Top 10: Bob Dylan lyrics
April 8th, 2008 by Wade Tatangelo in News
I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan ever since the age of 12 or 13, when I discovered my dad’s vinyl copies of Greatest Hits and Desire. His work has consistently fascinated me more than any other popular musician’s. I took a poetry class at USF about eight years ago and my professor, the cowboy poet Willie Reader, who passed away shortly after the semester ended, allowed me to do a paper on Dylan’s lyrics. It ran about 20 pages and I earned an “A+,” a rare accomplishment for me in those days. The assignment prompted a friendship between Reader and I; one that led to many long talks and us attending a Willie Nelson concert together. The Dylan paper and, more importantly, the positive feedback I received from Reader, would also eventually lead me into a career of music criticism.
I took great pleasure in seeing Dylan recently collect a Pulitzer Prize:
A Special Citation to Bob Dylan for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.
In honor of Dylan’s recent award from the literary world, here’s a list I obsessed over longer than I care to admit.
Top 10: Bob Dylan lyrics
1. “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
Killer lines: “I’m ready to go anywhere / I’m ready for to fade/ Into my own parade / Cast your dancing spell my way / I promise to go under it.”
2. “Idiot Wind,†Blood on the Tracks (1975)
Killer lines: “You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above / And I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love / And it makes me feel so sorry.â€
3. “Every Grain of Sand,†Shot of Love (1981)
Killer lines: “I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame / And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.â€
4. “Desolation Row,†Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Killer lines: “To her, death is quite romantic / She wears an iron vest / Her profession’s her religion / Her sin is her lifelessness / And though her eyes are fixed upon / Noah’s great rainbow / She spends her time peeking / Into Desolation Row.â€
5. “Jokerman,†Infidels (1983)
Killer lines: “Shedding off one more layer of skin / Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.â€
6. “Like a Rolling Stone,†Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
Killer lines: “You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat / Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat / Ain’t it hard when you discover that / He really wasn’t where it’s at / After he took from you everything he could steal.â€
7. “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),†Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
Killer lines: “The hollow horn plays wasted words / Proves to warn / That he not busy being born / Is busy dying.â€
8. “Highlands,†Time out Of Mind (1997)
Killer lines: “The sun is beginning to shine on me / But it’s not like the sun that used to be / The party’s over, and there’s less and less to say / I got new eyes / Everything looks far away.”
9. “Blind Willie McTell,†Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (1991); an outtake from Infidels
Killer lines: “Well, God is in heaven / And we all want what’s His / But power and greed and corruptible seed / Seem to be all that there is.â€
10. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
Killer lines: “Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’ / Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin.’”
WHAT DID I MISS?
April 8th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
These lines from “Standing in the Doorway” made an impression on me when I heard them back in 1997. It gains the listener to hear them in the context of the song, but even set apart, they succinctly capture the feeling of alienation amidst other people’s happiness.
The light in this place is so bad
Making me sick in the head
All the laughter is just making me sad
The stars have turned cherry red
April 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Another one of my favorite songs from Dylan’s classic 1997 album “Time Out of Mind,” “Standing in the Doorway” includes some of his most touching lyrics. In addition to the ones you printed, I’m partial to the lines: “Last night I danced with a stranger / But she just reminded me you were the one.”
April 8th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Amen to that. Simple language, but cuts to the core.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:22 am
This from “Visions of Johanna”:
“Inside the museum
Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo ‘This is what
Salvation must be like after a while’
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles”
The genius of those lines can be condensed into two words: “Voices echo.” With those words, Dylan evokes the conformity of the museum-goers, echoing each other, and the emptiness of the museum halls through which the voices echo. Then he grabs you by the neck and reminds you that there is honest expression in those museums and you understand in a flash of humor that comparing Mona Lisa to a blues is one hell of a compliment to Leonardo Da Vinci.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Don’t ask me nuthin’ about nuthin’ I just might tell ya the truth!
April 9th, 2008 at 4:14 am
At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means
Gates of Eden
April 9th, 2008 at 5:04 am
I’m really impressed with this list, just replace Jokerman with Visions of Joanna and I think it would be the same as my list
April 9th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Well God is in His heaven,
and we are what was his……
April 9th, 2008 at 6:23 am
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand
Every grain of sand
April 9th, 2008 at 7:40 am
I’m gonna grow my hair down to my feet so strange
So I look like a walking mountain range
Then I’m gonna ride into Omaha on a horse
Out to the country club & the golf course
Carrying a New York Times
Shoot a few holes, blow their minds
-I Shall Be Free No. 10
April 9th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Well, he catch you when you’re hoping for a glimpse of the sun,
Catch you when your troubles feel like they weigh a ton.
He could be standing next to you,
The person that you’d notice least.
I hear that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
April 9th, 2008 at 9:41 am
“I´ve seen thousands could have overcome the darkness,
for the love of a lousy buck I´ve watched them die”
When the night comes falling from the sky.
Even better:-
“Freedom, just around the corner for you,
but with truth so far off, what good would it do?”
