Worst Dylan Songs -- sez TIME Magazine

So so so wrong about "Tight Connection..." and "Wiggle Wiggle," not to mention "We Are The World" generally.

The worst song: "Rainy Day Women."

hmmm, "we are the world"? don't really think of that as a Dylan song.
"tight connection" is great, "RDW" and "Forever Young" are classics. "Wiggle Wiggle" and "90 Miles" are fun. "All The Tired Horses" is quite lovely. Guess I could vote for "They Killed Him" that one is pretty weak.

He didn't write "They Killed Him," it was Kris Kristofferson. He probably added the children's choir though.

"Tight Connection" has the classic lyrics "Close up ain't never that big" and "Never could learn to drink that blood/And call it wine./Never could learn to hold you, love,/And call you mine."

I used to hate on Rainy Day Woman but I like it now

surprised "joey" didn't make the list in honor of that epic Lester Bangs takedown

about half of Desire should have made the listt.

All and more.

digging that Up Late With Bob Dylan sleeve

happy birthday zim! 'rolling stone' did one of these too, but his top 70

http://www1.rollingstone.com/dylan/

"forever young" was #23. also, "all the tired horses" = classique

yeah that sleeve is classic. the man has style!

You crazy Alfred - Desire is one of his best records.

Went with "We Are The World"

Desire is a boring, obnoxious wreck. I give him points for the fiddle though, but not for treating Emmylou Harris like an out of tune one.

you're crazy. "isis" and "hurricane" are both awesome

"Joey," "Romance in Durango," "Mozambique," and "Oh Sister" are fucking horrible. That's half the album, and a half that's almost three hours long. "Sara" and "Isis" are the keepers.

"Rainy Day Women" is brilliant. I can't think of a better choice to lead off Blonde on Blonde.

One More Cup of Coffee!

it's no New Morning but the good songs on it are really great

xp

yeah i love the vibe of "desire"...might prefer the Live 75 versions of some of those songs, but Desire has a unique mood. I think Joey is a fun song, regardless of factual errors ...

first reactions, since i don't think i've heard most of these songs, or don't remember them

"All The Tired Horses": I keep waiting for the beat drop and Kanye verse.

"Sarah Jane": I actually downloaded Dylan since my mother-in-law wanted a copy of his "I Can't Help Falling In Love". This is silly but the covers on this album are a lot more horrific than this.

"Street Rock": past-prime Kurtis Blow track, Dylan's rapping is the best thing about it.

"Ninety Miles An Hour": not on youtube. lyrics look tame enough that I'm guessing the production is really 80s or something.

"We Are The World": phbbbbt.

"Tight Connection To My Heart": Song's overlong, and this video isn't quite up to "I Love You Suzanne" but I admire the attempt. MTV was really important at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nheBN2UWAaM

"They Killed Him": Feels a little arbitrary to include only one cover with godawful production (esp if you include "Sarah Jane" instead of another like "Spanish Is The Loving Tongue"), but since it didn't soundtrack that Alfred Molina scene in Boogie Nights it has no reason to exist.

"Forever Young": I knew Rod Stewart's rip-off first, and miss its bombast here.

"Wiggle Wiggle": Oddly enough, I think Kenny Aaronoff is making this a horrible song more than Bob is.

Dig this shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIgb8cx6JE

"Wiggle Wiggle": Oddly enough, I think Kenny Aaronoff Don Was is making this a horrible song more than Bob is.

Are we voting for the worst song here, or the best? I will always love Sarah Jane, in all its ridiculous glory.

Only culling novelty numbers and bad production jobs for this list was pretty weak. PRETTY WEAK, Time.

there was a rad video of dylan singing "someone's got a hold of my heart" (which turned into "tight connection") during the infidels sessions that was so great. dylan's people have really cracked down on youtube, huh? lame-o.

I mean, it's a mass market magazine so it doesn't surprise me that the editors found the ugliest photos of Bob in a Miami Vice jacket and said "lol weren't the eighties horrible?"

