Worst Dylan Songs -- sez TIME Magazine

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.