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

... And we're back to our Bob Dylan Top 125 Countdown. It seems like we've been doing it forever, doesn't it? In fact, I'm running out of interesting Dylan photos to accompany the story. It won't be long, however. We're getting very near the end.

At #24 is a single only release from 1971. Watching the River Flow made #18 in the Netherlands, #19 in Canada, #24 in the UK, and #41 in the US.

It was included on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II, released on November 17, 1971, and has appeared on various other Dylan compilation albums. Since 1987, Dylan has performed the composition often at his concerts. Critics have written that, in this song, Dylan sang about the temptation to withdraw from public life, and the problem of lack of inspiration. John Lennon was probably inspired by this song when he wrote Watching The Wheels, a few years later.

Writing about Watching the River Flow in 1971, Greil Marcus discusses the importance of pushing past one's initial impression of the song. "The first impression is that Bob Dylan is setting up the usual private scene: 'I'll sit here and watch the river flow.' Well that's certainly a boring idea. It's the implicit message of just about everything James Taylor has written." Marcus goes on to say that Dylan is exploring "his myth of retirement and withdrawal", and the problem of retaining his privacy while making public art. For Marcus, the song is about Dylan "growing up without growing away" from both his audience and his own past. Marcus argues that the reason the single was not a hit in the USA was because "the time has passed when people are interested in hearing Bob Dylan say he'll just sit there and watch the river flow... even though that's not quite what he's saying." For Marcus, Watching the River Flow is a compelling work, but the subtlety of the song may have prevented it from reaching a wide audience.

As usual, I couldn't find the great studio version on youtube, 😡 so we'll have to make do with this live version:

Leon Russell produced the original, as well as playing piano in it. Here's his own version:

Here's an all-star version, performed in the Tour For A.R.M.S. (Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis - Charity Concerts USA, 1983). Live at Madison Square Garden, New York. Dec., 8, 1983. Joe Cocker is singing, Eric Clapton and Andy Fairweather Low (Amen Corner) are on guitars. Rolling Stones alumni Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Ian Stewart are on bass, drums, and keyboards, respectively. Also on drums, Kenney Jones (Small Faces, Faces, the Who). On percussion, Ray Cooper, from Elton John's backing band during the latter's golden days. Also on keyboards, experienced session players Chris Stainton and James Hooker.

At #23 is Brownsville Girl, a song from Bob Dylan's 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded, recorded in May of that year. It is notable for its length, over 11 minutes, and for being co-written by playwright Sam Shepard. It is considered one of Dylan’s greatest narratives.

Music critic Robert Christgau praised Brownsville Girl as "one of the greatest and most ridiculous of Dylan's great ridiculous epics. Doesn't matter who came up with such lines as 'She said even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt' and 'I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran' — they're classic Dylan."

Lyrically the song speaks to a lover, presumably one gone years before. The singer speaks wistfully of her, though it is clear he is with someone else now, and muses that she reminds him of her (he says she has the same "dark rhythm in her soul").

Often the singer interrupts his reminisces of the mysterious Brownsville Girl to describe the plot of a Western movie starring Gregory Peck that he saw once (but believes he 'sat through it twice'). The plot of the film, about a young upstart who shoots an aging gunslinger, and then is warned by the dying man that now he must watch his own back, is almost certainly 1950's The Gunfighter. Most likely, the song refers to multiple Gregory Peck films, as 1946's Duel in the Sun is about two brothers in Texas fighting for the love of dark beauty Pearl Chavez, and Dylan says once of a Peck movie, "you know, it's not the one that I had in mind."

Here's the proper studio version, from Knocked Out Loaded:

Brownsville Girl

... And here's the version that he originally recorded, but was left out of the album, to later appear in a studio outtakes' collection. Danville Girl is the same basic song, but more sparsely produced, and with some differences in the lyrics.

Another one of Dylan's classics, Lay Lady Lay, is at #22. Originally commissioned for the film Midnight Cowboy, but not submitted in time to be included in the finished film, it is the tale of two hustlers. It was originally released in 1969 on his Nashville Skyline album. Sung in a low croon, it was released as a single in July 1969 and quickly became one of his top hits, peaking at #5 in the UK and at #7 in the US, as well as being a Top 20 hit in most of the other major markets.

Let's hear what Lenny Kravitz has to say about it:

I first heard Lay, Lady, Lay when I was six or seven, riding around New York in the back seat of my parents' old VW Bug, listening to WABC. It was the first Bob Dylan song I remember loving. Later, when I heard another one of his songs, I wondered, "Where's that low, crooning voice?" He's singing it in a very different voice from his normal one. I thought this guy sounded like that all the time!

