PO3: Dylan's Greatest Vocal Performances

As I'm not sure if that show was even recorded, I'll sub either "Highlands" or that one line from the Great Gatsby on "Summer Days."

sad eyed lady of the lowlands
like a rolling stone live at albert hall
one more cup of coffee

1. Like A Rolling Stone from Before the Flood. Anything from Before the Flood would qualify--particularly the 3 acoustic songs--but this has Bob's most ferocious vocals.

2. Lonesome Day Blues from Love and Theft. Probably the most fun song from Bob's most fun album. So many great lines to quote, but my favorite might be "Boys I'm going to speak to the crowd."

3. Time Passes Slowly from New Morning. Bob really feels it here, particularly the "ain' no reason to go in a wagon to town" bit.

plus all those ones mentioned above (I love the howling on Before the Flood)

I'll add:

"Jokerman" - fierce, fabulous, with a Sly & Robbie groove that's the best rhythm section Dylan's ever employed.

"Buckets of Rain"

"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"

if i get 2 more, i'd go for some emo like say "baby blue" or "sign on the window" esp the line where he says "looks like nothin' but rain, sure gonna be wet tonight on main street", that's a killer.

2. "Dear Landlord" — really hard to sing along with, though I give it a shot whenever I hear it. Best bit: "If you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you," though that's as much for the arrangement as much as the vocals.

3. I was going to say "Time Passes Slowly" but since it's already gotten some luv, I'll mention "I Believe In You." Listening to the choruses, it would be hard to doubt the born-again-ness was anything but sincere. He really gets outside himself.

Has anyone said "Like a Rolling Stone" live '66 yet? Because someone ought to.

1. Idiot Wind - If only for the 'chorus' singing of the title.

2. Tomorrow is a Long Time - So beautifully subdued and heart felt.

3. Stuck Inside of Mobile - 'Oh Mama can this really be the end?'..and I defy anyone not to believe him.

Ask me tomorrow and you will get three totally different answers.

omg yes

also "one of us must know (sooner or later)"

also that version of "hattie carroll" from the live 1975 bootleg series

shit, this is hard.

I'd agree...before I heard Rod Stewart's version.

If this had been a PO5, that would have been in there for me. There are a lot of good choices for this thread, considering the criticism the guy gets for his voice.

runner-up: anything from the bangladesh concert

I Want You
Jokerman
Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again

"I Don't Believe You" (live 66)
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh"
"I'll Be Your Baby Tonight"

The vocals on "Moonshiner" kind of blow me away, it's the one I always think of when people say Bob can't sing.

I'm also pretty partial to "I Threw It All Away" from Nashville Skyline. It makes me wonder who he was trying to emulate on that album - what is the country voice that he was trying to evoke? Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and George Jones would have been the big male country voices around the time this came out, right? Dylan's Nashville voice doesn't seem much like any of them - maybe it's more of an Elvis thing? "Elvis In Memphis"-era Presley could've ripped up "I Threw It All Away". On "Lay Lady Lay" (which I love) it's almost a parodic take on C&W vocals (a rock n roll guy's idea of country singing?) - but "I Threw It All Away" seems more nuanced and comfortable with the showmanship and sentamentality of C&W.

After those two, I'm not sure what. Either a real young snotty one like "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way..." or an old-man snotty one like "Things Change."

"Meet Me in the Morning" (though I totally agree with the love for "You're a Big Girl Now")

"Subterranean Homesick Blues"

"You Belong to Me" (the one they used in Natural Born Killers but not the one from the soundtrack obv.)

"You're No Good" off the debut: an absolutely wild vocal

"Just Like A Woman" off the Live 1966 album: high and lonesome suits this song better than the jaunty vocal on the original

"World Gone Wrong" off the album of that name: the weariness isn't just the tone of the vocal, but also the way he plays with the meter of the song; once you get annoyed at how often he falls off the beat, hurrying it up or falling behind, you realize that's part of the point

Anything off Hard Rain. He never sang better.

