"Who needs to be cool? Life's amazing.": Ozzy Osbourne

After having finally gotten my fill of the new Bowie album, I transitioned into a Rush CD, then to the Killers, then to The Paper Route, and then, out of nowhere, I popped in Ozzy Osbourne's 2010 effort, Scream. Because, after all, it is now the Merry Metal Month of May.

I say "effort" with a little smugness. Most of it comes from having seen Ozzy on the tour for this album and being actually disappointed- the first time that's ever happened to me. Anybody who's talked with me about live acts knows how dissatisfied that show left me. He spent more time trying to rile up the audience than trying to entertain us, and this I could tell from even my nosebleed seat. He was audibly off-target too. I mean, I noticed. I know enough about art to understand that sometimes it's not until the last five minutes that everything comes together. I am patient enough to wait and see, try to connect and get into it, if I don't jive with the project right away. Not this time. "War Pigs" turned out pretty good, and "Shot in the Dark", I think it was, was not dismal. "Bark at the Moon" wallowed at the other end of the spectrum, where most of the rest of the show hung out.

Guys. He led his own encore chant from backstage. Seriously. Empty stage, mumble of crowd, and then his voice on the microphone: "Come on, everybody: Oz-ZY, oz-ZY..." And he wouldn't come back out til everyone was playing along.

To be fair, the band was tight. Slash was promoting a solo album at the time and he was awesome as an opener.

I felt bad about it. I wanted that show to be good. I sent all the positive vibes I could, which usually works when I'm not sure I'm tuning in to the musician's station just right. Not even the power of positive thinking could change that show into a great, or even a good, show for me.

So, I'm sorry, Ozzy. I once waited about six hours in line to get your signature in your autobiography. I was about your three thousandth signature that day, I think, and someone told you "This is the last book," and you looked up with a glimmer of hope on your face. Then you realized there were two hundred more people behind me, with vouchers to be signed because the physical copies of the books were sold out, the last one to me. And you said nothing. You looked down and kept on signing. I felt bad for you then, too, but in a different way. A full day of book-signing is no place for a mighty rock star. After all, I like you. I even slipped "Mama, I'm Coming Home" on a mix CD I made for my mom when I left for college, even though she'd banned you from the house. I taped a radio interview you did for Nights with Alice Cooper, once:

ALICE: So, you're not really the Antichrist, then.
OZZY: Me? I thought you were.
ALICE: Well, I figured it was either you or Bono.
OZZY: [laughs]
ALICE: If Bono becomes President of the World Bank, he's definitely the Antichrist.

Don't tell me there's no love here.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends really dug Ozzy & Black Sabbath. Ozzy was his Bowie. (Which also makes me feel sort of smug, since Bowie is Ozzy's Bowie, along with John Lennon, I am told.) This is the same music-loving friend who gave me Pink Floyd, and Johnny Cash, and Jim Croce, and Cream. It was back when we first met, at that same table in the back of Spanish class. Mid-semester, probably. We'd finished our stuff for the day and were goofing off as was our wont (he more conspicuously than prim freshman Sandra-Dee me), talking about music. He asked me if I liked metal. I told him (primly) that I hadn't much experience with it. He asked me if I liked Ozzy. I said again, I hadn't had much contact but I knew his reputation from the TV show.

With the air of a doctor prescribing something to a particularly sensitive patient, he pulled out his discman (this was before iPods, but he was one of the first to get one, BTW) and handed me his headphones. And he put on "Dreamer".

O my little brother, you never could quite get the hang of me, could you? I never did make it easy and I certainly never made it fair, but I told you I liked Judas Priest! You thought "Dreamer" was all I could handle? We're not friends anymore by any long shot or definition, but there are times when I rerun those memories in my mind like episodes of Firefly. There is such a dense concentration of change and growth and self-realization in those memories and others like them that it is hard to look upon them, even the painful ones, without appreciation and fondness. Wherever you are, I wish you well.

So, this week I'm revisiting Scream, burned for me by a former boss with whom music was the only thing I had in common. (Amazing what music can do for people who otherwise maybe wouldn't be very friendly.)