Jokerman
amongst many many other.
The lines “…danced with a stranger” cited twice above are also heart stopping.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Foot Of Pride is one of my favorites. It’s hard to pick a single line from it but I always love hearing him yell “say one more stupid thing to me before the final nail is driven in”
April 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am
When telling people about my Bob fandom, I usually say “How can you not like someone who can use the word ‘previous’ in a rock song?
From “Changing of the Guards”:
The palace of mirrors
Where dog soldiers are reflected,
The endless road and the wailing of chimes,
The empty rooms where her memory is protected,
Where the angels’ voices whisper to the souls of previous times.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:10 am
“My clothes are wet, tight on my skin
Not as tight as the corner that I painted myself in”
Mississippi
“I’m ten miles outside the city an’ i’m lifted away
In an ancient light that is not of day
They were calm, they were blunt, we knew ‘em all too well
We loved each other more than we ever dared to tell. ”
Cross the Green Mountain
April 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
You always said people don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hard to choose – so a single line from Brownsville Girl:
“Oh if there’s an original thought out there, I could use it right now….”
April 9th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
‘Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet?’
Visions of Johanna!
Impossible list though.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
“Money doesn’t talk it swears.”
April 9th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Great calls all around. “Visions of Johanna” was the toughest one to leave off. It’d probably make the Top 10 if I did the same list again tomorrow. “Houndcat” nailed it in regards to the song’s best lines.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
In context of the song this line from “If You See Her, Say Hello” is beautiful –
She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so
April 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Genghis Khan he could not keep
All his kings supplied with sleep
We’ll climb that hill no matter how steep
When we come up to it.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I fought with my twin, that enemy within. till’ both of us fell by the way.
Where are you tonight
(Street Legal)
April 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
“Why don’t you break my heart one more time just for good luck”
-Summer Days
April 9th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can’t help it if I’m lucky.
You’re an idiot, babe.
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
-Idiot Wind
April 9th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
You missed Visions of Johanna and Boots of Spanish Leather.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Most sad, poignant, touching, loving lines:
Oh, how can, how can you ask me again,
It only brings me sorrow.
The same thing I want from you today,
I would want again tomorrow.
April 9th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Best multiple rhyme:
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music
April 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Funniest finishing lines:
I’ll say, “It’s easily done,
You just pick anyone,
An’ pretend that you never have met!”
April 9th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
She knows there’s no success like failure
And that failure’s no success at all.
and
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
April 9th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
And, My Top 10 Dylan Songs (although, there would be over 500 top ones):
1. Don’t Think Twice
2. Visions of Johanna
3. It’s Alright Ma
4. Boots of Spanish Leather
5. Like A Rolling Stone
6. Tambourine Man
7. Shelter From The Storm
8. Simple Twist Of Fate
9. Tangled Up In Blue
10. Lay Down Your Weary Tune
April 9th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Anybody out there met the man himself?
April 9th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands seems to be underrepresented…
Now you stand with your thief
You’re on his parole
With your holy medallion
And your fingertips now that fold
And with your saintlike face
And your ghostlike soul
Oh who among them
could ever think
he could destroy you
April 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Also, this self-referential bit from “Mr. Tambourine Man” is for me one of the most consistently moving passages in pop music:
And if you hear vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme,
Do your tambourine in time.
It’s just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn’t pay it any mind,
It’s just a shadow you’re seeing that he’s chasing.
–
Sometimes I wonder if one reason that Bob Dylan is one of the most critically lauded people in music is that music critics are most often writers, and I wonder if the lyricism of an artist isn’t generally weighted more than other aspects of their music for this reason.
April 9th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
“…Electricity howls in the bones of her face…
or
Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of a mule…
both from Visions of Johanna
April 9th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
one more but only because of the way it is sung/performed on the album….from “If you see her..”
“If she’s passing back this way,
I’m not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if
If she’s got the time.”
Those lines are sung as the most poignant lyrics ever put down on a record
It’s always in the the way the lines are sung…almost always
April 9th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Nice list, Mick.
Interesting point, Justin, in regards to Dylan being lauded by literary-minded music writers for his lyrics. I argue, though, that Dylan’s distinctive phrasing and inflection are also an underrated part of his appeal. In addition, he’s composed some excellent, albeit relatively simple, melodies. Songs don’t get much catchier, for instance, than “Just Like a Woman,” “Lay Lady Lay” and “Mozambique.”
April 9th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Now there’s a certain thing that I learned from my friend Mouse A fella who always blushes and that is that ev’ryone must always flush out his house if he don’t expect to be going round flushing houses Open the door Homer
April 9th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
There are so many, but here goes…
And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice.
Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again
Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must.
You do what you must do and ya do it well,
I’ll do it for you, honey baby,
Can’t you tell?
Buckets of Rain
They say that patriotism is the last refuge
To which a scoundrel clings
Steal a little and they throw you in jail,
Steal a lot and they make you a king.
