Bob Dylan - Favorite Outtakes and Others



Yeah - I've blogged about him before. But, he turns 70 this week. Here are 7 Dylan songs I love

1. Highway 61 Revisited - Title track of one of his best albums. It's a blow-up of a song - a cast of characters who find salvation in different ways - all on Highway 61.

2. If Not For You - Appeared on 1970 album "New Morning". Not very well known album. Song is a straight ahead love song. Biograph

3. Visions of Johanna - Wow. Stand-out song on stand-out Blonde on Blonde album. I prefer the live versions found on and the Live 1966 albums. A wealth of poetic imagery piles up one on another.

4. Up To Me - How this stayed off the Blood on the Tracks album is beyond me. Only available on the Biograph 3 CD set - this song is just such a moving gem. One line of many that are amazing: "If I’d lived my life by what others were thinkin’, the heart inside me would’ve died."

5. Percy's Song - Another outtake - this time off the Times They Are A'Changin' album. This is one of those delicate Dylan songs that display the early folk influences on Dylan. You could easily imagine Woody Guthrie singing this song. Powerful story telling from the point of a man guilty of the deaths of some people in a car crash.

6. Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands - a very long song that wraps up Blonde on Blonde. Another rambling surreal narrative that keeps coming back to the mysterious woman. Dylan has never performed this song live.

7. Blind Willie McTell - Outtake from Infidels album. Many critic fans consider this as a Dylan masterpiece approaching his more famous classics. I would agree. A stunning overview of racism and slavery in America.

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