Tag Archives: freewheelin’

The Bob Dylan Starter Compilation – Playlists on Parade

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By Chris Moore:

I’ve been wanting to kick this off for a few months now, but the time has finally arrived…

One of my goals for 2010 is to review every Bob Dylan studio album before New Year’s Day 2011.  This will include both one-sentence reviews in the “Yes, No, or Maybe So” series and full-out segments of “The Weekend Review.”  Unless he surprises us again, Dylan’s total studio album count is at thirty-two (I don’t count Dylan or Christmas in the Heart as studio albums), so I figured that I’d better get moving on this goal.

The Bob Dylan “Starter Compilation” is a playlist that I assembled with my girlfriend Nicole a while back as I continued to introduce her to the massive catalog of my favorite singer/songwriter of all time.  For anyone who knows me, it will come as no surprise that she had heard quite an array of Dylan songs already, most of them via the CD player in my car.  As we sorted through my iTunes software, she pointed to songs she loved and I played her songs that she hadn’t heard yet.  After a great deal of listening, discussing, arranging, and rearranging, we came up with a seventeen track layout.  I just updated it to eighteen tracks to include a sampling from his 2009 album Together Through Life.

So, without further ado, here’s the playlist.  Thanks to iTunes and other such services, you could easily download these tracks and start listening today.  For anyone unfamiliar with but interested in Dylan’s music, I’ve included the album that each song was originally released on, as well as a ranking for each album.  The 5’s are albums you should listen to right away, ranging down to the 0’s which are only for the true Dylan fanatics.  And there are some great albums that aren’t represented here (Desire being perhaps the most notable), but I had to make some hard decisions to make this the best playlist for a first-time listener.  Don’t hesitate to comment, criticize, etc. below…

See you tomorrow for the Weekend Review!

TRACK LISTING

1)   “Someday Baby” From Modern Times (2006) 3

2)   “Maggie’s Farm” From Bringing It All Back Home (1965) 5

3)   “Like A Rolling Stone” From Highway 61 Revisited (1965) 4

4)   “Simple Twist of Fate” From Blood on the Tracks (1975) 4

5)   “Political World” From Oh Mercy (1989) 3

6)   “Blowin’ in the Wind” From The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) 5

7)   “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” From The Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid Soundtrack (1973) 0

8)   “I Want You” From Blonde on Blonde (1966) 5

9)   “Lay Lady Lay” From Nashville Skyline (1969) 1

10) “Sweetheart Like You” From Infidels (1983) 2

11) “All Along the Watchtower” From John Wesley Harding (1968) 1

12) “Honest With Me” From Love & Theft (2001) 5

13) “The Times They Are A-Changin’” From The Times They A-Changin’ (1964) 2

14) “I Feel A Change Comin’ On” From Together Through Life (2009) 1

15) “Just Like A Woman” From Blonde on Blonde (1966) 5

16) “Tangled Up In Blue” From Blood on the Tracks (1975) 4

17) “Down in the Flood (New Version)” From The Masked and Anonymous Soundtrack (2003) 0

18) “Forever Young” From Planet Waves (1974) 2

(Album Ratings: 0-5 – “5” for the albums you should hear first, down to “0” which are for fans only!)

“Bob Dylan’s Dream” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Thanks for coming to the best acoustic cover song music blog on the Internet!  Today, our featured cover is “Bob Dylan’s Dream.”  Bob Dylan, believe it or not, is the original songwriter.  Who would have guessed?  Well, I guess anyone could have…

This song was originally released on Dylan’s early folk album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and it is what you would call a deep track, as it was never a hit, no one that I know of ever covered it for an album, and it never appeared on any live compilations.  At least, not official ones.  But, regardless of how little attention it has received, I think that it is a perfect candidate for the Laptop Sessions treatment.  First, it’s originally acoustic, recorded once as a “live-in-the-studio” recording, which makes it easily translatable to an acoustic cover song.  Second, it has a really nostalgic feel to it.  By nostalgic, I don’t mean that it sounds like an oldtime song or anything like that.  Rather, I mean that it really makes you think about your own “first friends” — those people that you spent your youth with, engaged in simple activities that brought indescribable happiness.

Well, those “first friends” very rarely make it into your future.  And while it’s always nice to look back and remember them, it can be very sad to think about the exits they took from your life.  Like Bob Dylan, I would pay a good deal of money to go sit “simply in that room again.”  But you can never go back…

…you can only write and sing songs like this one that describe the feeling!  Another thing I love about the song is that it starts off with the line, “While riding on a train going west…”  It gives the feeling of someone nodding off as a train barrels on down the tracks, and as that person just drifts off, these memories of his life come rushing back to him.  I think that’s a great way to start the song.

While this is certainly not my first Bob Dylan cover song — it’s one of many Bob Dylan songs I’ve learned and performed — it is one of the few that I haven’t known for years.  Many times, when I record a Dylan music video, I just dig back to a song that I used to play all the time and re-learn it.  This song was new to my acoustic cover song repetoire, so it was really fun to learn it.  And, of course, a little harmonica on a Dylan song goes a long way…

I hope that you’ve been noticing and enjoying all of the changes and additions to the blog these past few days.  The home page has been rearranged a bit to make it easier for newcomers and longstanding fans alike to find the band categories and search for their favorite material.  In addition, the first seven volumes of the new and improved Laptop Sessions FREE MP3 albums are avaiable in the left column.  Finally, last week saw the addition of a truckload of new live music from the Fusco-Moore team.  All you need to do now is go to the Fusco-Moore Store and choose which concert you want to listen to — some music is FREE and some is avaiable for a low, low price.  I really hope you’ll go over and check it out.  We really worked hard to make some quality sets, and it’s interesting to be able to look back now.  Well, listen back — there’s no video, but it’s really the sound that matters, right?

That’s it for me for now, but don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for another all-new acoustic cover song music video from our very own Jeff Copperthite.

See you next session!