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

The last story, about the Oscars, took more time to prepare than expected... a day more. Then I had to fullfill my other obligations, so the next day came and went without a new story; which means the Dylan/Statistics ongoing project, which usually appears at the turn of the week, was delayed for a couple of days. I'll probably skip it this weekend altogether, so that the next one will apppear nornally, in the end of the weekend after the next. Enough talk though; on with our story!

We've reached the Top 30 in our Bob Dylan Top 125 Countdown. At #30 is yet another song from Bob's best album, Blonde On Blonde (1966). Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine might've been a much less dynamic rocker had bassist Charlie McCoy not picked up a trumpet and asked to play along with Dylan's harmonica riff. Dylan declined, because he hated overdubs. "[Charlie] said … 'I can play the bass and the trumpet at the same time,'" keyboardist Al Kooper recalled. "Our jaws hit the ground." Dylan thought the stunt might distract him while singing, so he ordered McCoy to play behind a curtain. The trumpet ended up adding a funky energy to one of Dylan's bitter send-offs.

In this song love is a power struggle, a contest (”You say my kisses are not like his/ But this time I’m not gonna tell you why that is.”) It is said to be another one inspired by Edie Sedgwick.

Since the original studio version is not to be found anywhere (of course), courtesy of Dylan's publishers, you will listen to two other versions, both interesting. First, a modern remix by Mark Ronson of the original:

Then, there's the good live version (from the album Before The Flood), by Dylan & The Band:

Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine

At #29 is The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. It is found on The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) album. "It's a true story, but I changed the reporter's view," Dylan said of this chilling murder ballad. Dylan had read a story in Broadside, his favorite folk-music zine, about Hattie Carroll, a black hotel employee and a mother of nine from Baltimore, who died after she was allegedly struck by William Zantzinger, a white tobacco-farm owner. Zantzinger subsequently served six months in jail for manslaughter, though evidence later cast doubt on his guilt.
 Zantzinger is certainly guilty in "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," a deceptively gentle-sounding song, in which Dylan tweaked some of the facts of the case while keeping the details thick and vivid (the murder weapon is "a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger"). The result was a compelling story-song that doubled as an indictment of racism and class division. "The pacing is punctuated by that lovely, lilting chorus," says Tom Morello. "It feels like you're walking toward her grave."

This is the studio version:

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

And this is a good live version:

All the songs in the Top 50 are the cream of the crop, every one of them a masterpiece. Although I've listened to them a hundred times, I really enjoy hearing them again as I prepare this story.

At #28 is Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, from Dylan's second best album, Highway 61 Revisited (1965). Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues has six verses but no chorus. The song's lyrics describe a nightmare vision of the narrator's experience in Juarez, Mexico, in which he encounters sickness, despair, prostitutes, saints, shady women, corrupt authorities, alcohol and drugs, before finally deciding to return to New York City. The lyrics incorporate literary references to Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels, while the song's title references Arthur Rimbaud's My Bohemian Life (Fantasy).

Had Dylan even visited Mexico prior to penning this tale of a dissolute trip to Juárez? Does it matter? Dylan's version of the border town is a dangerous, yet alluring, place. It's rife with drugs, corruption and "hungry women" like Saint Annie and Sweet Melinda – whose innocent names belie the fact that "they really make a mess outta you." The song took on an even more sinister vibe when Dylan performed it with the Hawks on his 1966 world tour. A vicious live take from Liverpool, released as a B side to I Want You, was for many years the only official documentation of that historically raucous tour.

This is an amateurish video, but it's the proper studio version, and the audio is very good:

This is another, shortened and more subdued, version by Dylan. The video is better though:

This is an edit of his infamous British tour by Martin Scorsese:

At #27 is one of Dylan's most tender songs: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight is found on John Wesley Harding (1967). This love song is either about a one night stand, or about his wife Sara and their first kid Jesse. He wasn't the master of ambiguous lyrics for nothing... This is a longer version:

The song was covered by many. Here are Robert Palmer & UB40 with their 1990 hit version: It made #1 in New Zealand, #4 in Australia, #5 in Austria and Switzerland, and #6 in the UK and Ireland.

At #26 is She Belongs to Me, from Dylan's third best album, Bringing It All Back Home (1965). It was one of the first anti-love songs and one of Dylan's first of many songs that describe a "witchy woman". This is probably about his affair with Joan Baez. The singer, though, had her own career and was too individual to just be Dylan’s significant other. This ambiguity seems evident in the opening lines “She’s got everything she needs/ She’s an artist, she don’t look back”.

On the other hand, it could be about his relationship with Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend from July 1961 to early 1964, an artist who became pregnant in 1963 by Dylan and had an abortion. Their relationship failed to survive the abortion, Dylan's affair with Joan Baez and the hostility of the Rotolo family. Suze moved into her sister's apartment in August 1963.

Since the original studio version that I love cannot be found, here's a live version which is OK:

Finally for today, at #25, is another song from Blonde On Blonde: One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later). One of his surliest kiss-off songs ever: Dylan crafted this painstakingly over nine hours and 24 takes in Columbia's Studio A, shuffling between members of the Band and a squadron of Bringing It All Back Home session men before finally nailing it. Released as a single, it never charted, but its sneered contrition remains a brilliant balancing act, a mix of sympathy, condescension and palpable ache. "I told you as you clawed out my eyes/That I never really meant to do you any harm," he sings, stretching out the last syllable over a majestic piano-and-organ ascent that's one of Blonde on Blonde's most breathtaking moments.

The original cannot be found (grrr), maybe you can catch it on Deezer:

One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)

This is an OK version at a tour rehearsal in 1978:

Now, let's continue with our statistics of the last 10 days. The Eurovision Song Contest is in the past and we are back to normal: the United Kingdom and France are still going strong, Cyprus is doing well and so is Italy. Russia is now stable. The rest of the all-time Top 10, experience comparative drops, without however losing their all-time positions. Canada, South Africa, and Brazil entered this week's Top 10. Congrats to all! Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. the United States

2. the United Kingdom

3. France

4. Greece

5. Italy

6. Cyprus

7. Germany

8. Canada

9. South Africa

10. Brazil

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, FYR Macedonia, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 48.0%

2. Greece = 8.3%

3. France = 7.6%

4. the United Kingdom = 5.9%

5. Russia = 5.0%

6. Germany = 4.7%

7. Cyprus = 1.0%

8. the United Arab Emirates = 0.92%

9. Italy = 0.89%

10. Belgium = 0.59%

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