There are some really fun things about this album and there are some really forgettable things. I can listen to the first four tracks ad nauseam and totally leave the rest. You, however, don't have to leave the rest. You can just have the good stuff, and here it is, with the tragic Spotify exclusion of a cover of the BeeGee's "Stayin' Alive" featuring Dweezil Zappa (sold separately here.): Life's Amazing: Ozzy Osbourne

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "Desire" from No More Tears
2. "Let It Die" from Scream
3. "All the Young Dudes" from Under Cover
4. "See You on the Other Side" from Ozzmosis
5. "Rock & Roll Rebel" from Bark at the Moon

For Your Playlist: Side B
6. "Centre of Eternity" from Bark at the Moon
7. "Fire in the Sky" from No Rest for the Wicked
8. "Breakin' All the Rules" from No Rest for the Wicked
9. "Dreamer" from Prince of Darkness

No, I never really did take to Black Sabbath, although I love their name.

Top Track: "Roadhouse Blues"

I'm working on the novel tonight.

It all started with a memory. It's a memory I knew would be useful even as it happened. So I cast it in bronze and ran my fingers over it for years, waiting for it to tell me why. It's beautiful, not so much because of who was there, but because of who I was then. I won't tell you what it looks like, or it won't be new when you read it in its new fabricated context. But because I am there tonight, I will take you there, if you close your eyes and promise not to peek.

You'd feel the heat of mid-summer. You'd smell the musts and secret smells of a worn old building. You'd feel short carpet worn to felt beneath your fingers if you sat on the floor. If you hugged the same person I did that day, their hair against your cheek is damp from a recent shower, and smelling of a familiar drugstore shampoo. You'd have a smile on your face because nothing existed outside of this moment, past or future. You are heedless of anything sad or scary or uncomfortable that lurks only about half a month away. Right now, you feel like Henry David Thoreau, sucking the marrow of life.

And best of all, you're hearing this: The Doors: "Roadhouse Blues"

It might be the first time in your life you've ever heard The Doors and liked it. And you'll never forget it.

I think this song is off the chain. "Roadhouse Blues", that is. And in typical non-musical fangirl fashion, I cannot articulate why. It could be the piano, rolling along nonchalantly with an occasional high-five to the harmonica. It could be the way my head wants to nod with the jaunty rhythm. It could be that raspy screech so unlike anything else in the song: "SAVE MY CITY!" or it could be the quintessential bluesy structure of the lyrics, repeats and rhymes- so simple but somehow profound. More likely it's the sum of all these parts that makes this song into one of those songs that to me, is so satisfyingly classic rock 'n roll, I could listen to it on repeat a dozen times at least.

That's the kind of passion I'm trying to recreate in my own way. That's the kind of richness I want to share, the way I feel about music, almost as if it really COULD "save your mortal soul". It's hard, like catching the proverbial lightning in a bottle. But if I can do it, it will be worth it.

Incidentally, I still do not habitually listen to The Doors. My knowledge of them is quite cursory. My favorite time to hear them is under the summer sun, on my parents' boat, smelling like sunscreen, and sitting contentedly on damp towels while we eat lunch. But they are growing on me.

I had the day off yesterday and found this little jewel in my feed on Twitter. Enjoy.
Jim Morrison on Why Fat Is Beautiful

"Open Up My Eager Eyes": The Killers

My first apartment, the one I moved into in fall of 2009 (oh strange year), spent several months in bleak sparsity. I guess when your life is complicated you can't even unpack your heart in your own space. But eventually, and with a giant push from my amazing mom, it came to look, feel, and be livable. I couldn't paint them (though I know from creepy peering from the sidewalk as I pass by that tenants since me, did) but the walls did get a kiss of me as I resurfaced.

Of course there were the albums, one Flogging Molly and two Bowie, on the south wall of the living room, and I think it was Bowie too, in poster form, on the wall opposite ("It's 1986 David Bowie from the movie Labyrinth, Brett.") The east wall was mostly window, but the west wall, right next to the niche where my stereo sat, I put up The Killers. 