I refuse to be complacent about Worst lists

there was a rad video of dylan singing "someone's got a hold of my heart" (which turned into "tight connection") during the infidels sessions that was so great. dylan's people have really cracked down on youtube, huh? lame-o.

Indeed. Gone too are his blinding early-80s Letterman performances, the kind that made you want to shout in Bob's face, "WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE THE RECORD LIKE THAT?!"

are we to vote for the worst song on this list, or the best?

best: "Forever Young"
worst: I don't hate any of these. I am likeliest to skip "Rainy Day Women" but that's because I'm likelier to play Blonde On Blonde than Dylan or Self-Portrait, or to play a boot with it rather than one of the other songs on this list.

worst Dylan 60s songs would be better: I'd vote for much of The Times They Are A-Changin', plus any talking blues because once I've heard them once, the (lame) jokes have no further impact.

all the tired horses and rainy day women are amazing. fuck this shit.

dunno any of the other songs except we are the world, which is just silly

no wait, forever young, that is pretty terrible

voting "Forever Young" since it's the most full-on boring

Gone too are his blinding early-80s Letterman performances
on some other dylan thread the dude who played bass (?) in that band showed up and told some stories.

ha, desire is my favorite dylan album -- i even like 'joey.' 'sara' is probably his single most wrenching vocal performance, and 'one more cup of coffee' is perfect pensive late-night driving music.

am i wrong, or did they ignore the born-again albums entirely? those are still pretty awful. 'gotta serve somebody' is easily his worst hit.

yeah sorta surprising. though i think slow train coming is pretty great. the other two, less great.

Street-Legal has a few stinkers, especially the one that goes -

Can you cook
can you sew
can you make flowers grow
can you understand my pain?

sung as if he were held at gunpoint.

on some other dylan thread the dude who played bass (?) in that band showed up and told some stories.

Yeah, I saw that! Cool stuff. Frustrating that Dylan didn't hang onto that band.

someone probably told him they were good.

Street-Legal has a few stinkers

Yes. Changing Of The Guards and Where Are You Tonight? are two of his alltime best. The rest...not so much.

xp i dunno, i can see why -- no matter how good that letterman band sounded -- that dylan would go with tried/true stadium rockers for a big stadium tour. as cool as it would've been for him to go out with a punky/spiky LA band. believe it or not, real live to the contrary, there are some good 1984 euro tour performances.

"joey" can hang (mostly bc of that awful chorus) but the rest of Desire is good-to-great

'gotta serve somebody' is easily his worst hit.

NO

love that fuckin record

As for the Christian records, there's a song called "Something's Burning, Baby" on Empire Burlesque which boasts martial beats, Dylannettes yelling in your ear, and a synthesizer stolen from a Laura Branigan single that conjures hellfire more convincingly than anything on STC or Saved.

I wish Shot of Love was a better throwaway; he wrote better junk than "Trouble" and "Heart of Mine."

believe it or not, real live to the contrary, there are some good 1984 euro tour performances.

Seems like there should be, with that lineup. Ian McLagan's autobio All The Rage has some hilarious stories about the tour, like Dylan asking Ian for a list of songs he'd like to play, telling Ian, "Yeah, let's do those," and then never playing a single one of them for the whole tour.

"Rainy Day Women" stopped me from listening to Dylan for 20-ish years so this is an easy choice for me.

I'd vote for Ballad In Plain D as the worst Dylan song.

xxxp ha, i should read that. mclagan probably has a lot of good stories. check the barcelona 1984 date. there are some really great performances on there. does seem like dylan was trying to his best to mess with his high-priced stadium rockers on that tour -- he's definitely teaching them some of the songs onstage.

Are we supposed to vote for the best? That would be "Forever Young" obv.

thought the best geir track here would be "all the pretty horses"...pure melody. no rhythm. perfect.

