Is Bob Dylan's music intentionally terrible for ironic purposes?

Bad Wigins wrote:

so many angry, triggered nasties with hearts full of spite

show the people it sucks to be you, a folk music fan, if that's what you want to prove...

Right over there, over 10,000 CD's/records/tapes

Blues

Jazz

Big Band

Folk

Country

Soul

Funk

R&B

Punk

Rap

Motown

Reggae

Oldies

Bluegrass

Rock & Roll

Rockabilly/Hillbillie

Classical

I own it all but the Opera, yep....sucks!

My oldest stuck late 1890'S. TONS of pre 1940,

Trust me them Blues and Folk have a very special place when it comes to American music, so not cool for some know nothing like you running it down. Being dumb about music isn't cool.

El Keniano wrote:

John Wesley Harding wrote:

My constantly evolving list of 200 best/personal favorite Dylan songs:

These songs are all very good and they span 57 years, from 1963 to 2020–incredible.

Wow! 'Changing of the Guards' not good enough for your top 200?

You know, it was in the top 200 until recently, now it’s on this list of honorable mentions:

Up To Me - Biograph

Catfish - Bootleg Series vol. 1-3

Seven Days - Bootleg Series vol. 1-3

Ye Shall Be Changed - - Bootleg Series vol. 1-3

Marchin’ to the City - Bootleg Series vol. 8

A Fool Such As I* - Bootleg Series vol. 11 (Basement Tapes)/Dylan (1973)

Joshua Gone Barbados* - Bootleg Series vol. 11 (Basement Tapes)

One Man’s Loss - Bootleg Series vol. 11 (Basement Tapes)

Rock Salt and Nails* - Bootleg Series vol. 11 (Basement Tapes)

Joey - Desire

Ninety Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)* - Down in the Groove

Dark Eyes - Empire Burlesque

I Am A Lonesome Hobo - John Wesley Harding

The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest - John Wesley Harding

Honest With Me - Love and Theft

The Levee’s Gonna Break* - Modern Times

Country Pie - Nashville Skyline

One More Night - Nashville Skyline

Crossing the Rubicon - Rough and Rowdy Ways

Changing of the Guards - Street Legal

Scarlet Town - Tempest

Roll On John - Tempest

One Too Many Mornings - The Times They Are A-Changin’

It’s one of those drug-addled Dylan songs that straddles the line between awesome and cringe-worthy. “I rode past destruction in the ditches, with the stitches still mending ‘neath a heart-shaped tattoo” is pretty laughable, for instance. Of course now that it’s running through my head, it feels like it must deserve a spot on the list.

Street Legal is truly a mixed bag. It has a few great tracks (Senor, New Pony, Where Are You Tonight?) and some of his absolute worst (Is Your Love In Vain?, Baby Stop Crying).

While I LOVE about 75% of his studio recordings and believe he's a genius, it's obvious: Dylan is TERRIBLE in concert. HORRENDOUS! It really does seem he deliberately and perversely insists on singing all his songs in the same lilting, weak, raspy monotone, not at ALL like the recorded versions. But why? Is it some kind of surreal commentary, perhaps, on the slavish adoration we, the fans, shower on him no matter what, as if we NEED to keep the image of a transcendent, iconic, heroic Bob front and center, as a beacon of hope in our lives, despite his longstanding rejection of this cultlike worship? And will endure ANY insult to keep him there? I have no idea. But he doesn't HAVE to perform this poorly, so what other explanation is there?

Changing of the Guards is (among dozens) my favorite Dylan song. Not among his top 200? Absurd. The image of him riding past "destruction in the ditches" while "renegade priests and treacherous young witches" handed out the flowers he'd given her, is indelible and far from drunken ramblings. What's it mean? Changing allegiances, the convenient, expedient abandonment of one set of beliefs for another to appease a new power hierarchy? That's one guess. Jupiter, the unquestioned supreme deity, usurped by a more complex, humanistic view of human nature (Apollo) fits this interpretation.

Anyway, in MY top 200 it's AT LEAST in the top 50! C'mon!

There is just something about harsh, raspy, sandpaper vocals as opposed to Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, Steve Perry. This is Blind Willie Johnson, this tune and his "John the Rvelator" are American music classics, one of those on that record we have floating around in outer space. He is that revered.