Glad to see Hard Rain getting so much luv here. It is quite a performance! Intense stuff. That whole era might be Dylan's best singing -- totally authoritative and powerful. I'd have to pick that version of "Isis" from Biograph (1975 I believe) ... As for latter day Dylan, definitely check out that re-arranged version of "trying to get to heaven" on the lt. edition third disc of the last Bootleg Series ... And anything from the 1966 English tour -- that is all incredible, acoustic/electric, whatever. He's an amazing singer.

Check out this live performance of "When He Returns" at Massey Hall, 1980:

Absolutely, 100% agree, tylerw -- 1974-76 is really my favorite period. Columbia should do a better job w/ Hard Rain -- the disc itself is indexed incorrectly and sounds like it was recorded on a high-bias cassette.

yeah the CD of Hard Rain is nuts -- does yours have like a high-pitched noise in the background? They really should expand that one to two discs ... Since they did the 1975 Bootleg Series, though, they probably won't. But the Rolling Thunder of 1975 and the Rolling Thunder of 1976 were two different animals altogether. 75 was the party, 76 was the hangover.

idiot wind

like a rolling stone

she's your lover now

(w/ went to the see the gypsy as my alt choice)

i picked these three because dylan has a incredible way of making phrases stay in your head, and i find myself singing snatches of these to myself all the time - "all your raging glory", "napoleon in rags", "now you stand there expecting me to remember something you forgot to say", "he can move you from the rear" etc etc etc)

"Percy's Song" is D at his most tender and understatedly expressive.
The version of "Cold Irons Bound" from Masked and Anonymous
(tie) "Positively 4th Street" or "You're a Big Girl Now" - OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH!

That high pitched buzz on Hard Rain has driven me nuts for years, but his vocal performances on One Too Many Mornings, Shelter from the Storm, and especially Idiot Wind on that album are incendiary.

I remember when I first bought the album as a kid I exchanged it for a new one it because I thought the whine was a defect on the vinyl.

(The whine sounds like the amps weren't properly grounded, come to think of it...)

You can find these performances on YouTube from the Hard Rain tv special...

I'm with Brio when it comes to "Moonshiner". I much prefer quiet, controlled, subtle Dylan to hysterical born-again Dylan (I find that YouTube of him performing "When He Returns" way too histrionic). But "Moonshiner" is incredible. Right from the start, when -- after that harmonica intro that feels like a knife wound so sharp you don't initially feel it -- he sings "I've been a..." you almost expect him to immediately follow with "...moonshiner" , but he doesn't; he extends the word "a" into two syllables and then extends "mooooonnn..." kind of unnaturally before almost hiccuping "...shiner", like a conflicted drunk. Anyway, it's all in the disconcertingly counterintuitive phrasing for me, which he also repeats on "Blind Willie McTell". My third pick would have to be "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", so I guess I must prefer downer-Bob (although when I think of "Visions of Johanna" (Free Trade Hall), "Idiot Wind", "Stuck Inside of Mobile", "It's Alright Ma", etc., it's by no means as cut-and-dried as I thought).

I'm also pretty partial to "I Threw It All Away" from Nashville Skyline. It makes me wonder who he was trying to emulate on that album - what is the country voice that he was trying to evoke? Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and George Jones would have been the big male country voices around the time this came out, right? Dylan's Nashville voice doesn't seem much like any of them - maybe it's more of an Elvis thing? "Elvis In Memphis"-era Presley could've ripped up "I Threw It All Away". On "Lay Lady Lay" (which I love) it's almost a parodic take on C&W vocals (a rock n roll guy's idea of country singing?) - but "I Threw It All Away" seems more nuanced and comfortable with the showmanship and sentamentality of C&W.

seriously who knows wtf dylan was thinking of when he came up with that voice. it's not always unpleasant but, still, bit of a mystery.

like a rolling stone, certainly. the man rarely sounds so thrilling

some other tracks that spring immediately to mind are ballad of a thin man, it's all over now baby blue, and sara