Which of his songs has the best lyrics?

I'm thinking Idiot Wind.

Every Grain of Sand (specifically, the "dog bark" lyrics, not the official version which changes a couple of key lines for the worse)

>Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn
>Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
>And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
>While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
>Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
>And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row

the one that says nigger lmao

For me Buckets of Rain can't be beaten in its simplicity

"Soft atlas" by 13&god

>Without a universal law there is no gravity
>Without no gravity, there is no atmosphere
>Without an atmosphere there is no chance at life, no chance at life
>I don't exist

Words that have burned themselves into my mind forever, the perfect expression of that melancholic feeling of disconnect between my conscious and my body, sound and words to completly loose yourself in until you do, in fact, stop existing for a while

damn just now read its only about bob dylan, idc, my point still stands and being sleepdeprived sucks

Slob on my knob
Like corn on the cob
Check in with me
And do your job

Neighborhood Bully

Some of my favorites:
>Idiot Wind
>Blowin' in the Wind
>Shelter from the Storm is fucking great
>Desolation Row
>The Times They Are A-Changin'

Hell yea

Also:

>the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

>yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
>silhouetted by the sea
>circled by the circus sands
>with all memory and fate
>driven deep beneath the waves
>let me forget about today until tomorrow

>the geometry of innocent flesh on the bone

>she lit a burner in the stove and offered me a pipe
>"I thought you'd never say hello," she said, you look like the silent type
>then she opened up a book of poems and handed it to me
>written by an Italian poet from the 13th century
>and every one of them words rang true and flowed like burning coal
>pounding off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you
>tangled up in blue

>and I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
>and I'll reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
>and I'll stand in the ocean until I start sinkin
>and I'll know my song well before I start singing

>while one who sings with his tongue on fire
>gargle in the rat race choir
>bent out of shape from society's pliers
>cares not to come up any higher
>but to get you down in the hole that he's in

>the vagabond who's wrapping at your door
>is standing in the clothes that you once wore
>strike another match go start anew
>and it's all over now baby blue

tangled up in blue
in fact all of blood on the tracks is fucking awesome lyricallly

>'lectricity

Sigh. Plebs...

On a different note:

>Oh me oh my that country pie

What did he mean by this?

Anyone have any idea what the meaning of Stuck Inside Mobile is?

Ain't Talkin' is underrated

It's just a peculiar kind of existential sort of blues that he thought he'd escaped.

The Memphis Blues is reckoned the first blues song, or first published blues song. So he's alluding to that in the full title of the song.

Really a bit like taking the earthy blues "rolling stone" image, and transposing it to a sixties urban context, and infusing a whole new sort of meaning into it, while keeping much of the old meaning, also.

(Mobile is Alabama, not a mobile home, which I know some Brits get mixed up by. Least I think it's Mobile, AL.)

>country pie
>country

Obviously a pun on a certain four letter word for a thing that makes men drool.

Somewhat related but I wish more people would listen to Nashville Skyline. That and New Morning are the albums that really put him to the test as a SONGWRITER, and not just some verbal collage-maker. All of the songs on those albums are pop/country gold, tight little ditties. There's not much more to it. They're a celebration of consummate songwriting, and if you appreciate structure, you'll probably like them too. I read somewhere that Nashville Skyline is the manifestation of Dylan's innocent joy. I like that.

By the by, Hadju's Positively Fourth Street is a good read, and its explanation of Bob's relationship with the various characters he hung out with helps to make sense of, e.g., Visions of Johanna, inter alia.

>Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
>He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
>And when bringing her name up
>He speaks of a farewell kiss to me

Now one can never be entirely sure because Bob is a rather slippery fellow, but I felt like I knew, or maybe knew, what he was talking about in these lines after reading the Hadju.

Ty. After having gone through much of his catalog, I kind of peaked and plateaued, and now have a thought to save up a few of his albums for discovery in my dotage or (unlikely) retirement years, including the two you mention, along with Planet Waves and Street Legal and a few others. Somebody on this board said Tempest was great. I haven't heard a lick of that.

He puts so much heart and feeling into his cover of Moonshiner. What an awesome performance. So deeply felt. Indeed, it almost seems impossible he being who he is (middle class kid from the midwest) singing that song with such knowing understanding and conviction. It verges on uncanny.

It's All Over Now Baby Blue

The studio performance of Shooting Star is solid, okay. But I heard a boot of a live performance from where he gave a really beautiful heartfelt reading of it. Filled the words with a greater depth of meaning than what seems to come across on the studio version.

Nashville Skyline Rag

:^)

All of the stuff before John Wesley Harding. I suspect he got brain damage in his motorcycle accident. Nothing was nearly as good after that.