Blind Willie was a Texan, Bukka White one of those Delta legends, Howlin' Wolf, Tom Waits, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker some others with grit dripping vocals. I put Dylan in with that gang.

The thing is that even his classics usually have a few clunker lyrics. "He went off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet"? When someone is as prolific a lyricist that is bound to be the case.

I would definitely put Changing of the Guards top 50.

True. During Dylan’s first years, when he was known to the world, he was “America’s Poet”. He wasn’t America’s “singer”

Funny, I love that line from Desolation Row. “He looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette/Then he went off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet” seems like an apt, albeit slightly surreal description of a downtrodden vagrant.

I respect your opinion on Changing of the Guards. The guy who said that not putting Changing of the Guards among my 200 favorites is “absurd,” is being absurd, because it’s just like my opinion, man.

Well, that's the thing about music lyrics - what seems profound to one listener just seems
cliché to another. But since you are a Dylan guy through and through I can respect your opinion. But please, no Pink Floyd.

You, a "not real big Dylan fan," tell me I like his music because it conveys a story, point, feeling, emotion, or message? First, I don't consider him a "folk singer." Second, his "message" is HIM, HIS irreverent attitude, a certain way of looking at people, at once contemptuous and deeply respectful. HIS archetypal persona--his appearance, the sound of his voice saying his words, ARE the point. The events described are mere details. Changing of the Guards, Abandoned Love or Tangled Up in Blue, for instance, are "about" this mythological Everyman as he travels through life. Born in Time, Oh Sister, Night Comes Falling From the Sky, all his songs, are about HIM, the protagonist and narrator. HIS unique perspective runs through them all.

No, it’s not irony. When Dylan first started out as a performer, he based his singing voice on authentic folk singers popular at the time, like Woody Guthrie and Karen Dalton. He later developed a kind of sarcastic wailing voice which perfectly complimented his protest songs, because he was in fact angry about nuclear proliferation, rapacious capitalism, racism etc.
Admittedly, most of the prettiest melodies in his songs appear in his early work (and several of those were stolen). On the other hand, his lyrics and compositions have consistently been far ahead of other songwriters, as shown by his winning both the Pulitzer and the Nobel prizes.

Fixed ⬇️

Is Greatful Dead's music intentionally terrible for ironic purposes?

Hey, I don't see "Jet Pilot" anywhere on this list, so what happened??

It was on the Great White Wonder bootleg LP from around 1970 and had some great stuff on it, as in:

Well she's got Jet Pilot Eyes from her hips on down

All the bombardiers are tryin' to force her out of town

She's five foot nine and she carries a monkey wrench

She weighs more by the foot than she does by the inch

She's got all the downtown boys all at her command

But you've got to watch her closely 'cause

She ain't no woman, she's a man!

I didn't see "Early Mornin' Rain" on your list of top 200 Dylan songs. I know he didn't write it and a lot of singers have covered the Gordon Lightfoot classic, but Dylan's version is the best by far.

I don't consider myself a fan of Bob Dylan's music (especially when he's singing), but I do like Like a Rolling Stone and Knockin' on Heaven's Door. I do prefer his songs to be covered by others...All Along the Watchtower is the great example there.

His music is extremely simplistic which CAN be good, but when it's EVERY song, for me that gets boring.

Check again, it’s #120. It’s always been one of my favorite songs on Self Portrait.

Your definition of what it takes to be a real man is a classic, but you're all wet with your take on Dylan. His music is precisely the opposite of formulaic! He spent his career experimenting with styles, folk, rock, country, gospel. I agree with another poster's perspective - the "story" Dylan was always telling was exactly his own, regardless of the protagonist. You want to know why Dylan went to Nashville? Why Dylan became a gospel artist? He just wanted to explore the genres and show what he could do. And he did it better than anyone - Just listen to Girl from the North Country. Frankly, give a spin on the entire John Wesley Harding, which he put out after going electric but before Nashville. It's a classic country folk album loaded with stripped down masterpieces all delivered in a peppy presentation but with very dark, foreboding undertones. Just perfection. He was saying one thing with his delivery, while the lyrics clearly indicate something else is going on.

Yes, Hendrix All Along the Watchtower was a masterpiece, but Hendrix plays it straight. Listen to Dylan's version a few times and it's entirely different. He's offering a warning, but delivering in a cheerful manner - like a court jester.