Street-Legal has a few stinkers, especially the one that goes -

Can you cook
can you sew
can you make flowers grow
can you understand my pain?

sung as if he were held at gunpoint.

lol!

add a thumpa thumpa to all for Eric

Lawrence from Felt on some of those later Dylan records:

"What I liked about…Bob Dylan were the brilliant lyrics, but after ‘Desire’ why didn’t Dylan use synths instead of saxes and soul backing singers? He wore flares, didn’t acknowledge the new wave, and that dated him"

anyway...

Didn't he listen to Empire Burlesque? DOR Dylan!

evidently not? i've never understood that quote. unless he meant that he felt dylan came too late in the game and really shoulda been making bleep-bloop-bloop records when he was immersed in his born-again period

Mozambique from Desire is pretty terrible. Patronising colonialist drivel. Lester Bangs' demolition of that album is a great read.

did dylan ever acknowledge disco in any sense btw?

some of the 78 live stuff is pretty disco-ed out. "shelter from the storm" gets a funky re-working.

did dylan ever acknowledge disco in any sense btw?

the Street-Legal tour employed a bongo player. There may have been a disco ball.

Mozambique from Desire is pretty terrible. Patronising colonialist drivel. Lester Bangs' demolition of that album is a great read.

yeah srsly. Even if you put Bangs' reading aside, you have to deal with how execrably Dylan sings.

i like bangs and all but his focus on how 'joey' was undermined by its subject being an asshole seemed sort of blinkered to me -- i mean, jesse james was a bad guy too!

had just about enough of this desire bashing
live version of mozambique from 76. http://www.bigozine1a.com/MPX3/BDsanant/BDsanant03.mp3
sure the lyrics are dumb! i don't think that's entirely unintentional.

i used to own a copy of street legal and once borrowed a copy of desire from a friend, but never managed to get into anything on them, except maybe for changing of the guards and one other song which escapes me. but now i'm thinking maybe i should revisit them, even if only out of perverse curiosity, b/c this was like 15 years ago or more when i first tried listening to them. but i imagine they would still fall flat on my ears. i'm someone who never appreciated blood on the tracks, other than you're a big girl now. i like his loud albert hall-ish rock stuff and nashville skyline and self-portrait, but much of the other time in listening to him i kinda just want him to shut up. oh, and oh mercy. i feel like i should check out that one properly

street legal is pretty flawed, but i like most of it. actually "no time to think" might be one of my candidates for worst ever Dylan song, now that I think of it. but i only came around to street legal when it was remixed in the late 90s -- it sounded so much better then!

"Senor" is the best thing on the album by some distance, and it really took off when I saw him perform it in '05.

yeah there's something kind of silly about senor as a whole, but dylan really sells it -- all the versions I've heard, you can tell he really enjoys singing it.

well, it's a set of Dylan-parody lines looking for a home, right? The world's best Dylan imitator writing his own Dylan song.

lincoln county rooooad ... or armageddon?! haha

did dylan ever acknowledge disco in any sense btw?

I've just spent 15 minutes looking for something I can't find: a late-'70s interview where someone asks him if his new music's disco, and he says something like, "No, the Village People are disco, I'm not disco." He says it in a way that's funny and playful, not resentful, and in a way that made it seem like he was very aware of what was happening elsewhere musically. (I thought it would have been the '78 Rolling Stone interview, but it's not there.)

There's this, though, from his '84 Rolling Stone interview: "I've seen a lot of stuff written about me. People must be crazy. I mean responsible people. Especially on that Street Legal tour. That band we assembled then, I don't think that will ever be duplicated. It was a big ensemble. And what did people say? I mean, responsible people who know better. All I saw was "Bruce Springsteen" because there was a saxophone player. And it was "disco" — well, there wasn't any disco in it."

He seemed a little less playful at that point. Earlier in the same interview he mentioned Cisco Houston.

i like bangs and all but his focus on how 'joey' was undermined by its subject being an asshole seemed sort of blinkered to me -- i mean, jesse james was a bad guy too!

yeah but if you write a song "About" jesse james that's just a bunch of self-pitying cliches, contrasting them with the actual facts of james is a good way to point out what crap it is

I love all those Emmylou Harris harmonies on Desire.

