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16/05/2007

“A Best Of Bob Dylan volume 4, 1997-2006”: encore

Last week’s compilation CDR tracklist brought suggestions for a bonus track, Cross The Green Mountain. Who could disagree?

Thanks to Jim Dring:

“Though everyone will have their own list, yours is there or thereabouts - except that you forgot the wonderful Cross The Green Mountain - didn't you?”

And to Claes Hammarlund:

“Thank you for the suggested Best Of... vol 4. It certainly is a fantastic collection of songs. I'll make my own copy but I will also add a song that I consider being the most beautiful from these years: Cross The Green Mountain from the film Gods and Generals.”



Original article:

“A Best Of Bob Dylan volume 4, 1997-2006”

Receiving daily setlists for Dylan’s just-completed Euro tour reminded me that, great though Dylan’s art certainly is, there have been a few lapses. While 90% of the songs performed on the tour are unmatched gems, there are also a few clunkers.

Eagerly scanning each setlist had me salivating, though I groaned out loud at the two current show spoilers, Summer Days and Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum. While they’re lyrically fascinating, they sure don’t ring my bell musically.

Re-listening intensively to the three most recent albums – Time Out Of Mind, “Love And Theft” and Modern Times - I re-rated them. Downwards. Having regarded all three on release as outstanding, I now hear them as fitfully great. All three have first-rate songs, in amongst stuff I can do without.

A CDR I compiled for the car, “A Best Of Bob Dylan volume 4, 1997-2006”, had the following tracks:

“A Best Of Bob Dylan volume 4, 1997-2006”

Love Sick - Time Out Of Mind
Standing In The Doorway - Time Out Of Mind
Trying To Get To Heaven - Time Out Of Mind
Not Dark Yet - Time Out Of Mind
Things Have Changed - Single
Mississippi - “Love And Theft”
Lonesome Day Blues - “Love And Theft”
High Water - “Love And Theft”
Sugar Baby - “Love And Theft”
Thunder On The Mountain - Modern Times
When The Deal Goes Down - Modern Times
Workingman's Blues #2 - Modern Times
Ain't Talkin' - Modern Times


It’s a wonderful compilation - the CDR you’d give to any bombastic fool who claims Dylan stopped writing and recording great songs in the 1960s. But it’ll probably prevent me from listening to the full albums again for quite a while.



Gerry Smith

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