Preface

This series is dedicated to Ewa Bełc.

When I was new to Bob Dylan, still exploring the catalogue, Jim Beviglia came out with his Countdown Kid project, in which he ranked his top hundred Dylan songs, wrote something about each one, and posted a piece a day. I thought I’d like to do the same thing someday. 

At this point, in August 2020, I’ve been an admirer of Dylan’s work for nine years, and I feel ready to share my findings.

The main difference between Jim’s project and mine is that he “also considered certain intangibles, like the cultural impact a particular song might have had or its staying power over time.” I haven’t. My list is unabashedly a list of favorites, and absolutely not, in any sense, a “best of.” It’s quite possible that a song you think is no good will rank high on this list, or that a song you adore won’t. The thing is, songs are living organisms, each with its own colors and its own glow, and you can never know when and to whom they’ll reveal their worth.

Setting out on this project, I wanted to write about the songs that have moved and excited me the most, with no considerations weighing on my mind except how much space the music occupies in my heart. And so I have done.

A second difference between my list and Jim’s is that a song had to be officially released to qualify for his, and that he only “looked at songs … from official recordings on their original albums.” The one limitation I gave myself was that a song had to have a Bob Dylan songwriting credit to appear on this list, so however marvelous I find Froggy Went a-Courtin’, and although my single favorite Dylan live performance is of a song he didn’t write, and though there’s an argument to be made for cover songs becoming the performer’s own (see, for instance, any group that has Peter Stampfel in it; see Big Blood; see the Grateful Dead), nothing from Good as I Been to You or World Gone Wrong or the hundreds of songs that Dylan has covered onstage over the decades will appear on this list.

But if my favorite version of a Dylan song is somebody else’s cover, then that’s what I’ve had in mind as I ranked it. If my favorite version of a certain song is an outtake, I rank the outtake. If there is a song credited to Dylan that he never made his own recording of, that too is fair game for inclusion. And I’ve very much kept live versions in consideration, not only those Columbia has released, but also those I’ve heard on bootleg recordings. Dylan is such a mercurial and creative artist onstage that I’ve often had the occasion to rank and write about a live recording of a song rather than its studio incarnation. And naturally, a lot of song placements are based on the collation of various versions that I find excellent. Details like these will always be clarified in the write-ups.

And a second limitation: my early impressions of Rough and Rowdy Ways are very positive but I haven’t ventured to rank its contents, as it’d be absurd to try to place and write about songs that I’ve been living with for mere weeks alongside songs that have been part of my life for a decade.

I'd like to imagine that by the time we get to the top twenty or so, the general patterns of my preferences will be, while (I hope) not altogether predictable, nevertheless well-established enough that those keeping up with the list will have as much fun trying to guess which songs occupy the highest echelons as I and many others did when Jim Beviglia was making the list that inspired mine.

Before we begin—and just for fun—a little bit about my music taste:

My favorite band is Big Blood, a group from Portland, Maine that consists of Caleb Mulkerin, Colleen Kinsella, and (lately) their daughter Quinnisa. Big Blood’s entire discography is available free to download at dontrustheruin.bandcamp.com; go ye forth and explore! Big Blood & The Bleedin’ Hearts is a good place to start; and if compelled, you might wash it down with Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, to get a sense of how their sound has evolved.

My favorite songwriter, by some distance, is Antonia, whether writing on her own or collaborating with Peter Stampfel, John Scherman, Paul Presti, Paul Conly, Mark Johnson, or good ole prolific Trad. Sharing that deep chamber of my soul are the ninety collaborations between Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Enthroned in the antechamber you’ll find Ian Anderson, Caleb & Colleen, Leonard Cohen, Al Joshua, Peter Stampfel, and Keinan Abdi Warsame.

My three favorite singers are, in order, Peter Stampfel, Colleen Kinsella, and Bob Dylan.

My #1 favorite studio album “of all time” is a Dylan record, though I won’t tell you which one right now. A little lower in my top ten you’ll find a second Dylan that shall likewise remain nameless. Other artists whose creations would feature in a list of my most beloved albums include, alongside aforementioned favorites who I won’t name again (and I’ll just go alphabetically here) (and where it’s efficient (and accurate) I’ll cite primary songwriters rather than bands) Akron/Family, the Band, Big Big Train, Devendra Banhart, Lindsey Buckingham, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Vic Chesnutt, Eric Clapton, Bruce Cockburn, Ned Collette, Brian Eno, Simon Finn, Jeffrey Frederick, John Frusciante, Daniel Gildenlöw, Michael Gira, Abbey Hoffman, Michael Hurley, David Johnston, Kanno Youko, Mark Knopfler, Tom Kovacevic, Steven Lambke, Daniel Lanois, Richard Laviolette, Jim Lauderdale, Jeffrey Lewis, Daron Malakian, Paul McCartney, Charlie Messing, Van Morrison, all four songwriters in Pink Floyd (band works and solo), Radiohead, David Rawlings & Gillian Welch, Daniel Romano, Micah Blue Smaldone, The Smile, Patti Smith, Sufjan Stevens, Chadwick Stokes, Richard Thompson, James Jackson Toth, Viktor Tsoi, Neil Young, Warren Zevon, and Ragnar Zolberg.

[A logistical postscript: I intend to post one write-up a day, but where I’m living I can’t access Blogspot without a certain nifty little app, and this app doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s down for a day, sometimes for several. If you’re following the series and some time goes by without an update, please be aware that it’s because of app problems, and that I’ll be posting again as soon as is feasible.]