TOP TEN ALBUMS OF ALL TIME

Following this post is my own top ten albums of all time list. It took quite a while to arrive at my final ten let me tell you. The list in the end reflects more of an "essential" personal list for me as opposed to any idea of where I may think these fall in the pantheon of recorded pop music. I ain't that smart anyway. It was wonderful going through the process and writing up a piece for each record, sifting through all those memories new and old. I hope you enjoy it!

Number 10 Sleeps With Angels

#10 Sleeps With Angels
Artist: Neil Young
Released : August 16th, 1994




Track Listing


My Heart
Prime of Life
Driveby
Sleeps With Angels
Western Hero
Change Your Mind
Blue Eden
Safeway Cart
Train of Love
Trans Am.
Piece of Crap
A Dream that Can Last


Seth said "Go get the plow out Merle this place looks just right".

Monsters can come in all shapes and sizes. Big terrifying archetypes that live at the bottom of a British Loch, little parasitic demons that infiltrate the most minute of weaknesses, and sometimes a monster can even be in the form of a CD that you never gave a listen to. Let me explain myself.

I got a promotional copy of Sleeps With Angels as a gift and for whatever reason at the time I unceremoniously heaped it in with the rest of my music collection. Soon it was forgotten and years went by before I gave it a listen. Before I finally listened to it many, many times I would see it in the used or "value" bin at the store. This regrettably affected my desire to listen to it. Couldn't be too good if it's been discounted or discarded right? I forgot about it entirely until I had to move and went through an inventory of the only real thing of value I had (My CD's). After listening to Sleeps With Angels it is scary to think of it waiting in the shadows, knowing what it knew, knowing it would consume me for a long time. Sleeps With Angels is a monster.

A number of articles and blogs have been written about this album that Neil Young himself has rarely if ever commented on. Much rumor has centered on the work's primary themes of loss and pain relating to the suicide of Kurt Cobain, that happened during the recording. Cobain quoted Young's line "It's better to burn out than to fade away" in a goodbye letter. It has thematically been linked to Tonight's The Night, which also followed or at least coincided with a heroin death as well (Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse). Sleeps With Angels is a monumental statement, so full of it's own atmosphere that once it seeps in it demands repeat listening. It simply will not allow any other music to be heard. This atmosphere is haunting and foreboding which creates an intensity of emotion that frankly makes the album hard to just pick up and play. You can't casually listen to Sleeps With Angels or at least I can't.

The album to me is the ultimate eulogy. It is like being at a funeral and the Preacher asks, "Does anyone have anything they would like to say about so and so?" Then Neil Young with his long time cohorts Crazy Horse step up and perform this song cycle. Let me just say no one else would need to speak after that! There are a handful of songs that I can't listen to without getting teary eyed. Gulf Coast Highway by Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, He Never Got Enough Love by Lucinda Williams, are two that immediately come to mind. Right along side these is Train of Love from this album, which in one line encapsulates the essence (to me) of Sleeps With Angels.

When that lonesome whistle blows, no one knows, no one knows.

But what is unique is that this line is given its depth from the songs before it and what you know will follow.

When I listen to Sleeps With Angels I think of the people I've lost either through death or time or circumstance and what they mean to me. It is not all tragedy and an exacting amount of comfort comes after A Dream That Can Last and it's that comfort that Sleeps With Angels provides that brings me (when I am brave enough to dare) back to it's fold.

So let this be a warning to you, there may be a monster in your music collection. There sure as hell was one in mine.

Number 9 My Life

# 9 My Life
Artist: Iris Dement
Released: 1993

Track Listing

Sweet Is The Melody
You've Done Nothing Wrong
Calling For You
Childhood memories
No Time To Cry
Troublesome Waters
Mom and Dad's Waltz
Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day
The Shores of Jordan
My Life

Standing barefoot on a cold wood floor. Staring out the window of my back door. If it keeps on raining I think the whole damn house is gonna' blow away.