Not Heard "Wiggle Wiggle" so in my imagination it sounds a lot like Roy Orbison's "Ooby Dooby".

Does it?

I love Mozambique - it's funny.

Classic - Sara, Isis
V good - Hurricane, Mozambique, One More Cup of Coffee
OK - Oh Sister, Romance in Durango, Black Diamond Bay
Dud - Joey

I like Desire, but the tracklisting is always Hurricane, Isis, Mozambique, Coffee, skiiiip, Sara

Hurricane probs my favourite Dylan song.

Is this Lester Bangs takedown of Desire available online anywhere? Sounds fascinating.

here you go... http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/smalltalkatthewall/message/42037

Lawrence from Felt on some of those later Dylan records:

"What I liked about…Bob Dylan were the brilliant lyrics, but after ‘Desire’ why didn’t Dylan use synths instead of saxes and soul backing singers? He wore flares, didn’t acknowledge the new wave, and that dated him"

anyway...

― dell (del), Wednesday, May 25, 2011 8:08 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I love Lawrence so so so much

Ballad In Plain D is clearly the worse. No-one has ever listened to it more than once. NO-ONE.

Any lover knows you skip the first songs on each side of Desire. Then you only get the Jung psych cross the border tales.

whoa, really? you skip Hurricane? why?

cuz I married ISIS on the fifth day of May!

oh, you're one of those CRAZY PEOPLE who LISTEN TO LYRICS, that would explain it ;-)

hey. I listen to music, too.

Look at it this way: every four years Dylan writes a `new' protest song and it's always about a martyred nigger and he always throws in a dirty word to make it more street-authentic. I don't use the word `nigger' for effect or to make myself look hip, but rather because just like our fathers before us that is all Jackson and Carter have been to him: another human life to exploit for his own purposes.

uh...

fuckin Lester

rmde

yeah i like lester bangs, but he was wrong a lot of the time.

My favorite of these is "Rainy Day Women". I like the drunken marching band sound and it's funny.

The worst song: "Rainy Day Women."

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 24, 2011 12:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/m485/poophead2/laughing_o_GIFSoupcom.gif

that Lester piece is pretty epic... don't really agree with him that the biggest problem with Joey is that it takes liberties with the facts, seems like he got rather hung up on that

Hm. Although I haven't read it in years, I thought he was more disgusted with Dylan's stupid romanticizing of this thug.

well yeah, same difference.

also do vinyl pressings of Desire totally suck or what? can't believe they could actually fit 30 minutes on side 2

but there IS a difference.

even if he'd read a NYT article verbatim it's a halfwitted song.

I dunno, I take it as a given that pop music is going to involve the stupid romanticization of thugs, it's a pretty ancient lyrical conceit.

the song (which I am listening to RIGHT NOW) is interminable and pretty boring tho

there are two versions of "Forever Young" on Planet Waves, right? i like the fast one.

xp yeah, i mean, as far as stupid romanticization of thugs, dylan wrote a whole album about billy the kid. (and i love that album)

On the other Dylan thread, i suggested that "Dark Eyes" make this list.

^PG & BTK is one of my faves of his from the 70s. I know it's 60% filler. But it's damn good filler.

Well, the difference is that the cowboy era is already suffused with enough mythos to allow him some wiggle room. Gallo is one of those guys at the bar in Goodfellas.

so comedy acceptable romanticization = tragedy + time

I could write extended remarks on aging hippies, in an attempt to stay relevant and hold fast to their weird obsession with heroes and martyrs, picking dumb subjects for songs in the seventies and eighties.

so comedy acceptable romanticization = tragedy + time

would so pay to watch Alan Alda play Gallo.

picking dumb subjects for songs in the seventies and eighties.

oh man can we make a poll out of this

Patti Smith and Dylan would crowd the competition.

i dunno, i guess i think of "joey" as an exercise in mythmaking -- like dylan *knows* it's bullshit in the same way he knows that billy the kid is kinda bullshit. but the larger than life idea of these guys in the imagination and in song, that's what he's interested in. has dylan ever been interested in "facts"? maybe i'm giving him too much credit. it's not like my fave song or anything, but i think just taking it at face value, saying dylan thinks joey gallo was a rad, admirable dude, might be a mistake. also, i like the opening lines:
Born in Red Hook Brooklyn in the year of who knows when
Opened up his eyes to the tune of an accordion
Always on the outside whatever side there was
When they asked him why it had to be that way "Well" he answered "just because".

