A desert island choice: The one song that just blue me away

But, you know, I think I could do it. So – and this is going to be controversial – I think the song would be Tangled Up in Blue by Bob Dylan.

Disagree? I understand. For god’s sake, it’s impossible. Music, almost by definition, is massive and various. Just the idea of choosing 10, 20, 300 pieces is an affront. It seems like a crime against music. But say you had to choose one – just one song – what would it be?

Hear me out. First, it would have to be Dylan; he is just a quantifiable step above everything else that has happened over the past 60 years or so since the notion of the recorded single was invented. It’s not an accident he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Yes, of course, there have been other great songs: Bohemian Rhapsody, Yesterday,  Imagine, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Hallelujah etc. But if nothing else, just out of respect for a body of work so enduring and massive, it has to be Dylan.

But saying it has to be Dylan doesn’t actually help you that much. Because his repertoire is so huge, you are still making choices against the enormous weight of alternative brilliance.

When Rolling Stone magazine – which is itself in some ways an extended Bob Dylan tribute blog, so good judgment is applicable here – chose its 100 best Dylan songs, it put Like a Rolling Stone at the top. A solid choice; it’s Dylan’s highest-charting album, although you can’t help feeling the name overlap might have had something to do with it! In second place was Tangled Up in Blue.

Most Dylanographers rank the song just outside the top 10. Guardian critic Alexis Petridis ranks it 12th in his 2020 list of Dylan songs, and influential songwriter and critic Jim Beviglia ranks it 14th in his book on Dylan’s top 100. Petridis also put Like a Rolling Stone at number one (a mistake, frankly – the song is a confused love-sick contortion), followed by Visions of Johanna (great choice – who other than Dylan would take you on a spaced-out trip to an art gallery?), Idiot Wind (bad choice – too mean and sad), Subterranean Homesick Blues (fun and important because of electrification, but really not much else), Desolation Row (kinda endless and aimless – a better song in this genre would be Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues).

But, these are all great songs, so why, at least in the eyes of one long-time fan, does Tangled Up in Blue take the cake (although, of course, I’m going to change my mind in a few minutes)? Many of the Dylani would go for something more political: A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall or Blowin’ in the Wind perhaps. They certainly changed people more than Blue did – myself included – but they just sound too didactic now. As time has gone by, Blood on the Tracks and Desire still sound so fresh, and that can’t really honestly be said of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Dylan’s great strength as a songwriter has always been a combination of vivid imagery, huge emotional depth and a beautiful sense of the world and its people, coupled with a courageous, wondrous, disjointed worldview. He is just insanely interesting, enigmatic and varied, which is why he has so many followers and interpreters.

Tangled Up in Blue is the best choice because it combines all of Dylan’s gazillion great qualities and minimises his very few bad ones.

Bitter breakup