The Bob Dylan Top 125 Countdown & This Week's Statistics

After a break that lasted a few weeks, we're back to our Bob Dylan countdown. This will now appear (almost) every Sunday.

At #90 in our list is a song that many of you would have expected to be much higher. I mean, it's one of Dylan's biggest hits (#2 US, #7 UK) and one of his most recognizable songs. It's also part of his best album, Blonde On Blonde (1966). But, I just don't get the appeal of Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. OK, so it's the closest thing Dylan ever recorded to a party anthem. Perhaps the idea of being drunk or stoned or whatever is just not that appealing to me. It's like: "Been there, done that. Can I go now?"

The song had the working title of "A Long Haired Mule and a Porkepine." Dylan ended up giving it a name rooted in one of his sideways biblical allusions (to a line from Proverbs, "a continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike"), underscoring the joke in the lyrics that "they'll stone you" for sins; producer Bob Johnston's idea to record the song "Salvation Army-style" added to the religious undercurrent.

Still #90 doesn't mean that I don't like the song. It's just that Dylan has so many great songs, that even the very good ones are low in the list. To underscore that, at #89 and #88 we find two exceptional songs.

First, at #89, is probably the most touching song of Dylan's religious period. Every Grain of Sand was an album track in Shot Of Love (1981). An early version of the song, recorded in September 1980 and featuring Jennifer Warnes on backing vocal, was released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991.

"It's like one of the great Psalms of David," Bono says about Every Grain of Sand. Equal parts Blakean mysticism and biblical resonance, the song abandons the self-righteousness that plagued Dylan's religious work to offer a desperate prayer for salvation. Shadowing Dylan on vocals is gospel great (and Dylan flame) Clydie King: "I get chills when I hear her just breathe," Dylan said. Every Grain of Sand taps into a moving humility ("Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me," he sings). As Bono puts it, "Dylan stops wailing against the world, turns on himself and is brought to his knees."

Rock critic Milo Miles wrote, "This is the one Dylan song in ten years...in which he examines a pop-culture paradox (that legendary stars in particular have to believe in ideals greater than themselves) more eloquently than any other performer has."

Dylan later described Every Grain of Sand as "an inspired song that just came to me ... I felt like I was just putting words down that were coming from somewhere else."

This is the studio version:

Every Grain of Sand

... And this is a live one:

At #88 is a song called Sara, the final track of one of Dylan's great albums, Desire (1976). An album that included Hurricane, featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley, and was characterized by the prominent presence of Scarlet Rivera's violin-playing.

The most overtly autobiographical song Dylan ever wrote directly addresses his then-estranged wife. It also showed that Dylan could turn on the charm. Sara is a love song largely devoted to memories – images of their children at play, the couple sharing glances over "white rum in a Portugal bar" – with Dylan referring to Sara as the "sweet love of my life" in a spare, dirgelike waltz. Late in the song, Dylan pointedly asked for forgiveness but also sounded like a man grown distant and mystified, referring to Sara as a "Scorpio Sphinx in a calico dress." The Dylans reconciled for a time, but as the marriage disintegrated for good the next year, Dylan replaced Sara with the splenetic Idiot Wind in the Rolling Thunder Revue's sets. The pair were officially divorced in 1977.

This is the studio version:

Sara

... And this is a live one:

Now, let's move on to this week's statistics. While the US and the UAE had another very good week, Greece, the UK, France and Germany also had a good one, two countries (Russia and Canada) had a great week. Belgium, Italy and China also had a very good week. Plus, two countries visited for the first time ever: Tanzania and Barbados. A most hearty welcome!

The full Top 10 is as follows:

1. the United States

2. Russia

3. Greece

4. the United Arab Emirates

5. the United Kingdom

6. Canada

7. France

8. Germany

9. Belgium

10. Italy

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence this week (alphabetically): Argentina, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Guinea, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mauritius, Myanmar (Burma), the Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunesia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

No great changes in the all-time Top 10, except for Russia consolidating its position at #3. Also Ireland at #10 is feeling Italy's hot breath close behind. Here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 46.8%

2. Greece = 17.8%

3. Russia = 8.3%

4. Germany = 3.3%

5. France = 2.62%

6. the United Kingdom = 2.54%

7. the United Arab Emirates = 1.36%

8. Canada = 1.04%

9. Cyprus = 0.88%

10. Ireland = 0.80%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!