Sweetheart Like You
Well, the moral of the story,
The moral of this song,
Is simply that one should never be
Where one does not belong.
So when you see your neighbor carryin’ somethin’,
Help him with his load,
And don’t go mistaking Paradise
For that home across the road.
The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
In the dark I hear the night birds call 
I can feel a lover’s breath 
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall 
Sleep is like a temporary death
Workingman’s Blues #2
April 9th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Awesome list. So many words, so hard to choose. Saw Bob last month in Guadalajara and even got quoted in the local paper. All others are pretenders to the crown.
April 9th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I can hear their hearts a beaten -like pendulms swinging on chains
April 9th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Well, you know we was cruisin’ down the highway in a Greyhound bus
All kinds of little children on the sideroad they was hollerin’ at us, sayin’
Get your rocks off, get your rocks off
Get your rocks off, get your rocks off-a me.
“Get Your Rocks Off” (1967)
April 9th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
There are no mistakes in life
some people say
it is true sometimes
you can see it that way
People don’t live or die
people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat
April 9th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Now, when I was just a bawlin’ lad
I saw what I wanted to be
An’ it’s all for the sake
Of that I should see.
But I was lost on the land
As I heard that front door slam
And that old sign on the cross
Worries me
“Sign On The Cross”
April 10th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Come mothers and fathers through out the land
Don’t critisise what you don’t understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyonde your command
For the times they are a changin’
April 10th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Oh a false clock tries to tick out my time
To disgrace, distract, and bother me.
And the dirt of gossip blows into my face,
And the dust of rumors covers me.
But if the arrow is straight
And the point is slick,
It can pierce through dust no matter how thick.
So I’ll make my stand
And remain as I am
And bid farewell and not give a damn.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:46 am
The iron hand it ain’t no match for the iron rod,
The strongest wall will crumble and fall to a mighty God.
For all those who have eyes and all those who have ears
It is only He who can reduce me to tears.
Don’t you cry and don’t you die and don’t you burn
For like a thief in the night, He’ll replace wrong with right
When He returns.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Glad to see another number, “When He Returns,” included from Dylan’s underrated Born Again phase. A couple more songs I especially like from the “Slow Train Coming” album are “Precious Angel” and “I Believe in You,” two songs that might not ranks as Dylan’s best lyrics, at least from a poetic viewpoint, but feature some of his strongest vocals.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
From “Dirt Road Blues” these are the most wonderful verses of the rock: “Rolling through the rain and hail, looking for the sunny side of love”
April 10th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Wade – agree entirely regarding Dylan’s Christian period. One day that stage of his career will get a serious re-rating in terms of its import and the beauty of the lyrics/music he produced then. Certainly his live shows in 1979-80 revealed a man who was at his most inspired in terms of the music he was playing since the 1966 tour. Bob was really feeling it. And “Precious Angel” has one of – IMO – Dylan’s greatest verses, the first line of which is so beautiful in its biblical imagery:
Sister, lemme tell you about a vision that I saw.
You were drawing water for your husband, you were suffering under the law.
You were telling him about Buddha, you were telling him about Mohammed
in one breath.
You never mentioned one time the Man who came and died a criminal’s death.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Here are a couple more…
Dark Beauty
Won’t you move it on over and make some room?
It’s my duty to bring you down to the field where the flowers bloom.
Ashes in the furnace, dust on the rise,
You came through it all the way, flyin’ through the skies.
Dark Beauty
With that long night’s journey in your eyes.
- Tough Mama
People tell me it’s a sin
To know and feel too much within.
I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.
- Simple Twist of Fate
Well, I wanna be your lover, baby,
I don’t wanna be your boss.
Don’t say I never warned you
When your train gets lost.
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
-Hurricane
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin’ coal
Pourin’ off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.
- Tangled Up In Blue
and only because it hasn’t been mentioned yet…
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
-Rainy Day Women #12 & 35
April 16th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
Theres got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight
January 26th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
“It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”
I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws.
The cryin’ rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself ‘neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum.
“Lay Down Your Weary Tune”
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space,
Half asleep neath the stars with a small dog licking your face.
“Jokerman”
Come baby, rock me, come baby, lock me into the shadows of your heart.
Come baby, teach me, come baby, reach me, let the music start.
I could be dreaming but I keep believing you’re the one I’m livin’ for.
And I will always be emotionally yours.
“Emotionally Yours”
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
“It’s Not Dark Yet”
I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all.
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night,
In the brightness of my day.
“Girl from the North Country”
Just how much abuse will you be able to take?
Well, there’s no way to tell by that first kiss.
What’s a sweetheart like you doin’ in a dump like this?
“Sweetheart Like You”
May 16th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I love Bob Dylan but a song that really stands out for me is “i want you” from the Blonde on Blonde album, favourite lyrics from the song are:
“The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it’s not that way,
I wasn’t born to lose you.”
September 19th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Thunder on the Mountain: “Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches/ I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages/ I been to St. Herman’s church, said my religious vows/ I’ve sucked the milk out of a thousand cows.”