by Ken Paul Rosenthal © 2024
Bob Dylan inspires me more than any artist, in any medium. Had I begun listening to his songs in high school, I have no doubt the course of my own creative work and my life would have deepened, broadened, and elevated considerably at that impressionable age. After decades of imbibing his music as if tethered to an intravenous tube, I can step away for months, or what sometimes feels like a year without listening only to return and be nourished anew.
For me, the multi-hued complexity of his writing edges out other musicians whom I adore such as Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, and Joni Mitchell. But what most distinguishes his music is his singing; the grain of his voice and his beguiling delivery. Listen carefully to which syllable he emphasizes or extends, how rarely he breaks a line in the same place—where he breathes. He can swing like a jazz singer and there's no better example of this than his song, 'My Own Version of You' from the album, Rough and Rowdy Ways. I cherish his Christian period more than any other from his oeuvre because his new found passion is profoundly embodied in the vocals, as if the words are less carriers of meaning and more vehicles for spirit. The proof is in the grooves. Check out 'I Believe in You' and 'When He Returns' from his album, Slow Train Coming. And the opening song from his Hard to Handle tour video on You Tube, 'In The Garden', performed with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
I once dreamt that Bob was standing in a telephone booth in his bare feet and all his toenails were painted different colors. I was in my twenties and can see that image just as vividly today at sixty-two. That's how deeply he's embedded in my being.
Here are my most essential Dylan recordings, where the performance is as compelling as the words (listed in order of original album release):
- Mr. Tambourine Man (from Bringing It All Back Home)
- It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding (from Bringing It All Back Home, favorite version on Hard to Handle tour video on You Tube)
- It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (from Bringing It All Back Home, favorite version on Live 1966 The Royal Albert Hall Concert, The Bootleg Series Vol. 4)
- Visions of Johanna (from Blonde on Blonde, favorite version on Live 1966 The Royal Albert Hall Concert, The Bootleg Series Vol. 4)
- Lay, Lady, Lay (from Nashville Skyline, favorite version on Hard Rain)
- Tangled Up in Blue (from Blood on the Tracks)
- Simple Twist of Fate (from Blood on the Tracks)
- Shelter from the Storm (from Blood on the Tracks)
- One More Cup of Coffee (from Desire)
- Oh Sister (from Desire)
- Gotta Serve Somebody (from Slow Train Coming)
- I Believe In You (from Slow Train Coming)
- When He Returns (from Slow Train Coming)
- Solid Rock (from Saved)
- Every Grain of Sand (from Shot of Love)
- Jokerman (from Infidels)
- License to Kill (from Infidels)
- Blind Willie McTell (no album release, favorite version on The Bootleg Series, Volumes 1-3)
- Blood in My Eyes (cover from World Gone Wrong)
- Man in the Long Dark Coat (from Oh Mercy)
- Dignity (from Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3, favorite version on the live album, Bob Dylan MTV Unplugged)
- It's Not Dark Yet (from Time Out of Mind)
- Standing in the Doorway (from Time Out of Mind)
- Things Have Changed (from The Essential Bob Dylan)
- Sugar Baby (Love and Theft)
- Ain’t Talkin’ (from Modern Times)
- My Own Version of You (from Rough and Rowdy Ways)
Happy Be-day, Bob Darlin'.