No, there is no significance to the fact that it was the west wall. I'm just giving you a little sense of perspective. :) I bought it at their show at Comerica Theater (FKA The Dodge) in Phoenix in October 2009, along with a gray (how original!) tour shirt that I still wear on the regular. A word about the show: the crowd sucked, the band was all swagger and effort, and I sang my heart out.

I once read a critic's highly memorable quip that The Killers are not nearly as important a band as they think they are, and that is what makes them so lovable.It's true, nobody does bombast like The Killers. Remember that boy-band smack-talk battle they had with The Bravery back in 2005? Barely one album out and they thought they were legitimate enough to have a Vs., like Rolling Stones Vs. Beatles or Judas Priest Vs. Iron Maiden or any other contemporaries with overzealous fanbases. The magazines laughed, and so did I... (incidentally, I think The Killers unquestionably came off conqueror). But I like the Killers, a lot. Even if they have a track that made last week's reflection on filler songs.

I passed on the solo project by Brandon Flowers, which was hailed as "Sam's Town Part II: This Time Without the Hits" by another critic- dang, they love to rag on these guys. Gotta be tough to be The Killers, that's for sure. And I didn't ever buy into 2007's Sawdust, a compilation of B-sides and off-cuts. But I do own, one way or another, all the remaining releases. High school would simply have not been the same without that debut album, Hot Fuss on everyone's minds. Sam's Town never grabbed me til later, but my most-played album of the bizarre winter of 2008 was easily Day & Age. And yes, even though it sounds like Killers-do-Springsteen-in-Las-Vegas, I enjoy Battle Born. In fact, it's how much I am enjoying listening to Battle Born the last few days that makes me post tonight on The Killers, when I have accolades for new Hall of Fame members RUSH, and a truly delightful "guest post" on Led Zeppelin. 

I don't think I know of any other bands that are so exquisitely fun to sing along to in the car, for one thing. Brandon Flowers' voice sometimes bawls and sometimes trembles, and yet it is a pretty voice, and I LOVE singing along. I surprise myself by knowing all the words to all the songs. Windows up or windows down, it's me and The Killers, live for one rush hour only. 

But I think in the end, I love them because we've gone through a lot together. We both take ourselves too seriously, both like to contemplate dark subjects (sometimes things outside of our own experiences), both love David Bowie and the Smiths and other New Wave pioneers. (And, at least in the case of Brandon Flowers, we're both Mormon! See Exhibit A.) Since their emergence I have in some respects carried them with me through everything I've done and seen. The "keep on going, you are awesome" sort of songs critics disdain as self-indulgence, I have always taken to heart as a pep-talk, from the Killers to me.

It's breaking my heart that I didn't realize they were going to be in Tucson so soon (May 4). I could have made arrangements for that, if I'd known even a month ago. Such tragedy! Well, I am hopeful that they will outlast their internal conflicts long enough to make one more lap of the US. I'll be there next time. 

And I do not know why I pay so much attention to what the press says about The Killers. Of course in the end it's your ears that form your opinion, no matter what critics have to say, and that is true on many fronts. I would like to submit, though, something that a cranky old blogger that I follow has been known to reiterate from time to time: when they heckle and criticize and talk... you know you've made it. Congratulations, guys. You made it. ^_^

This playlist is sort of unique. It is made of both favorites and significant songs. Not all of these selections are "the best" Killers tracks, but the ones that aren't are still the ones that call to me because they mean the most, for whatever reason. Here you go: My Eager Eyes: The Killers 

For Your Playlist: Side A

1. "Mr. Brightside" from Hot Fuss

2. "Sam's Town" from Sam's Town

3. "This Is Your Life" from Day & Age

4. "Miss Atomic Bomb" from Battle Born

For Your Playlist: Side B

1. "A Dustland Fairytale" from Day & Age

2. "Bones" from Sam's Town

3. "The Rising Tide" from Battle Born

4. "On Top" from Hot Fuss

Bonus tracks: "Tranquilize" (featuring Lou Reed) from Sawdust, & "Crossfire" from Flamingo by Brandon Flowers. In keeping with my penchant for songs that mention heaven, hell, devils, angels, etc., "Crossfire" filled me with joy the first time I heard it, which was on the way back from the gym late one night, after stopping on a bench to look for a fresh soundtrack for the walk home.

