Bob Dylan is one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, having written more than 600 songs over the decades. He changed the course of music by showing aspiring musicians that they could write about anything they wanted and that people would still be interested in listening.
For many fans and critics, it seems impossible to determine which of Dylan’s songs are the very best. However, the man himself has already mentioned two of his compositions that he considers to be among his greatest.
2 songs Bob Dylan said were some of the best he ever wrote
“Love Sick”
The first song mentioned by Bob Dylan was “Love Sick”, from his 1997 album “Time Out of Mind”, he mentioned the track after being asked in an interview with AARP in 2015 which was the best song he ever wrote about heartbreak and loss. This Dylan album won three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and at the ceremony he performed “Love Sick”. In his speech, he curiously said that he felt that Buddy Holly was with him all the time during the making of that album.
“I just wanted to say that one time when I was about 16, 17 years-old I went to see Buddy Holly play at Duluth’s National Guard Army. I was three feet away from him and he looked at me. And I just have some kind of feeling that he was. I don’t know how and why, but I know he was with us all the time we were making this record in some kind of way.”
He continued:
“In the words of, you know, the immortal Robert Johnson, ‘The stuff we got’ll bust your brains out’. We tried to get that across and this man right here. He was sort of instrumental for that album, Daniel Lanois (producer),” Bob Dylan said (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).
Bob’s performance of “Love Sick” that night also became known for the intrusion of Michael Portnoy. He was an American multimedia artist and choreographer, who ripped off his shirt, ran onto the stage next to Dylan. Then he started dancing with the words “Soy Bomb” painted on his chest. He remained on stage beside Dylan for about 40 seconds before being escorted away.
Portnoy later explained his protest to Entertainment Weekly, saying: “Soy represents dense nutritional life,” he said. “Bomb is, obviously, an explosive destructive force. So, soy bomb is what I think art should be: dense, transformational, explosive life.”
“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”
“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” is the other song Bob Dylan mentioned as one of the greatest ones he wrote. Since it was part of “Blonde on Blonde” (1966) the song was a bit overshadowed by other bigger hits of the record. As Robert Shelton reported in his book “No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan”, the legendary musician once said it was the best song he ever recorded.
“Jamming on tour and getting ready to record this, Bob told me he regarded this as ‘the best song I ever wrote.’ The 3 a.m. jam on which I sat in between Dylan and Robbie Robertson in a Denver motel merely hinted at its ultimate effect. In the last side of Blonde, folk tradition meets modern poetry. The title line, echoed in the five verses, has an antique flavor, since Scots-English balladry often refers to lowlands. Paul Nelson called this haunting portrait of a woman. ‘Celebration of woman as work of art, religious figure, and object of eternal majesty and wonder,’ he said.
In his book “Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades”, Clinton Heylin revealed what Bob told him about this particular song. “Now that is religious music! That is religious carnival music. I just got that real old-time religious carnival sound there, didn’t I?,’” he said. With 11 minutes and 23 seconds, the track is one of the biggest recorded by Bob. It occupies the entire fourth side of the double album. In his autobiography “I, Me, Mine,” George Harrison said that the song’s chord changes influenced The Beatles track “Long, Long, Long”. That song was part of their famous “White Album” in 1968. Other famous artists like Tom Waits and Roger Waters already mentioned the song as a big inspiration in their music.