Expecting Rain

My girlfriend thought 4th Time Around was funny. So I listened then I married her.

First I listened "One More Cup Of Coffee" when I had 8 years-old, and I thought: "Well, nothing bad". After that, I used to ocasionally listen the song. After some months I found "You're No Good", "Silvio" and "Can't Help Falling In Love" and the same, for me were good songs, but nothing special.

But what made me really love Bob was a chain of three songs: the version of "I Want You" from New Orleans 1981, "Lakes Of Pontchartrain" from Holmdel, June 24th, 1988, and the album version of "Chimes Of Freedom". I had 11 or 12 years. It was a time when my main musical interests were modern pop-rock and punk-rock bands like My Chemical Romance, All Time Low, Never Shout Never, Sum 41, Simple Plan, etc. so it was a radical change for me.

Later I realized I was wrong, and over time I liked the songs that I used to consider just good ones (the songs from the first paragraph).

Concert for Bangladesh.

All songs.

Later, I listened to "Tempest".

Narrow Way, Scarlet Town... I fell in love with this jew.

Maybe Tweeter and the Monkey Man... I'd never heard that sort of lyrics.
But actually it has to be Tangled. I listened to it seven times in a row, totally mesmerized, then sat down, googled the lyrics and memorized them. That was a year ago. If only I could travel back in time and experience all those "first listens" again.

My first album and song I heard by Dylan was The Times They Are A-Changin'

I've been hooked ever since

It was the single of Positively 4th Street that first really got me hooked, got me thinking that this guy had something really different to offer!

Blowing in the Wind by Peter Paul and Mary. Then someone on the bus going home from school said ' Do you realise the guy who wrote that song has made a record of his own?' I think that's the route many of the British fans from that era first heard of Dylan.

Wiggle Wiggle.


Not actually, I think it was Tangled Up in Blue. I heard those compilation cds because my mother had them when I was a kid, and I think that was the one that caught my attention (it's my favorite now). Either that or something off of Love and Theft.

Hurricane, on the Radio Luxembourg albums chart show, when Desire featured at number two, in early 1976. I had never heard anything like it before and was gobsmacked and astonished.

Summer 1965= 'Bob Dylan's 115th Dream'..

Funny you should say that! I'd seen Bob on Live Aid and the in the Handle with Care video but my first album was Under the Red Sky. Wiggle Wiggle wasn't bad enough to turn it off and created the contrast for the slower opening lines of UTRS. By the time the man in the moon had gone home and the river went dry I was hooked for life.

'Changing Of The Guards' from my dads record collection when i was around eight.
When i told my school form teacher she was amazed someone so young enjoyed
Dylan and she was a fan and did me a cassette of his early recordings and i remember loving the
song 'He Was A Friend Of Mine'. This would have been around 1988.

"Things Have Changed" (followed by "Like A Rolling Stone" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue")

This for me, too. Exactly the same experience.

More Bob Dylan Greatest Hits UK version: the segue from "Positively Fourth Street" to "All Along the Watchtower" was like something I had never heard before in music.

At the same time, I got to hear Street-Legal, and was enamoured by "Changing of the Guards" and "Senor."

But mainly "All Along the Watchtower." I had never heard anything quite as haunting.

"Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie"

It's not a song but it's the recording that made me sit up and listen....

Bringing It All Back Home - When I knew nothing about Dylan, I came across a copy of this album at a record store, and eventually bought it. After several listen, I was knocked out by it. This album and 'Like A Rolling Stone' turned me into a Dylan fan.

Someone gave me a live Billy Joel (of all people) album on cassette when I was around 11, and it had a live version of The Times They Are A Changin' on it. A little later I saw my local library had a copy of Before The Flood by this Bob Dylan guy, I checked it out and the rest is history.

Love Minus Zero / No Limit
the imagery is absolutely brilliant, I must have worn this out back in 1965 so much so I had to buy another copy

My love, she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true like ice, like fire
People carry roses
And make promises by the hour
My love she laughs like the flowers
Valentines can't buy her
In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all
The cloak and dagger dangles
Madams light the candles
In ceremonies of the horsemen
Even the pawn must hold a grudge
Statues made of matchsticks
Crumble into one another
My love winks she does not bother
She knows too much to argue or to judge
The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
Bankers' nieces seek perfection
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring
The wind howls like a hammer
The night wind blows cold n' rainy
My love, she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing

John Brown from Unplugged

My dad always played a lot of Dylan. I remember Blowing in the Wind. But the first time I was cognizant of "Bob Dylan" was Lay Lady Lay. My dad put it in and explained that this was a country music album done by a classic rock and roll singer.

Shortly after that, I asked to hear what this rock and roll singer normally sounded like. LARS blew my mind....

HURRICANE

Couldnt tell you have listened to Bob all my life, my dad used to play him to me when i was wee, there is a picture of my when Im around 3 playing a harmonic next to picture of Bob. Its just always been a constant in my life.

The Times They Are A-Changing and, specifically, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. This cassete was my best friend gift for a birthday. On night I was in my bed, listening to it in the headphones - and suddently I realised that I... I can't explain it, even in my native language. It was like a lightning strike. So I'm affraid I've been burned for the rest of my life.

Lay Lady Lay, in the early 1970's

moab