My list of Dylan's ten worst, in no order:

1. The Times They Are A-Changin'
2. Disease of Conceit
3. Lenny Bruce
4. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands
5. Ballad in Plain D
6. Joey
7. Mozambique
8. Is Your Love in Vain?
9. Neighborhood Bully
10. Rainy Day Women

i dunno, i guess i think of "joey" as an exercise in mythmaking

i think everyone does, people just debate whether it's a good one

and it's a little facetious to say "has dylan ever been interested in facts?" when we're talking about a song on the same album as "hurricane"

that sonofabitch is BRAVE AND GETTIN' BRAVER!

well, hurricane ain't exactly factually correct either ...is that what you mean? didn't he have to go to court to explain some of the writer's license he and levy took with that song?

He cared about the fact that a guy was in jail for reasons he felt were wrong. To say he's not being lazy, but 'just playing with myths' is undercut by the actual protest song on the album.

haha just looked at the wikipedia page for "joey" and totally forgot about the song being inspired by dylan having dinner with Gallo pal Jerry Orbach.

you would write that song too if you had lunch with jerry orbach.

yeah but I would write a song about Jerry Orbach instead!

jerrrrry jerrrrry, what made them want to put your baby in a corrrrner...?

also do vinyl pressings of Desire totally suck or what? can't believe they could actually fit 30 minutes on side 2

I was fixing to ask about this. I've only known the album on cd, and always wondered what it took to squeeze 56 minutes on a piece of vinyl. At the same time you wish that Dylan or whoever said "Fuck it--let's make a double", so the album could have room for classic outtake stuff like "Abandoned Love", "Golden Loom", "Catfish" etc.

i'd support a double album of desire stuff -- those outtakes are great. rita mae, too.

Was there ever a studio version of "Seven Days"?

not that i know of -- there's a desire sessions bootleg with this tracklist:
Disc 1:
01. Rita May
02. Romance In Durango
03. Catfish
04. Money Blues
05. Abandoned Love
06. Golden Loom
07. Oh Sister
08. Sara
09. Isis
10. Oh Sister
11. One More Cup Of Coffee
Disc 2:
01. Black Diamond Bay
02. Mozambique
03. Hurricane
04. Rita May
05. Rita May
06. Joey
07. Hurricane

Cool. Thanks!

The best thing about Desire is the descriptor "Desire-era Dylan", which was mysterious & alluring to me in the early to mid 90s when I hadn't yet heard Desire but read a fair bit of "Americana" music press using that term. I guess it refers to long songs with vaguely "gypsy" instrumentation & male-female vocals. The worst thing about Desire: well, you guys are doing a good job of recounting the many candidates for me.

I'm curious to read you guys' picks for worst Dylan. Post'em!

there's so much I've never listened to...

once more with feeling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvIgb8cx6JE

I mean do I really want to listen to Froggy Went a Courtin...

"Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"? Ouch. Not as good as "Desolation Row," pretty great anyway.

here are my picks
1. lenny bruce
2. ballad in plain d
3. no time to think
4. property of jesus
5. ugliest girl in the world
6. clean cut kid
7. neighborhood bully
8. i shall be free no. 10

that's all i can think of! would definitely skip all of those.

ok, here are my picks for worst Dylan songs:

1. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll"
2. "Ballad of a Thin Man"
3. "Who Killed Davey Moore?"
4. "If Dogs Run Free"
5. "One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)"
6. "Talkin' World War III Blues"
7. "Joey"
8. "The Times They Are A Changin'"
9. "Disease Of Conceit"
10. "With God On Our Side"

