Especially the track Kansas City, which is just heartbreaking.

And I love you dear
but just how long
Can I keep singing the same old song?

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Not really, but I've always loved the bits of humor in his writing.

My actual favorite is probably from "Like A Rolling Stone" or "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," however boring and predictable those choices are.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats

Too noble to neglect

Deceived me into thinking

I had something to protect

Good and bad, I define these terms

Quite clear, no doubt, somehow

Ah, but I was so much older then

I’m younger than that now

Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

I have a much more complicated relationship with this song now that I'm raising a son and a daughter in a generation defined by rising facism and cognitive decline, but it's undoubtedly top drawer poetry.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you

May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong

May you stay forever young

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but each line of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" floors me every single time. If it's not the most poetic piece of music I've ever heard, I'm at a loss right now to come up with better.

"Goodbye's too good a word babe, so I'll just say 'Fare thee well'" is the hammer, tho.

you liked that I left behind
In the French Quarter

I mean. These aren’t top 10 but I love them.

And this from Nettie Moore:

Well, the world of research has gone berserk
Too much paperwork

Also, and I think this probably was more poignant at the time, but Talking World War 3 blues is 6 minutes of nonsense then "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours. I said that." Very aspirational.

That guy must have a hell of a constitution to get to 85 with all the cigarettes he must have smoked. Keith Richards esq.

I love that song so much. A new book of the bible for the 20th century USA.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/highway-61-revisited/201281514

“Tell me great hero, but please make it brief:
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”

The rhyme takes a few more lines to show up:

“And dropping a barbell, he points to the sky,
saying ‘The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken’”

Then there’s Outlaw Blues:

“I may look like Robert Ford, but I feel just like-a Jesse James”

To say he rewards repeated listening is an understatement of epic proportions.

as to become cliche- “ How many roads must man walk down before you call him a man“ - you lose appreciation for the writer because of the ubiquity of the words. “To be or not to be” is damn good writing, but hard to hear de novo. But mine is probably “He not busy being born is busy dying”

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My favorite lyric (currently) is probably

“The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen
But that’s just because he doesn’t wanna turn into some machine”

I rewatched The Big Lebowski recently, what a perfect lyric for a damn near perfect movie. But there are so many, aren’t there?

Check out this great article and playlist.

https://forward.com/culture/music/826354/bob-dylan-85th-birthday-playlist-tribute/

This is an awesome version of Jokerman with the Plugz:

The lyric from Desolation Row: “Everyone is making love or else expecting rain” well sums up the two extremes of human experience.