So there I was sitting in my chair, channel surfing when on CMT of all places I was introduced to Iris Dement. This just had to be some level of fate; I can only guess that the video was aired at the most half a dozen times. The song was Our Town from her debut album Infamous Angel. It's hard to catch a song in one listen but there was something about her voice that I couldn't get away from. I went that very day and purchased the only copy that the local record store had. Infamous Angel was fantastic but it was her follow up My Life that moved my mountains.

Of all the albums on my list this one is the most obscure. It was well received by critics but for the most part flew far under the radar. So what is it about My Life that has elevated it to such a lofty place in my mind and spirit? A short answer would be its honesty both lyrically and vocally. Most of my favorite music, or any art for that matter comes from that far away planet called straight shooting honesty. But this work stretches that idea to its breaking point and comes across so damn frank and sincere that it can sometimes seem too personal somehow. When I hear No Time To Cry (an all time great song) I feel a damn near sense of guilt as if I were eavesdropping on this person named Iris Dement. Staggering work, like Townes Van Zandt's live recordings and the best of Johnny Cash's American Recordings swim in this water but there is something so full of integrity about My Life that to me lifts it even higher or at least takes this "honest approach" even further. It's like this is an Alan Lomax field recording in the form of a well-produced record. I have never been so thankful after hearing an album. As corny as I am sounding to myself, after I heard My Life, my thoughts were.

"Well damn, thank you Iris Dement for sharing this very fragile, beautiful, and thoughtful music with me."

I wanted to thank her personally when she told me about memories of her Dad

"I remember every night what we would say and do. If you've forgiven me, then I've forgiven you".

And about her own life

"I gave joy to my mother and I made my lover smile.
I can give comfort to my friends when they're hurting.
And I can make it seem better for a while."

"I'm gonna' let my feet go dancing to my very favorite songs, for I know my time for leaving is bound to come before too long."

And on and on………………..

I like the fact that this album is out there and peacefully sitting on shelves in hip record stores. Somebody will see it and think, "So and so mentioned Iris Dement to me maybe I'll check this out." And they'll go home and have Iris share the same personal stories with them that she did with me. They will sway when Sweet is the Melody begins and walk the floor like Hank himself did when Calling For You plays and will fall through the floor when they hear her take on Lefty Frizzell's Mom and Dad's Waltz. Some of them may even say to themselves

"Thank you Iris Dement for this album My Life."

Number 8 Honky Tonk Heroes

Number 8 Honky Tonk Heroes
Artist: Waylon Jennings
Released: July 1973

Track Listing

Honky Tonk Heroes
Old Five and Dimers Like Me
Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me
Low Down Freedom
Omaha
You Asked Me To
Ride Me Down Easy
Ain't No God In Mexico
Black Rose
We Had It All
Slow Rollin' Low*
You Asked Me Too*

Cadillac buyers and ole five and dimers like me

So here's how it happened, sort of.

Scene – quiet city street – night time.

"Put your damn hands in the air!"

A stranger had slipped up behind me and now had me at gunpoint.

"Look I don't have any money." I said.

"Shut up you dumb ass. Shut your stupid mouth. I don't want your money. Or your wife, even if she is smokin', I got a question for you and you better not fuck up boy."

I was trembling I thought it was the end for me.

"Who is Waylon Jennings?"

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Serious as I need to be with this gun against your stupid skull."

"Well um he's that that guy who does the Dukes of Hazzard song and sometimes Willie Nelson throws him a bone and lets him perform with him."

"Wrong answer."

Click, KABLEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

I was blown to ignorant hell from the most explosive musical weapon ever made, Honky Tonk Heroes performed by Waylon Jennings – written by Billy Joe Shaver.

For those of you who know a lot more than I did at the time I first heard Honky Tonk Heroes Waylon Jennings is THE outlaw. He was the original one that took the big stand against The Nashville establishment, refusing to record with studio musicians and insisting on doing things his own way. I'll leave it at that, this isn't a biography this is about my # 8 album Honky Tonk Heroes.