"Lenny Bruce" was a runner-up for me.

wow, at least three of those -- 'hattie carroll,' 'cup of coffee,' and maybe 'with god on our side' -- would be in my all-time top 10 dylan joints.

my list:

1. chimes of freedom (totally leaden)
2. new pony (creepiest dylan lyrics ever)
3. lily, rosemary and the jack of hearts (not terrible, but really breaks the mood on BOOT)
4. gotta serve somebody (i actually kind of enjoy this for a couple of minutes, usually, but man does it last too long)
5. blowin' in the wind (pretty feeble, considering how famous it is)

2. new pony (creepiest dylan lyrics ever)

Not the only tune on Street Legal for which this applies.

I relistened to it last night: not bad. It's got that dirty rhythm guitar lick and the Dylanettes wailing "How much longer?"

joey times a fucking million

xp yeah i think hattie carrol is probably one of the most powerful of his finger pointing stuff.

prob that's why I hate it so much---on the whole I think protest Dylan is dire

Bryan Ferry spoiled "A Hard Rain" for us all.

I also hate all the takes on Another Side but I think most of those songs are redeemed by later version or covers, so I didn't pick those.

I'm probably the rare person who doesn't like the sound of "Ballad of a Thin Man." Great lyrics, but one of my least favorite from the three middle-period records.

Not "middle-period"...you know which three I mean.

'ballad of a thin man' is prob the best dylan song i never, ever need to hear again.

i'm not nuts about it on hwy 61, but the live versions from live 66 & bootlegs from that tour are unbelievable.

xpost: that's a good way to put it.

god, I just remembered what a fucking coffin that Dylan cover album recorded by Ferry was. He could've sung "Señor" or "Going Going Gone" yet he chooses "To Make You Feel My Love" and "Positively Fourth Street."

there's a terrible Dylan song: "To Make You Feel My Love," so anonymous that Garth and Billy Joel had to sing it in the same year.

Ballad of a Thin Man is pretty annoying but sometimes I endure it by imagining as being about a closeted gay guy

ugh, 'to make you feel my love' is wretched. stick that on my list in place of 'lily, rosemary...'

He did the Anonymous Piano Ballad better on "I'll Remember You" and "Emotionally Yours."

According to my Dylanophile friend's radio show:

3. If Dogs Run Free (New Morning)
2. Man Gave Names to All the Animals (Slow Train Coming)
1. Wiggle Wiggle (Under the Red Sky)

god, I just remembered what a fucking coffin that Dylan cover album recorded by Ferry was.

I love that album! Yeah, it wasn't some profound exploration of the Dylan songbook, it was a dude running his live band through a bunch of chestnuts - irreverent but loving, I almost want to call it a sequel to Before The Flood.

alfred you were so otm in this thread and then you had to hate "sad eyed lady" ;_;

i could do without "just like a woman" which i gather is pretty challopsy

i wouldn't lose a single song on blonde on blonde.

'rainy day women' and 'leopard-skin pillbox hat' are the only ones i ever skip on that album -- i used to find them funny but boy does the joke get old when you actually have to LISTEN to them every time you put the album on.

tho i actually love most of the 'comedy' numbers on the earlier albums, like '115th dream' and the one where he doesn't want to let barry goldwater move in next door and marry his daughter.

i could do without "just like a woman" which i gather is pretty challopsy

It's a dumber song than "Sad Eyed Lady...," which is just long.

so dumb!

All the Tired Horses is one of my top 10 Dylan songs >:(

y'all just like a woman haters are nuts.

i love "leopard-skin pill-box hat". "just like a woman" is pretty bad. "ballad in plain d" is The Worst.

but i'd never get rid of it because i'd never want to live in a world without that last verse which is so spectacularly beyond parody.

