, with Rough and Rowdy Ways. He’s been highlighting just how important this album is to him for the last three years, night after night, on stages in North America, Europe and in Japan.

This is the album that finally lets us know who Bob Dylan is; what he really sounds like, and, night after night, he’s reminded us that he really does contain so many multitudes. And, from a perfect starting place, he has somehow finely tuned, finely fused and finely crafted these songs into something even grander, stronger, more timeless, durable and limitless, something even more perfect, on his Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour.

1 - “Love and Theft” (2001)

Rough and Rowdy Ways closes with the 17 minute Murder Most Foul, which I personally believe to be the greatest piece of American music from the post-war era, and, considering how young the country is, maybe ever.

With that distillation of all American history and culture, delivered by their most observant, cutting, thrilling, eloquent and important writer, it is really the defining work of modern American song. And, by a similar degree, I hold “Love and Theft” to be, if not the finest, then at least one of the very best, purest and most perfect collection of songs in the history of American music, too. That it is made about an old, pre-9/11 America which no longer exists, and which every day seems to slip further and further away from reach, cements it’s place as an important artefact in the cultural preservation of the American Dream and That Old Weird America even further. In my eyes, “Love and Theft” stands alongside Moby-Dick and East of Eden, Slaughterhouse-5 and The Great Gatsby, On the Road, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple and The Catcher in the Rye or The Bell Jar and Their Eyes Were Watching God; it stands alongside Citizen Kane and Casablanca or In a Lonely Place and The Maltese Falcon, or 12 Angry Men and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and The Godfather or The Wizard of Oz; alongside the works of Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra and Little Richard and Aaron Copeland and Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and Jimmie Rogers and Nina Simone and Billie Holiday and Elvis Presley and all the rest. It stands with Hopper and Basquiat and Rockwell and O’Keefe. It stands up with Chaplin and Bruce and Groucho and Pryor and Carlin. It stands up with Henry Ford, Alexander Bell and Thomas Edison. With Annie Oakley and Belle Starr and Billy the Kid and Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. lee, as well. With Oppenheimer and Kennedy and Walt Disney and Neil Armstrong, as well, out there among the stars.

It also, incidentally, stands up toe to toe with Bringin’ it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, and comes out on top. Most of the Time.

This is an album that moves you. It moves your body and it moves your mind and it moves your spirit and your soul. It takes you to places that you can’t get to any other way than by dropping the needle down on Side One, Track One and holding on until it’s over.

She says, "You can't repeat the past, " I say, "You can't?

What do you mean, you can't, of course you can!"

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And with that, I’m off to the cinema to catch A Complete Unknown.

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