You hear it all the time and I think for good reason. People with a pretty sensible and wide palate for music will say "I listen to everything but country". There is nothing worse in my opinion than popular country radio. Give me that station that plays Zeppelin at five o'clock everyday, or even the dreaded dance beat club station any day over manufactured hot country sappiness. If country were on trial, exhibit A and it would be the only exhibit necessary, for me would be Honky Tonk Heroes by Waylon Jennings.

The way this sounds (thumping bass lines), the way the songs are written (Billy Joe Shaver is the shit.), the way Waylon SINGS (impossible), all of it together equals an all time great recording. It is the sound of the defiant one. More punk than you can stand. These songs are about lives harder than yours, more rebellious than yours, call it better tales through rougher living. No album in country music history stands beside this album when it comes to song writing, you may feel differently but you're wrong. This is to the credit of the previously mentioned Billy Joe Shaver. Shaver crafted songs that were honest and mythically defiant at the same time. There ain't no bullshit in these songs, bullshit free music for the defiant ones! How about some opening lines for the people.

"Long yellow haired girl here beside me fit my body warmed my mind.Sleeping quiet never knowing that tomorrow she'll be one more thing I'm gonna leave behind"

"I've spent a lifetime making up my mind to be more than the measure of what I thought others could see."

"Omaha you've been weighing heavy on my mind I guess I never really left at all.
I'm turning all those roads I walked around the other way, coming back to you Omaha."

I just pooped my pants writing that stuff! Get the picture? Good. But it just isn't the way it's written, far from it folks, it's the way Waylon performs them. The way he rumbles through these stories and puts you in those shoes if only for a moment.

"He's dead set on riding in the big rodeo. My woman is tight with an overdue baby and Willy keeps yelling hey gypsy let's go."

Wait a minute..is he going to leave his woman that is overdue!? WHY?? Well he'll tell you why..

"Low down freedom you've done cost me everything I'll ever lose. You're as empty as my pockets from the top of where you start down to the bottom of my shoes."

What a ride. It's a sonic portal to Bad Assville.

"The Devil made me do it the first time, the second time I done it on my own."

You can't stay and live there. Why? Because you ain't them that's why! But you can visit; take a look in at these Honky Tonk Heroes in all their flawed glory.

I've said enough. Cinch up your belt, grab hold of something, and detonate Honky Tonk Heroes, the fallout is sublime.

Number 7 Blue

Number 7 Blue

Artist: Joni Mitchell
Released: June 1971
Track Listing

All I Want
My Old Man
Little Green
Carey
Blue
California
This Flight Tonight
River
A Case of You
The Last Time I Saw Richard

"The night is a starry dome, and they're playin' that scratchy rock and roll beneath the Matala Moon"

I must begin with an apology to Joni Mitchell and her fans. This is the only album by Joni Mitchell I have ever listened to. I am pretty darn sure that fact proves I'm a fool. This has been the case for so long that it has become a psychological barrier that I am not sure I can overcome. For every other artist in this list I own his or her catalog or a least a large part of it. I have this mythical ideal of Joni Mitchell and unfairly to her I have pigeon holed her into a corner, but hey IT IS one hell of a corner. It is no reflection on anything I've heard or read about the rest of her work which I am sure is great but it is what it is and I am what I am, a fool. Now on with my # 7 album, Blue.

Bob Dylan released Blood on the Tracks in 1975 and for posterity put out what many feel will stand as the all time great "break up" album. Since this is a ranked list it forced my hand to make this bold statement, a realization I had to accept (some friends may never speak to me again), I believe Blue is greater than Blood on the Tracks and is the benchmark album for the man/woman emotional statement. There I wrote it, and it's right, I think.