I'm not that big on "Pillbox" either--because of the sound, not because it's jokey (again, love "Rainy Day Women"). Like "Just Like a Woman" a lot (it's about Edie Sedgwick, right?), although I think "She Belongs to Me" is even better.

i like that pillbox has the same doctor-steals-girlfriend plot in one verse as l. cohen's "one of us cannot be wrong". maybe this is a common trope i am unaware of?

also

YOU KNOW IT BALANCES ON YOUR HEAD JUST LIKE A
MATTRESS BALANCESONABOTTLEOFWI-UH-IIINNNEEEE

That's a good line, yes.

anyway the "comedy" early dylan songs are usually the least callow and most moving. "talkin john birch society blues" is worth a billion "masters of war"s or (worse) "with god on our side"s. as he got older he learned to be funny more often, like most people.

and "love and theft" is the funniest.

I will turn my eyes into narrow slits if I meet any so-called Dylan fan who won't accept L&T's awesomeness.

it's the easiest good album to warm up to.

special place in my heart for it too because it was the first dylan album to come out when i was an active dylan fan. i would have bought it the day it came out except as you may recall there was a distraction; i'm sure i got it that week though. cheered me right up.

I mean do I really want to listen to Froggy Went a Courtin...

― metally ill (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 25 May 2011 17:33 (4 hours ago)

Peter Buck swears by "Froggy", sez it's scary as hell...

funny, i kinda love "Sad Eyed" because it's so interminable. like when you say a word over and over and it starts to sound funny and lose its meaning.

Narrow away. It's not that I don't "accept" Love & Theft's awesomeness--are we talking about an album here, or the theory of evolution?--it's that it doesn't appeal to me personally, for the reason I've already indicated: I simply do not like the way he sings anymore. It doesn't matter to me if the words or the jokes are great (I'm sure they are), and it doesn't matter if you can come up with a well-crafted explanation of how that voice suits that particular set of songs. If you don't like a voice, you don't like a voice. It's music. As they saying goes, he could have sung the phone book in 1965, and there's approximately a 93% chance I would have loved it.

You know we're joking, right? If you don't like it, cool. Hyperbole is what one does on a message board.

You are a vile person, however, if you admit to loving "Joey."

Oh yeah, I know. It was the "so-called" that pressed a button.

"Just Like A Woman" is an amazing song, particularly the version on Live 1966, amongst my five favorite Dylan moments: he sounds so alien, fragile, predatory, as though his cruelty is the only thing preventing him from blowing away like a piece of trash. His pronunciation of "aches" in the chorus turns that word into onomatopoeia. And there's a lovely bridge too, which I think is pretty rare for Dylan in those days?

I don't know Dylan's records post Desire much at all, but "If Dogs Run Free" is one that I will usually skip on New Morning mostly as the scat singing doesn't really fit.

yeah, dylan singing the bridge to just like a woman on live 66 is top 10 dylan moments for me. one of those things where it's hard to believe he's standing in front of several thousand people. dude is practically whispering. in a lot of ways that acoustic set is more out there and radical than anything he and the hawks did.

yeah I love the acoustic set of that show more than just about everything. The chorus too of that take on Just Like A Woman, the twists in his voice on the last line make the cuts even worse, like he's grinding in his jab.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I had the lasagna.

Most poll results more or less make sense to me; this is the occasional #1 that really does mystify me.

yeah - only seven people, but it is funny. the lead track on what is generally considered the guy's masterpiece (at least a top five career record) is the worst song he's ever written?

And an actual #2 hit single from a moment in time when Dylan ruled the entire universe--I almost wish I were about five years older, so I could know what it felt like to turn on the radio in 1966 and hear "Rainy Day Women." It (and "Stuck Inside of Memphis," and even "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," which as I said upthread I don't care for) seem so crucial to the coloration of Blonde on Blonde--if they weren't there for balance, "Visions of Johanna" and "Sad-Eyed Lady" would be diminished.

