Ultimate Bob Compo

A super thread going on over at the Guardian Culture Vulture blog, with 240+ comments from people all around the world on the No Direction Home thing. Fantastic that so much interest can be generated by a TV programme, however flawed, with such passionate opinions on display.

Now, a lot of you have written to ask, what's the best intro the Dylan? There are probably more than 240 opinions on this subject, but here's my two pence.

To begin with, I don't think you can do better than the original "Greatest Hits," which is the single album that I started with myself. Side 1, as was, is a bunch of acoustic stuff; side 2 is the '65-'66 electric stuff, including essentials like "I Want You," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "Just Like a Woman."

If that doesn't convert you or make you want to hear more, give up. Simple as that.

Now if you came to me and said, Rob, do me a CD compo of what you consider to be the best of the Dylan, what would be on it? Well, I'm a contrarian, so I like to go for slightly off-beat stuff. Assuming you will at least buy "Greatest Hits," here's what I would add:

• Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - because it's a lovely song with some great finger picking guitar (as a bonus, add the reggae version from Live at Budokan, because there's no better illustration of how Dylan deconstructs his myth in concert)


• All I Really Want to Do - because it's a great example of the fun he put into his early acoustic works - again, the Budokan version is worth having


• Love Minus Zero/No Limit - because it's another lovely song, - the Budokan version has a nice (I think it's a) flute motif going on, too


• Desolation Row - a fine example of Long Dylan, with his wonderful, resonant voice, and beautiful imagery. You can let images like "Cinderella, sweeping up, on Desolation Row" wash over you for the pleasure of it. Or you can listen more closely at the way people are being sent into and out of Desolation Row, and try to work out who belongs in, who is out, and why, and which is best?


• Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - one of the quintessential tracks from Blonde on Blonde, packed with imagery, studded with humour. Typical Dylan humour: the senator comes down, handing out free tickets to his son's wedding, and - just his luck - Bob is caught gatecrashing without a ticket. Superb. And the organ on it is brill. Either that, or Absolutely Sweet Marie


• To Be Alone With You - from Nashville Skyline, if only because of the cool way it begins. "Is it Rolling Bob?"


• All the Tired Horses - from Self Portrait. And you'll understand just how laid back his life in Woodstock was!


• Sign in the Window - from New Morning, for his voice on it, and because it's a wonderfully melancholy song


• Hazel - from Planet Waves, another great love song


• Up To Me - from the Blood on the Tracks sessions, finally released on the Biograph collection. Because it gives you the flavour of those sessions without wrenching any tracks from the set.


• Isis - from Desire, at the height of Dylan's second wind, his second Never Ending Tour, the height of the personal crisis that saw him convert to Christianity


• Precious Angel - one of the great performances from his first evangelical set, Slow Train Coming


• Brownsville Girl - from Knocked Out Loaded - written with Sam Shepard, it's a long shaggy dog story featuring Gregory Peck. Great mythmaking

How many's that? You should be able to get them all from iTunes, anyway. I note that "Desolation Row" is available only if you buy the whole album (Highway 61 Revisited) - so you'd be better off getting that from Amazon, because you can get it for under a fiver.