A constant theme to me when producing this list was the idea of sonic atmosphere. This is to say that an album as a whole has a sound unto it's own. Not all of my top ten has this as a defining strength but Blue certainly does. Not only does it have that "sound" but the sound is all Joni Mitchell, no tricks here, no great production choices or technology twists. Her playing, her words, and most importantly her voice together inter weave all the songs to create a brilliantly unified style.

What I like most about Blue is that I want to be the person many of these songs are written for. To have her wading through it to get to a song like My Old Man with thoughts of me in her soul. I want to be Carey, head down to the Mermaid Café with my walking cane and smash my empty glasses down and see her shining silver jewelry underneath the Matala Moon. Yes! Yes! The Last Time I saw Darren, now that's a closing song. I want to be shampooed and renewed! I digress.

Because of Blue I am sure the 60's had to be a good thing. Would you like to talk about an independent woman? Many of the songs involve a man but at the heart of the matter is herself. So many self-enlightening lines I can't imagine how cathartic it was to get this stuff out. Songs like Californian, and Carey, and All I Want, and This Flight Tonight are resounding proclamations of The New World Woman. Independence with heart and soul right? Right. This is an incredible bunch of tunes and it is no coincidence that this is one of the most quoted albums of all time. I really should listen to all her other work…..what an idiot.

Number 6 Street Legal

Number 6 Street Legal
Artist: Bob Dylan
Released: June 15th 1978

Track Listing

Changing of the Guards
New Pony
No Time To Think
Baby Stop Crying
Is Your Love in Vain?
Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)
True Love Tends To Forget
We Better Talk This Over
Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)

You've been down to the bottom with a bad man babe
But you're back where you belong

I am a Dylan guy. I own his entire catalog, yes even the self-titled Dylan and Down in the Groove. I have seen him live many, many times from Thibodaux to Delaware. Be assured this is not my attempt to pick an "obscure" Dylan album to enhance my (Twelfth) street (and Vine) cred. This album is number 6, with a bullet.

A unique criterion made Street Legal an automatic for my top ten list. When I'm two beers too gone this is always, ALWAYS what I want to listen to. This may seem inconsequential but let me tell you it isn't. When the chorus for True Love Tends To Forget ignites stand back because I'm YELLING along with it!

"Saw you drift into infinity and come back again.
All you have to do is wait and I'll tell you when."

Divine inebriation.

A lot has been said about the poor production value of the album at the time of the recording. It was recorded in only four days; this is probably what gives it the energetic immediacy that makes it burn. The album was remastered in 1999 and while I was extremely skeptical (I couldn't believe anyone was fuc**ing with Street Legal) I am now on board and would suggest the remastered version over the original. Saxophone and female backing singers, is this R & B? Yes it is but it's Bob Dylan R & B. There is just something in the sound I love; I don't think I'm technical enough to explain it.

There is a mythos all to it's own that underpins the whole album. Scenes from a feudal land in Changing of the Guards, Biblical south of the border end
times in Senor, spiritual stops at all points in between from Mexico to Tibet. Every time I listen to Street Legal this other time other place feel lifts me and moves me from where I am. Street Legal is a transportation device. Dr. Who had a phone booth; I've got Bob Dylan's Street Legal.

For most of Bob Dylan's work I have analyzed what he's written to try and understand where he is coming from. This is a natural thing to want to do, thousands of dissertations, blogs, etc. have been written to explain "what Dylan is trying to say". I have somehow managed to never do this with Street Legal. Like Iris Dement said I choose to let the mystery be. The mythical writing, the hot wax, the singers, the sax, and his voice both desperate and forceful wash over me and there I go, away from where I am for a little while.

I am not sure if this is a Mount Rushmore work like other albums in Bob Dylan's catalog but it is a wondrous thing to me personally. So many late nights turned early morning I've sat alone or with family and friends and put Street Legal on. Different times, different rooms, different situations, different revelations, same wonder filled moments as I ride The Street Legal Transportation Device.

