I remember when my dad brought home Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, because it was my first exposure to Dylan. I wish I could precisely articulate what it was that captivated me back then. I think at age 11 I was in the right headspace for a new obsession. I imagine on some level, thought not a conscious one, Dylan's vocals appealed to me as someone who had lately been kicked out of the church choir & was disillusioned with the idea of having a conventionally good voice. Like most people, Dylan's lyrics were the main draw for me. From that moment onward, Bob Dylan was the benchmark I judged all song lyrics against.
I've written my thoughts on best-ofs before in this series, & I don't want to go any further without acknowledging that, by any objective standard, this is a terribly-sequenced compilation. It opens, absurdly, with "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" before jumping all the way back to "Blowin' In the Wind" & proceeding chronologically for a few songs thereafter. There is 1 song each from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin', Another Side of Bob Dylan & Highway 61 Revisited; 2 songs from Bringing It All Back Home, & 3 from Blonde on Blonde, which at the time was his most recent LP. The sequencing isn't strictly chronological, & a lot of it just feels haphazard--"Like a Rolling Stone" makes no sense following "It Ain't Me Babe," either sonically or thematically. The sequencing did create some interesting impressions in my brain though. The Bringing It All Back Home CD was a relatively late acquisition for me, so with this CD as my only exposure to "Mr. Tambourine Man" & "Subterranean Homesick Blues," I became used to hearing them out of context. They both work way better on the album, as openers for their respective sides, than they do in reverse order here, stuck between 2 songs that they both predate.
Because I've covered all the albums before (except Blonde on Blonde, which I'm sure I'll get to soon), there's not really any point in writing about specific songs. The 1 exception is "Positively 4th Street," which never appeared on any of Dylan's LPs. For me nowadays, providing a home for "Positively 4th Street" is really the only justification for this CD's existence. The song is one of Dylan's masterpieces of invective, targeting an unnamed addressee (probably a composite) that has irritated him by declaring that they feel betrayed. Meanwhile, the songwriter insists that he owes nobody anything. It was recorded during the Highway 61 Revisited section & rides a triumphant Al Kooper organ riff every bit as iconic as the one in "Like a Rolling Stone." Although it's more bitter in tone, it has a basically healthy approach to boundary-setting similar to "It Ain't Me Babe," with Dylan refusing to be made responsible for other people's emotions: "I know you're dissatisfied with your position & your place/Don't you understand it's not my problem?"
I think the biggest problem with this is that Dylan's career had not yet been long enough to justify a greatest hits compilation. The real reason for its publication is that Dylan was laid up after a motorcycle accident & Columbia was worried about too much time passing without releasing a record by their cash cow. At the time, Dylan had only been active as a recording artist for 5 years, & the 1st one isn't even covered by the compilation. It's kind of amazing to see the progression Dylan managed & everything that he achieved over those 5 years, but it does all but 1 of the songs a disservice to present them out of context of their albums. Because this CD was so important for me, I can't be too mad at it, but on any level other than the sentimental it's difficult to argue against its ultimate pointlessness.
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