Leopard is a highlight, such a lewd performance, like the dark comic heart of the album (even Johanna's a joke but Sad Eyed isn't so I can get thinking it a bad fit, though I still love it).

i mean, i get not liking rainy day women to some extent -- it's kind of the go-to song to make fun of dylan if you hate bob dylan. and i've probably not been crazy about it at times. but actually, getting into the nashville scene at the time has made me appreciate RDW more as an example of session dudes gone haywire, sort of the ultimate after hours nashville weird scene.
& yeah, leopard skin pillbox is great, i even love dylan's mangled opening lead guitar line. version on no direction home is out of this world, too.

sit around in a room full of boring throwback twats playing "Rainy Day Women" on a loop and giggling at how hilarious they are and you soon find out why this is the worst song ever

ha, well, yeah, that sounds bad. but couldn't that be any song?

it has to be some annoying shit about "teehee he said 'stoned'" i think

Yeah, sorry, speaking as someone who discovered Classic Dylan in '93: "Stuck Inside of Mobile..." and "I Want You" were much better introductions than fucking "Rainy Day Women."

rightfully "Tight Connection..." got no votes.

gonna bet that a lot of these got no votes because barely anyone has really heard them. rainy day women on the other hand .... everyone's heard that.

it has to be some annoying shit about "teehee he said 'stoned'" i think

Yeah...I can see where that might be annoying in 2011. But I think you've got to give the song some context; a #2 pop hit in 1966 gleefully urging everyone under a certain age to go get stoned--by someone who had quite a bit to lose at that moment, but who was way beyond such mundane calculations--to me that's insurrectionary. I'd say the same thing of Jefferson Airplane extolling everyone to "feed your head" a year later. At a certain point not too far down the road, yes, such gestures became meaningless.

I'm being hypocritical, though. On the Dylan birthday thread, I was writing about how Love & Theft doesn't do a thing for me. And that has quite a context too. If you don't like something, context ain't going to save it.

bbbut it's stoned as in shirley jjjackson

"Rainy Day Women" is the worst? Are you motherfucking kidding me? Like srsly?

Also, "what a fucking coffin" comment from upthread is fucking classic.

Wow, lot of fuckings in this post. fuckingfuckingfucking

One of the greatest things about hearing "Rainy Day Women" on the radio in '66 [I would imagine, since I was a year away from being born] would've been realizing that it opens EXACTLY like "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha" and that AM radio could find airtime for both in the same summer.

And, of course, "Mouldy Old Dough"

(although that was not the same summer, of course)

"Mouldy Old Dough" about a million times as good, of course

On the "Worst Lieutenant Pigeon songs" poll, it came last.

I've realized I just don't like "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" at all.

i actually really like the version on the Live 1975 in the bootleg series..

ILM voters otm.

I suspect a lot of people were voting for the one they liked the best. I may have done so myself.

calling rainy day women the worst dylan song is so disrespectful to his catalogue

(ballad in plain e 4eva)

all the tired horses and tight connection are both really great imo

ILM voters otm.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 11 November 2017 12:28 (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Loving these Worst Songs Ever pieces btw. LOL Eagles fans.

Quinn < Stoned

All the Tired Horses is one of my top 10 Dylan songs >:(

― ◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝◦ ⃝ (Moka), miércoles 25 de mayo de 2011 22:03 (six years ago)

Still is and also Wigwam is in there. Sorry.

I'd understand if someone had Hattie Carroll as a worst..

Zanzinger wasn't his name, he didn't strike Battle with his cane or anything else, apart from that: enough happened for real that there wasn't need to change details, etc.

It isn't really a candidate for worst, but I'd understand etc..

Hattie not battle, stupid spelling corrector!

Zantzinger, fine, but he did hit her with his cane. Great song.

"hattie carroll" is the masterpiece of his protest era imo, light-years ahead of the more famous stuff

never SAT ONCE
at the head of the table
SHE JUST CLEANED UP
all the food from the table
and emptied the ashtrays
ON A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL

can't believe time magazine didn't throw in even one boomer troll pick btw. how utterly joyless. a-changin's always a good one.

"forever young"'s a feint in that direction i guess.

Tangled up in blue is just so bad

yes also Like a Rolling Stone, in fact Bob Dylan is a bad songwriter, come to think of it most canonical art is trash esp rock from 60s and 70s