As a post note I would like to add that this is my all time favorite album cover. Bob Dylan is at the foot of a staircase. Is it a pathway that leads up to the stars? He has his head turned with a coat under his arm. Someone's coming to give him a ride, to transport him to another place, with the things of the past above and behind him. Damn right. He looks ready for the ride, he looks dare I say…..STREET LEGAL

Number 5 Mule Variations

Number 5 Mule Variations
Artist: Tom Waits (Kathleen Brennan)
Released: April 20th, 1999

Track Listing

Big in Japan
Low Side of the Road
Hold On
Get Behind The Mule
House Where Nobody Lives
Cold Water
Pony
What's He Building
Black Market Baby
Eyeball Kid
Picture In a Frame
Chocolate Jesus
Georgia Lee
Filipino Box Spring Hog
Take It With Me
Come On Up To The House

I have all of life's treasures and they're fine and they're good
But they remind me houses are just made of wood
What makes a house grand it ain't the roof or the doors
If there is love in a house it's a palace for sure
Without love it ain't nothing but a house where nobody lives

In all my music nerdery I am in the "living room" of the tiny Dolphin trailer my Fiancée and I were living in rent-free. We're in the middle of preparing for our wedding, which means I am saying yes a lot and Tracy is taking care of a million things a minute. My most important decision, as I figured it, was what song to play for our first dance. I made a decision and nervously played it for her. As it played and we danced she began crying, she loved it, of course she did. The song was Picture in a Frame from Mule Variations. Thank you Tom Waits.

Mule Variations is BIG, 16 songs large, the most songs on an album in my list. In the reviews I've read on line about this album they argue that it lacks in cohesiveness, that it is "a collection of moments" and that it is only rehashing work from Swordfish Trombones, Black Rider, and Bone Machine. The following is the conclusion of The Rolling Stone Review.

"Through his film roles in the Eighties and Nineties and the simultaneous rise of an alternative culture that lionizes him, Waits has become the apotheosis of the American eccentric. We don't demand much from these figures, other than that they spill out their visions in chunks of an ongoing discourse; Mule Variations is just the latest installment of that discourse, and one wonders when Waits, who's not lacking for bold, dislocating ideas, might treat himself to a new start."

Wimps, wimps that missed it. They weren't tough enough to deal with the scope, Tom Waits took the sound that he had developed and laid out a work so massive that it is hard to believe it works together, hard to accept landscapes as wide open as Hold On, Cold Water, Georgia Lee, Pony, and Come On Up To The House all on the same album but there they are and work they do. Chunk of discourse my ass, this is an album to live by, a philosophy text, a world view, an essential BIG thing. Mule Variations is the culmination of the sound he had developed, perfected and delivered on a humongous scale.

Mule Variations, what a title.

"You've got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow"

Yeah Mr. Waits that's about right, we wake up and we get behind it and we do what we do. These songs are variations on gettin' behind that mule. Sometimes it is so damn hopeful and inspiring it will shake your being.

By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes and started swaying.
But it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.

Sometimes it is so painful it will bring you to your knees.

And lonesome was the place where Georgia was foundShe's too young to be out on the street

Sometimes it is so mysterious you start to obsess.

I heard he has an ex-wife in some place called Mayors Income, TennesseeAnd he used to have a consulting business in Indonesia

Sometimes it can seem so lonely you need help.

There's no light in the tunnel, no irons in the fireCome on up to the houseAnd you're singin' lead soprano in a junkman's choirYou gotta' come on up to the house

Sometimes it is so funny you bust your gut.

When the weather gets roughAnd it's whiskey in the shadeIt's best to wrap your savior up in cellophaneHe flows like the big muddy but that's okPour him over ice cream for a nice parfait

Sometimes it is so strange all you can do is observe.

