As many truly great and well known songs as Bob Dylan has written, he’s written scores of lesser known songs any one of which would have made a career for most songwriters. Here are a couple that I think are worthy of greater notice.
At his best, Dylan’s lyrics can put you cinematically in a place and time, possibly fictional, as in the mining town in Lilly, Rosmary, and the Jack of Hearts on the Blood On The Tracks *album, or historical as in Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), a song about the New Mexico Territory’s Lincoln County War, an armed conflict between two groups of mercantile and cattle interests that lasted from 1878 to 1881. It’s a powerful song, as good of a piece of Americana as Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, another one of Dylan’s works that could be characterized as a cowboy or outlaw song (William H. Bonney aka "Billy the Kid" was one of the hired guns in Lincoln County).
The Jerry Garcia Band was a side project for the Grateful Dead front man, allowing him even greater musical space than the Dead. Garcia and Dylan were friends, and the Dead and Dylan toured together, playing each other’s songs.
It’s hard to believe that Dylan’s Blind Willie McTell didn’t make the cut for the Infidels album, and only came to wider attention when it was released as part of Dylan’s series of “Bootleg” releases. I think it’s one of Bob’s better songs, his take on “can a white boy sing the blues?” but much more than that, really. Nobody may have sung the blues like Blind Willie McTell, but I’d argue that nobody can write a song about Blind Willie McTell like Bob Dylan.
Dylan recorded Blind Willie at least a couple of times playing piano on both, a sparse arrangement accompanied with fingerpicking acoustic guitar by Dire Strait’s Mark Knopfler and a more fleshed out mix with former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor playing slide. Dylan’s sometimes backup band, The Band, also recorded their own version.
*If you’ve ever wondered why long playing records are called “albums” it’s because the original 78 rpm discs played so quickly that an entire set of discs was needed for one piece of music and thus symphonies and operas were sold in albums of multiple discs.
Excellent song choices. Really listening to Jerry is how I started listening to Dylan. One led to the other. While I have heard these before I have never critically listened and for that I thank you. I still think Everything Here is Broken is a song about whatever era you are from if you look around you with a certain world view. RL Burnsides cover is a great version.