It's a very black song – very soulful and sensual. "Lay across my big brass bed" is a lyric you would expect to hear from Isaac Hayes. The beautiful thing about Dylan is that he is such a chameleon. He's got so many characters inside of him, like a painter with limitless amounts of color. I love the vocal. I love the descending chord progression. I love the drum fills. It's a simple, beautiful love song, and I love the whole feel of it.

Here it is:

Here's a good cover version by Cassandra Wilson:

At #21 is a song called It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). It was first released on the 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, one of his greatest. Among the well-known lines sung in the song are "He not busy being born is busy dying," "Money doesn't talk, it swears," "Although the masters make the rules, for the wisemen and the fools" and "But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked."

"I don't know how I got to write those songs," Dylan said in 2004, apropos of It's Alright, Ma. "Try to sit down and write it. I did it once, and I can do other things now. But I can't do that."

Written in Woodstock in the summer of 1964, while his folk-scene compadres Joan Baez and Mimi and Richard Fariña were Dylan's houseguests, It's Alright, Ma is a transition from the politically minded lyrics that had briefly been Dylan's stock in trade to a broader vision of "life, and life only": Instead of pointing fingers at a particular flaw of culture, the song tears down the entire decrepit thing, declaring that all is vanity and hypocrisy and phony propaganda. On a purely technical level, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) is dazzling, with an incredibly complicated rhyme scheme and a melody that barrels along on two notes until the flourish at the end of each verse. The lyrics incorporate nods to Arthur Koestler (author of Darkness at Noon), the Book of Ecclesiastes and even Dylan's beloved Elvis Presley (the title is just a hair shy of Presley's line "That's all right, now, Mama"). It's always been a tricky song to sing – a snapshot of a moment in his development, a jewel that he's lucky enough to own rather than a machine whose workings he understands. Talking about It's Alright, Ma in 1980, he described the difficulty of getting "in touch with the person you were when you wrote the songs… But I can still sing it, and I'm glad I've written it."

Here's the studio version:

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Here is a live version, just Dylan, his accoustic guitar and his harmonica, a short while after the song was released:

We have now reached the top 20. All the songs in the twenty belong to the 60s and 70s, except for the one at #20: Make You Feel My Love appears on the 1997 album Time Out Of Mind. It's one of the two Dylan songs (the other one will appear right after) that are the most covered by aspiring singers in various talent shows around the world. This gentle ballad, with unusual positivity for a Dylan song, was first released commercially by Billy Joel, under the title To Make You Feel My Love, before Dylan's version appeared later that same year. It has since been covered by numerous performers and has proved to be a commercial success for recording artists such as Adele, Garth Brooks, Bryan Ferry, Kelly Clarkson and Ane Brun. Two covers of the song (one by Garth Brooks and one by Trisha Yearwood) were featured on the soundtrack of the 1998 film Hope Floats.

Here's Dylan's original version:

Make You Feel My Love

... And here is Adele's star-making cover version:

Finally for today, at #19, is yet another classic: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Always a fan of westerns (and outlaws of every stripe), Dylan wrote a handful of songs for Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Jerry Fielding, a composer brought in to help Dylan with the music, described his reaction to hearing this heartbreaking sketch of a dying lawman: "It was shit. That was the end for me." Dylan, of course, had the last laugh. Knockin' on Heaven's Door became a #12 US hit and one of his most-covered songs. Musically, it's also one of his simplest compositions – if you can play four easy chords and remember seven lines, you've got it down – which may be why, when a guest star shows up for the encore at a Dylan show, this is often the song that gets performed. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

Here is the original:

Knockin' on Heaven's Door

... And here's the most popular cover version, the one by Gun's N' Roses:

Now, let's continue with our statistics of the last 12 days. The United Kingdom is even stronger than before; for the first time ever it dethroned the United States from the top spot of the week. France is still going strong (at #3 for the week), still inching closer to Greece in the all-time list. Italy is doing very well, in fact this week it overtakes the slightly declining United Arab Emirates in the all-time list. Cyprus is also doing well. Greece, Russia, Germany and Belgium are stable. The United States continues dropping. Even though it's not in danger of losing its lead anytime soon, this decline has lasted long enough to be considered a trend. I wonder why... Austria, Ukraine, and Australia leave their mark by entering this week's Top 10. Congrats to all! Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. the United Kingdom

2. the United States

3. France

4. Greece

5. Italy

6. Austria

7. Cyprus

8. Germany

9. Ukraine

10. Australia

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 47.0%

2. Greece = 8.3%

3. France = 7.8%

4. the United Kingdom = 6.3%

5. Russia = 4.9%

6. Germany = 4.6%

7. Cyprus = 1.02%

8. Italy = 0.94%

9. the United Arab Emirates = 0.88%

10. Belgium = 0.61%

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