Well he was born with out a body, not even a browI made the kid a promise, I made the kid a vowHe's not conventionally handsome, he'll never be tallHe said "all you got to do is book me into Carnegie Hall"

You got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow. You got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow. You got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow. This album is the kit and the caboodle, the mule, the plow, the earth and the sky. I'm married now and my wife is a Tom Waits nut.

Sometimes it is so sweet.

Sun come up it was blue and gold. Ever since I put your picture in a frame

My oldest brother Eric has been banging out some serious artwork over the last three years. Primarily they are from the landscapes that surround his life. They're big and they seem to me to have the perspective of being behind that plow. He also was the first one to mention Tom Waits to me. When I recently viewed his paintings together in a show it was that same BIG feeling. Keep it up Eric, keep it up all of you.

Number 4 The Times They Are A-Changin'

Number 4 The Times They Are A-Changin'
Artist: Bob Dylan
Released: Feb. 10th 1964

Track Listing

The Times They Are A-Changin'
Hollis Brown
With God On Our Side
One Too Many Mornings
North Country Blues
Only a Pawn In Their Game
Boots of Spanish Leather
When The Ship Comes In
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Restless Farewell

Oh, ev'ry thought that's strung a knot in my mind,I might go insane if it couldn't be sprung.But it's not to stand naked under unknowin' eyes,It's for myself and my friends my stories are sung.

At the time of this write up this album has been on the shelves for over 43 years. An incalculable career has followed for Bob Dylan since then. It is hard to put in to context the scope of his influence. Before his twenty third birthday with just his third release he separated himself from the rest with an album of such social magnitude that it literally DID change the world. The Times They Are A-Changin' is a fierce piece of American history and for my taste is the best representation of the power of one person with a guitar and a song.

While The Times certainly has political overtones it reaches out to much further horizons. While the tunes themselves are often simple in their format, folk based rhythms and high end harmonica solos, they are but a framework for a gathering of ten lyrical masterpieces. The sound seemed, like Bob Dylan, much older than it actually was. From the opening anthemic Times to the closing Restless Farewell the story of those times are told. Told with depth, sincerity, a grander sense of foreboding, a warning shot. I can't imagine a more intimidating album for anyone with the courage to sit down with an instrument to try and write a song.

In the excellent documentary No Direction Home there are a number of people who were in one way or the other associated with Bob Dylan at the time and to a person they are all at a loss to explain where songs of that magnitude came from (this included the song writer himself). Joan Baez in particular reflected this feeling. Romantically linked with Bob Dylan her reason as to her attraction even in a relationship that didn't work seemed to go like this..

"Well you know….ummm…I mean he wrote With God On Our Side, Only A Pawn In Their Game, The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll."

The explanation was good enough for me.

What elevates this work past Another Side and Freewheelin', albums from that same period, is the consistency. Every song is epic, there are no breathers, one song builds on the other until the end a listener is only left to think, "What the fuck just happened." The aftermath of this record effected America in much the same way. In the big scheme of things my personal feelings about music and this list don't seem that important except for this particular work. This album is important musically, politically, socially, and historically. The Times stands alongside great historical American writings like The Federalist Papers and Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech. Forty plus years and it still leaves us shaking our heads………………………….

"Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears, Bury the rag deep in your face. For now's the time for your tears."

Not even twenty-three years old. Hard to imagine.

Number 3 Red Headed Stranger

Number 3 Red Headed Stranger
Artist: Willie Nelson
Released: 1975

Track Listing

Time of the Preacher
I Couldn't Believe It Was True
Time of the Preacher (Theme)
Medley: Blue Rock Montana/Red Headed Stranger
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
Red Headed Stranger
Time of the Preacher (Theme)
Just as I Am
Denver
O'er The Waves
Down Yonder
Can I Sleep In Your Arms?
Remember Me
Hands On The Wheel
Bandera

"It was a time of the preacher
In the year of 01'
Just when you think it's all over
It's only begun"

My earliest recollection of recorded music is this album. It was/is my Dad's favorite, hell my Mom too for that matter. If I had a dollar for every time Red Headed Stranger was played on a Friday or Saturday night in the O'Dell house growing up I'd be a rich man. About 3,000 Albums later my world has come full circle and finds Red Headed Stranger as my #3 all time album.