And if you have time for just a little more Killers, (which might make you a bona fide Victim) I suggest listening to this fabulous cover of an excellent Bright Eyes song, and watching the video that started it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGdGFtwCNBE

Guest Post: Allex shares Bright Eyes (AKA Conor Oberst Part I)

Welcome back, everybody. Or, shall I say, welcome me back, everybody. Last week got away from me so consider it my Spring Break (haha) or like those times when you were a kid, tuned into PBS only to see that they are running a telethon and disrupting regularly scheduled quality programming.

Fortunately, to make up for it, I have a treat for you. I give you now the gift of hearing from my own dear sister, the indefatigable Allex Adams. Our music collections, not unlike our earth-suits, share a lot of basic genetic material, but the results are still very different to the eye and to the ear (see this year's Valentine's Post). She's passionate about art and music, and that is why I asked her to post on the subject of Bright Eyes.

To be fair, it was I who brought the first pinch of it into the house. It was "Bowl of Oranges", and a recommendation from a high school boyfriend with impeccable music taste of his own. I liked the song but I didn't really take it and run. To this day, I prefer the solo work of Conor Oberst, the driving force behind the machine known as Bright Eyes. The exception is Cassadaga, and I will probably cover that by itself in a later post. But I wanted a fresh voice to help me ring in the artist, and there is nobody better qualified to talk about it than my sister. So, without further ado, I present...

Here is a list of criticisms about Bright Eyes that I won't hear, and won't respond to:

"I can't stand his voice!"

"It's way too depressing!"

"Conor Oberst writes girl music."

"Oh."

Now, I'm not ignoring the early Bright Eyes canon- rough, ratty, and reeking of horrors most prepubescent... but paddle past the year 2000, and here is the awakening spirit of discovery and disappointment, the kind that defines love itself. That's my message to the critics. Listen to Bright Eyes the way you fall in love, not the way you sense sound. For me, Bright Eyes adoration didn't really begin until I met a boy; soon, a thirst first whet by a song or two over the course of a year or so would be quenched.

One year- one year!- passed since first asking him- him, the tall dark handsome Rivers Cuomo-tribute type!!- for a Bright Eyes education. But finally Sean handed me that holey, holy plastic bag of CDs. He loaned me every single one he owned AT THE SAME TIME, under the assumption that I would upload them all to my digital library at home, return them to him at school the next day, and then I could pick at what I wanted, when I wanted. In retrospect, that would have been very considerate of me...

But that is not what I did!

Instead, I allowed the unexpected downpour of Sean's music to fill a baptismal font of Conor Oberst's grey matter, immersing myself deep into each album individually with the volume at 11 and the liner notes always open. I drowned, promptly. Bright Eyes was heaven's big church band conducted by the new president of the Lonely Hearts Club; the lyrics so true they hurt. I had inherited six Bright Eyes albums all at once, and I couldn't breathe until I knew every single word by heart. 

When I came up for air five months later, my hair had grown long, and my lender's opinion of my borrowing skills was irreparable. But the love between Bright Eyes and I is the kind you take a few losses for.

If I get to pick a few songs, it'd be these, and in this order: (Listen along at The Moon Forces Metal: Bright Eyes)

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "An Attempt to Tip the Scales" from Fevers and Mirrors
2. "From a Balance Beam" from LIFTED: Or, The Story Is in the Soil; Keep Your Ear To The Ground
3. "First Day of My Life" from I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
4. "Theme from Pinata" from Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
5. "Happy Birthday To Me (Feb. 15)" from Noise Floor: Rarities

For Your Playlist: Side B (chosen by your humble hostess from a mix CD Allex made me in 2008)
1. "Method Acting" from LIFTED (warning: some strong language in this one)
2. "Landlocked Blues" from Motion Sickness: Live Recordings
3. "Down in a Rabbit Hole" from Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
4. "No One Would Riot for Less" from Cassadaga
5. Bonus Selection: "From A Balance Beam" by the Vitamin String Quartet's Tribute to Bright Eyes

A big vote of thanks to my talented sister, I think, is here due. You may pause the music to applaud... and now resume. Til next time, happy listening! Speaking of next time, get ready to hear my take on the talent behind Bright Eyes in the next post.

