Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs

by Jim Beviglia

Counting Down is a unique series of titles designed to select the best songs or musical works from major performance artists and composers in an age of design-your-own playlists.

For fifty years, Bob Dylan’s music has been a source of wonder to his fans and endless fodder for analysis by music critics. In Counting Down Bob Dylan, rock journalist Jim Beviglia dares to rank these songs in descending order from Dylan’s 100th best to his #1 song. Surveying the near six-decade career of this musical legend, Beviglia offers insightful analyses into the music and lyrics and dishes out important historical information and fascinating trivia to explain why these 100 rank among Dylan’s best to date. At the same time, a portrait of the seemingly inscrutable Dylan emerges through the words of his finest songs, providing both the perfect introduction to his work and a comprehensive new take on this master of American songwriting.

This work will appeal to the legions of Bob Dylan fans who have taken to analyzing his music. Unlike other Dylan books, which vary between the academic and the journalistic, Counting Down Bob Dylan uniquely renders Dylan’s music approachable to new fans by highlighting the powerful emotional forces that fuel his dazzling lyrics.

Genres: Music

216 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2013

Reviews

[David Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever tried writing about music? It's actually harder than it looks, especially writing about good music. Writing about music you hate isn't all that hard because it's much easier to criticise than praise but writing about songs you like is tricky, especially if you're not allowed to use "Amazon review" cliches like "epic" "breathtaking" and "better than what passes for music nowadays"

Beviglia manages to wax lyrical about 100 of Dylan's greatest moments without becoming repetitive or tedious, which is no mean feat. And while he's praising Bob, he's providing some quality insights into why the songs work and how they were created.

This isn't a book to read cover to cover in one hit but it's a great book to dip into now and then. There's not a person alive who would agree with every choice in this exact order but that's not the point. It's one guy's view and he argues it well.

[Gil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for any Bob Dylan fan. You may not agree with the order of the songs but the analysis that goes into each song is well researched. I even found a few songs that could be interpreted in other ways I hadn't considered.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I disagreed with many of Beviglia's choices, and the order in which he placed them, but I loved his passion for the songs that he did choose. Exciting writing, I would love to do my own list and get it published. (Bob Dylan would love me if he could only meet me.)

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rated this book a 3, but because it reintroduced me to what a genius Bob Dylan is, it’s really a 4. I can’t imagine reading this book though, without having the songs to listen to and having the words on the screen. I have a shared playlist on Spotify that contains most of the songs in the book, and it’s the same name as the title of the book.

I’ll admit to being a fair weather Bob Dylan fan. There are probably no more than three dozen of his songs that I’ve really listened to directly over the years. All the rest of them have been through the filter of someone who interpreted his songs, such as most of the old folk singers, all of whom had better voices than Bob Dylan. For the most part I do not like his voice, never have, probably never will. Many of my old folk music friends liked his voice, but I was always leaning towards more commercial sounding singers. Whose version of “Blowin’ in the Wind” did I learn for my first folk group a zillion years ago? Peter, Paul & Mary’s version of course. What was nice about reading this book and listening to every song was gaining a new appreciation for Bob Dylan and that includes not minding his voice on a lot of the songs. He is like classical music was to me, the more you study it, as I did classical music in a full college course, the more you appreciate his music (until that one grating to the ears song comes on).

That said, his voice of course does not take away from what a prolific and incredible song writer and poet he is and was. This was a decent book from someone who attempted to rank Bob Dylan’s songs and explain his rankings in detail for all 100 songs. The author was very “fannish” about the songs and the descriptions of them, so that detracted slightly when reading the book (but what did I expect?). The best thing about reading this book was playing the exact songs through Spotify. And, Spotify has an add-on that lets you follow the words onscreen, which was really cool. It makes me still think that electronic books, of which this was one, could be much better. The actual songs and the lyrics could have been included with the e-book. This book introduced me to many songs and albums I’ve never heard, because I didn’t exactly buy Dylan’s albums except for the first one and a few after that. I’m still embarrassed these many years later that I was horrified when Bob Dylan went electric back in the 60’s. He was so far ahead of his time that we folk singers had blinders on, including Pete Seeger who wanted to pull the plug on Dylan when he first did electric at the Newport Folk Festival. Which is the better version, Dylan’s more or less acoustic “All Along the Watchtower”, or the Jimi Hendrix version? I actually like Bob Dylan’s voice on this song on his “John Wesley Harding” album but I’m glad Jimi Hendrix made it a classic rock song with his interpretation. I didn’t realize that Dylan does the Hendrix version when he performs it now, according to the book.

I was surprised to find out I liked the original Bob Dylan “Mr. Tambourine Man” better than the commercial hit by the Byrds, since on some songs I played the more well-known interpreted song too. Wow. Bob’s voice on this song was compatible with my ears. What kind of a morning is a “jingle jangle morning” anyway? (smile) What a poet he is.

Here are some great songs I didn’t know, and on some albums I didn’t know. These also reminded me that Bob Dylan did a LOT of songs over 5 minutes long:

The Groom’s Still Waiting by the Altar, Tempest (Dylan’s long Titanic song, suitable for singing in the 60’s), Isis, “Going, Going, Gone”, Ballad in Plain D, To Ramona, When The Deal Goes Down, Mississippi, Thunder on the Mountain, Sign on the Window, Dark Eyes, Workingman’s Blues #2, Black Diamond Bay, Ain’t Talkin’, Sara, and many others.

Sometimes while reading this book and listening to every song, I’ve thought: This song makes no sense at all, and it seems like Dylan wrote a line and followed it up with another line that’s just there because it rhymes. Perhaps my lack of interest in poetry caused me to think like this, instead of being wowed by the words. If one of his songs sounds good to me, I liked it regardless of the words. “I Want You” was like this, a good, listenable pop song with words that make you go “what??”.

I’d have included “Love Minus Zero” in the book, which appealed to me so much that I learned it in the 60’s. Also I’d include “Tomorrow is a Long Time”, also done by either Judy Collins or Ian and Sylvia. Dylan’s original version of it sucks vocally.

“Twenty years of school and they put you on the dayshift”, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”, says Bob, and it was good to hear those words again.

Bob Dylan wrote “Blowing in the Wind” when he was 21. That’s Incredible.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Beviglia gave some amazing insight into the meanings of Dylan's songs. Though no one will ever be able to convince me that Dylan's greatest song isn't "Times They Are A-Changing." Never. No one.