Red Headed Stranger is the concept album to end all concept albums. It's Americana, it's a damn good western, its revenge and redemption, it's the frailty of man, its 100% Willie Nelson. Emmylou Harris said that if America had one voice it would be Willie Nelson. Damn right! After 9/11 there was this fund raiser where major performers (Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Alicia Keys etc..) played to raise money for the families of the victims. At the end Willie Nelson led everyone in America The Beautiful and it was perfectly appropriate. No one else could have done it, it wouldn't have been right

Red Headed Stranger is my favorite album to hear sung. Willie's vocals come through so clearly the sound is audible tonic. Words such as sparse, and quiet have been used to describe the accompanying music, truth be told any other arrangement would have gotten in the way of THAT VOICE. There are a lot of albums I know every word to; with Red Headed Stranger I know every note. I can listen to it without even putting it on! This album has an unfair advantage in that it is really like two.

Part one is the narrative of the Red Headed Stranger, a preacher that discovers his woman has chosen the love of another man, a distinct story line.

Love is like a dying ember
And only memories remain

They smiled at each other as he walked through the door
And they died with a smile on their faces

Part two is a broader stroke that symbolizes hope and redemption.

My hands on the wheel of something that's real
And I feel like I'm going home

They work together and separately, really cool thing.

Red Headed Stranger is classic in every since of the word, it feels antique, it should be discovered in your granddaddy's attic in that old walnut chest, dusted off reverentially and put on the old turntable covered in cobwebs beside it. Some albums are right for the time, this album is right for all time. Makes me want to have a son so I can have a workweek kick my ass open a cold beer lay back in my chair and put on Willie. My son will be coming home from a night out with that girl Tracy doesn't like and he'll hear the music coming from the den.

Don't cross him, don't boss him, he's wild in his sorrow
He's riding and hiding his pain
Don't fight him, don't spite him just wait till tomorrow
And maybe he'll ride on again.

My son will smile and slip back to his room knowing that in our little family universe everything is how it should be. Amen

Post note There is a classic performance from Austin City Limits where Willie performs Red Headed Stranger in its entirety. I have given a pretty damn good effort in hunting a copy of it down but have had no luck. If anyone wants to earn a permanent place in my heart find a copy and get it for me.

Number 2 Darkness on the Edge of Town

Number 2 Darkness on the Edge of Town
Artist: Bruce Springsteen
Released: June 2nd, 1978

Track Listing
Badlands
Adam Raised A Cain
Something In The Night
Candy's Room
Racing In The Streets
Promised Land
Factory
Streets of Fire
Prove It All Night
Darkness on the Edge of Town

Tonight tonight the highway's bright out of our way mister you best keep. 'Cause summer's here and the time is right for goin' racin' in the street.

I believe in this record. Right down to the bone I believe in this record. You want to know about me, listen closely and you'll get a good idea. You are what you eat and when I was just a kid I ate this up. I would listen to my older brother's cassette tape of Racing in the Street live from the 75' to 85' set over and over again which led me eventually to the album.

Pulling into Mosley High School at 7:15 AM in a 78' Camaro with The Promised Land on full blast.

Writing a paper in my Junior year English class comparing Darkness on the Edge of Town to Macbeth and having the instructor insist on me reading it to the class, she thought the other kids gave a damn about Bruce Springsteen.

Driving across Hathaway Bridge in Spring Break traffic to go to work with Badlands distortedly loud from a Firebird's rear speakers.

Opening a package from Europe of a bootleg I spent 75 dollars on called Live In The Promised Land from The Darkness on The Edge of Town Tour with an 878 minute guitar intro for Prove It All Night.

