POLLING THUNDER REVUE: The Bob Dylan Poll Results Thread (He Acts Like We Never Have Met)

Baffled then, baffled now--the hatred for "Rainy Day Women." I already knew from Stranded that Marcus was a fan, but I sent in an "Ask Greil" anyway. (Not my real name--I'm nursing a grudge that amounts to the tree falling in the forest with no one around.)

06/20/17
Is “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” the most polarizing Dylan song ever? I’ve seen more than one person name it as one of Dylan’s worst, a blight on Blonde on Blonde, and in a recent commemoration of BoB’s 50th anniversary, Rob Sheffield called it “one profoundly annoying novelty song.” I don’t get it. For me, it’s Dylan at his wildest, funniest, and most brilliant—and I can’t believe they somehow snuck it onto Top 40 and turned it into a hit single.
– Alan Vint

When I first heard it it terrified me. It sounded like unleashed junkie madness. About two days later, with the radio playing it nonstop, I fell in love with it. It was completely unpredictably musically, so that it sounded different every time. There was no way to know who these people were. I listened for the shouting in the background. Everyone is having a fabulous time. But after the Blonde on Blonde sessions were over and Dylan had left, producer Bob Johnston kept the party going, and he and the musicians apparently took as much time as it takes to listen to it to record Moldy Goldies: Col. Jubilation B. Johnston and His Mystic Knights Band and Street Singers Attack the Hits, which Columbia snuck out at the same time. “Secret Agent Man” is my favorite musically, though philosophically “The Name Game” has it beat. Either or anything else on the album makes “Rainy Day Women” sounds like “She Belongs to Me.”

I'm not that big on Moldy Goldies myself.

I rank his seventies records.. The smaller, the better.

Still don't get the affection for Desire if you weren't there.

I agree about Desire; I never have the "desire" to listen to it.

(It was the most popular Dylan album in the freshman dorm environment, for reasons I'm not quite clear on.)

i just listened to Desire recently, it's great. later live performances might surpass the studio versions, but the LP itself has its own rambly charm.

I agree w those rankings w the exception of Street Legal because gtfo w that shit

xp I'm not big on the Rolling Thunder tour recordings either! Guess the whole era just ain't my cup of coffee.

(Actually, I love Hard Rain -- so I guess it's the first leg of the tour I'm not big on, or w/e)

((also, fwiw, Hard Rain contains only one (1) song from Desire))

joe-ee
joe-eee

i disagree w/ some of the rankings but who cares, the writing is great

i loved desire as a teenager, listening to hurricane specially felt exhilarating, i don't really care for it now though. i find the violin and some of dylan's singing grating

but emmylou is wonderful throughout

Scarlet Rivera saws away at her violin as emptily as any cock rocker on guitar.

!!

a+

Anyone else here read “Ratso” Sloman’s book on the tour? A former boss had it on his shelf, and I read it, LOL

yeah, equal parts entertaining and insufferable

Good list, Alfred.

Nice to see New Morning get some love. That's such a comforting record.

And you're all crazy: Desire is awesome.

one dylan lyric from new morning that is always in my head is "i had a sweetheart she was fine and good looking/we sat in the kitchen while her momma was cooking"

Btw, Alfred -- you also neglected to include this gem (in a age of fiberglass): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_(1973_album)

Worth a thousand words alone

"How are you?" he said to me
I said it back to him

classic bars fucking love New Morning

what bars do YOU visit?

one dylan lyric from new morning that is always in my head is "i had a sweetheart she was fine and good looking/we sat in the kitchen while her momma was cooking"

― Heez

yes! otm

Interesting list. I am not a fan of Street Legal either, but it has Changing Of The Guards which is immortal, and Where Are You Tonight which is close.

Picking anything other than BoTT feels a bit challopsy to me, but ok. I'd probably do BoTT #1 and then Another Self-Portrait at #2 if that's not cheating.

That’s cheating, dude. LOL

Sometimes I do think about how you could create an entire “alternative Dylan canon” solely out of the Bootleg Series releases, and how it would dominate almost as (or even more?) strongly as his “official” canon.

If I had to choose to only listen to one for the rest of my life I would 100% choose the Bootleg series

Telltale Signs!

Honestly, just the Vol. 1-3 set alone is like the #1 Dylan thing to own.

Those are both great

Bob had really terrible judgment about what he left off records

can you understand his pain?

No

I love Desire. It's Dylan's 'turn' west, a sure sign that a writer is running out of ideas, and it's hokey as hell but that's fine. The rhythm section is fucking great.

It’s a short step from the limo to the gutter

Bob had really terrible judgment about what he left off records

Nah, it’s an embarrassment of riches.

I mean you couldn't drop Neighborhood Bully or Union Sundown off Infidels for, oh I don't know, maybe Blind Willie McTell

Infidels is sort of a special case; I imagine most Dylan fans would indeed have liked to see “Willie” and “Foot of Pride” remain on the album. (Wikipedia quotes someone writing that Dylan cut “Willie” because “he didn't feel his tribute lived up to its sources”... I dunno.)

Dylan cut “Willie” and added “Union Sundown,” which was also the lead single; guess he was in a political mood, or someone thought it’d be a hit.

lol at "union sundown" being the lead single. Dylan's back, baby!

Hmm... just did a little digging, and Wikipedia's list of singles may be misleading -- looks like "Union Sundown" may have been a UK single only, and "Sweetheart Like You" was the first U.S. single (w/"Union Sundown" on the B side).

(Honestly, that's even weirder -- why would UK listeners care about "Union Sundown"?)

yes "Sweetheart Like You" was the single -- got a video too iirc.

It reached #55 on the Hot 100 (not... bad?)

his last top sixty single

Blind Willie would have towered weirdly over the rest of Infidels, threatening to dwarf Jokerman

I like the sound of that record and the outtakes but man there are some embarrassing songs

in a way Brownsville Girl would've been better on a bootleg collection

I'm actually ok with "Blind Willie" being a bootleg thing, but probably would prefer "Foot of Pride" on the LP.

(And yet, that song's obscurity made it all the more awesome when Lou Reed performed it on that TV concert.)

^^^ exactly

foot of pride has so many outrageous lines:

Well they'll choose a man for you to meet tonight
You'll play the fool and learn how to walk through doors
How to enter into the gates of paradise
How to carry a burden too heavy to be yours
Yeah, from the stage they'll be tryin' to get water outta rocks
A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks
They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in
Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss banks