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

It's the time of the week for our Bob Dylan Top 125 countdown & this week's statistics. Let's get on with it then, and not waste time.

At #63 is Tomorrow Is a Long Time: Dylan had first recorded this beautiful ballad in December 1962 as a demo for his publishing company. Dylan's officially released version of the song, which first appeared on the album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II compilation, released in 1971, is a live recording from his April 12, 1963, concert at New York's Town Hall.

Here's Bob's version, adorning the finale of a first season episode of The Walking Dead:

Here's a great version by Odetta:

... Which inspired Elvis for his own version, Dylan's favorite:

Here's a cover version by Judy Collins:

Here's another one by Nick Drake:

Finally, here's one by Zé Ramalho:

At #62 we find the song On a Night Like This. This song kicks off Planet Waves – his reunion with the Band – on a rollicking, high-spirited note. As a galloping rhythm and a cantina accordion egg him on, Dylan sounds so giddy he can't quite talk straight – especially when he instructs his lover to "heat up some coffee grounds." Conjuring a snowbound cabin scene, On a Night Like This recalls the Basement Tapes days in upstate New York in both form and content, evoking a recent past when Dylan and the Band seemed able to explore every nook and cranny of American music. "We got much to talk about/And much to reminisce," he sings. It may have been a short-lived reunion. But it was a sweet one.

Unfortunately, only the song's opening exists on YouTube. Here it is:

Here's a cover by Los Lobos:

Finally for today, at #61 there is Tombstone Blues. It is the second track of Bob Dylan's majestic 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. Musically it is influenced by the Blues, while the lyrics are typical of Dylan's surreal style of the period, with such lines as "the sun's not yellow, it's chicken".

Dylan claimed this  breakneck jeremiad against violence-gorged American political culture was influenced by conversations he heard at a bar that was frequented by police officers. "They'd be saying stuff like, 'I don't know who killed him, but I'm glad he's gone,' that type of thing," he said. That murky yet matter-of-fact sense of lawless brutality and systemic evil infuses lyrics in which John the Baptist plays torturer and Jack the Ripper sits at the head of the chamber of commerce. Musically, Tombstone Blues is just as vicious, with guitarist Mike Bloomfield echoing Dylan's torrential lyrical flow with brash, searing, Chicago-steeped Blues fire.

This is the version that appears on the album:

Tombstone Blues

And this is an acoustic version recorded at the Contemporary Songs Workshop, during the Newport Folk Festival, Freebody Park, Newport, Rhode Island - July 24, 1965 (a few days before he recorded this song for the Highway 61 album. Apparently he reworked it for the Rock setting, giving it a chorus and changing the chord structure a bit.)

Now, let's move on to the weekly statistics. This was a good week for all, but especially for the United States and Russia: both had a healthy increase of their visits. The United Arab Emirates and Cyprus also showed improvement, while Greece, the United Kingdom and Italy held their ground. Canada returned to the week's Top 10 after a while. The full Top 10 is as follows:

1. the United States

2. Russia

3. Greece

4. the United Kingdom

5. the United Arab Emirates

6. Cyprus

7. France

8. Italy

9. Germany

10. Canada

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence this week (alphabetically): Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curaçao, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldavia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela. Happy to have you all!

In the all-time Top 10, everybody kept their places, and if the current trend continues, this will be the case for a while. The thing is, trends are like the wind: they have a way of turning when you least expect it. Here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 51.2%

2. Greece = 9.8%

3. Germany = 7.3%

4. France = 6.4%

5. Russia = 5.5%

6. the United Kingdom = 3.2%

7. the United Arab Emirates = 1.21%

8. Italy = 1.11%

9. Cyprus = 0.78%

10. the Netherlands = 0.71%

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