Three guys in need of a shave in a rented car traveling through Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, to find Newsies. Huddled up outside the Arena in Columbus Ohio and hearing Bruce tune up with Take Em As They Come with The E Street Band. That night I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band do Darkness on the Edge of Town, there it was all right in front of me, I still haven't got over it….

Driving up to Macon Georgia 5,000 times to see my Brothers and Nieces with Candy's Room forcing the wimpiest driver alive (me) to speed.

The title track says it all

They're still racing out at the Trestles

But that blood it never burned in her veins

Now I hear she's got a house up in Fairview

And a style she's trying to maintain

Well if she wants to see me

You can tell her that I'm easily found

Tell her there's a spot out 'neath Abram's Bridge

And tell her there's a darkness on the edge of town

Everybody's got a secret Sonny

Something that they just can't face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down

Where no one asks any questions

Or looks too long in your face

In the darkness on the edge of town

Some folks are born into a good life

Other folks get it anyway anyhow

I lost my money and I lost my wife

Them things don't seem to matter much to me now

Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop

I'll be on that hill with everything I got

Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost

I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost

For wanting things that can only be found

In the darkness on the edge of town

I have nothing else to add. Bruce Springsteen is my poet Hero, he is a force of nature.

Number 1 Highway 61 Revisited

Number 1 Highway 61 Revisited
Artist: Bob Dylan
Released: Aug. 30th, 1965

Track Listing
Like A Rolling Stone
Tombstone Blues
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
From A Buick 6
Ballad of a Thin Man
Queen Jane Approximately
Highway 61 Revisited
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Desolation Row

"Here comes the blind commissioner, they've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tightrope walker; the other is in his pants"

The sum is greater than its parts. What if the sum is from another universe? Six plus six equals macaroni cheese, fuzzy math, dream world calculations, algebra from a planet unknown? You listen and it just doesn't make any sense while making all the sense in the world. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM!!!????? I don't get it but it gets me got it? Area 51 in the desert, not quite Alien hunters, Highway 61 in Mississippi, we've had visitors and they left vinyl proof.

I put my list together and I wanted to fight this, I wanted a dark horse to come galloping up the back stretch and take out Bob Dylan by a nose. The race wasn't rigged; it's just that all the other thoroughbreds were on a different track, in a different town, in the vicinity of Comprehendibleville. Highway 61 Revisited don't race there, it never did.

A couple of parameters for #1….

Opening track is the greatest (and the most unlikely) single of all time.
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clownsWhen they all come down and did tricks for youYou never understood that it ain't no goodYou shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you

"The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind." – Bruce Springsteen commenting on Like A Rolling Stone

The fulcrum point of the most influential artist in recorded music history
Infusion of the folk poet with the rock and roll master. The cornerstone of the way he used to sound with the way he was going to sound.

The essence of "hip"

That album cover, with the Triumph Motorcycle shirt, the way the name of the album sounds when you say it, "Highway 61 Revisited". Song titles like "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "Queen Jane Approximately" lines like….

She walks like Bo Diddley and she don't need no crutch

Now if you see Saint Annie please tell her thanks a lotI cannot move my fingers are all in a knot

And dropping a bar bell he points to the skySaying, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"

My favorite Bob Dylan song, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Dooon Doon dah doodala doon Dooon Doon dah dooodala doon doon doon wah weenk wahn a wahnn wahnnnn……….

It's not really a sense of wonder as much as it is a sense of awe. When I first heard Highway 61 Revisited it blew my mind, the 247th time I heard Highway 61 Revisited it blew my mind. Head scratching, awe inspiring, other worldliness, mind blowing essential Bob Dylan. My # 1 album of all time, it wasn't ever in doubt. I have officially given up on trying to figure this album and this Bob Dylan out. Until someone puts my ass on a spaceship and flies me to the place this album came from and dishes out enlightenment on the whole thing, even DESOLATION ROW!!!!!!!!, number one is set in sonic cosmic stone.