"We never change our tune, we change ourselves": Poets of the Fall

It's possible that it's just the hipster in me, but I love having a band in my Top 10 that nobody else this side of the Atlantic knows about. It gives me ample opportunity to be the harbinger of good music. It helps a lot when the band you wrap up with a bow and present to people with that "I-have-something-you-will-like" kind of glee... is actually something wonderful. I have probably put Poets of the Fall on every single mix I've made since I discovered them in 2008. I've never found them to be a bitter pill for anyone so far.

Oddly enough, one of my favorite memories about Poets of the Fall includes none other than the German exchange student Christian, mentioned in my last post. It was I who infected him with Poets and it was he who suggested that we celebrate his first American Halloween by dressing as the characters from the (iconic, fabulous and really cool) music video for "Carnival of Rust". I hadn't really dressed up for Halloween in years, but I told him that if he was serious, I would make it happen. In retrospect, that project was the highlight of our acquaintance. Together we tracked down a sandy-colored sport coat for him, and a gas mask for me. He wore slacks and a hat he already owned. I borrowed a dress from my sister, and a large porcelain dolly from my grandma, and made myself an oversized pinwheel lollipop.

Christian expressed some concern that we would not be recognizable. I had already resigned myself to this and didn't mind, but one afternoon a few days before our party debut, I cut out of red and black felt, in Gothic lettering, the letters to spell "Carnival of Rust" and pinned them across the yoke of his jacket. And intimacy, thy name is applying makeup to another person! (Or otherwise using another person's earth-suit as your canvas.) It was with great tenderness and delight that I painted his face white with powder from Hot Topic and black with who-knows-what to crack the mask like porcelain.

And thanks to whoever took this picture. It's somehow the only one I have of that night.

At the themed milonga we walked before the judges for the costume contest, competing for best duo, and Christian now told me he was afraid we would be passed over: "They will think we are too creepy!" By this, I think, he may have meant "too obscure a reference", but lo, the first prize went to "Those two, whatever they are." Never a prouder moment that year. We took our spoils (a bottle of wine and a big bag of peanut M&M's) back to his house and consumed them according to our appetites (wine for one, candy for both) and talked about linguistics and philosophy and language barriers. Some of my favorite topics, apart from music.

This would have been a postlude to what I thought of as our friendship. What a way to make a last stand!

At another party we attended, Christian got so tired of being asked to explain his costume (which did seem to disturb the slightly buzzed state university students in their ironic half-costumes and skimpy princess outfits), that he took to simply saying "I'm a creep!" I think, this time, he may have meant "I'm an eerie living fortune-telling mannequin from a steampunk music video by an amazing Finnish rock band- you wouldn't understand." I myself never minded being an obscure reference for Halloween. The truth is, in those times of trying to fit into social circles where I didn't really belong, I wouldn't have been any more identifiable if I'd simply gone as myself.

Thank goodness for the lessons we learn from times like that. :)

I've shed a lot of who and what I thought I was during that period of my life, but the Poets of the Fall remain with me. They are my underdog band, the band with a devoted hometown crowd in their Scandinavian sector, the band with a handful of loving constituents here in on American soil. This is the band for whom I'm Jenny Appleseed, planting bits here and there, waiting for a legion of fans to grow (and a North American tour to be announced). If I had the cash I'd just go to them and hold the proverbial poster proclaiming my love in miles traveled. I listen to the Poets of the Fall because they are unique and uplifting, and I listen to them often.

The Spotify list is called "We Never Change Our Tune".

For Your Playlist: Side A
1. "Lift" from Signs of Life
2. "Carnival of Rust" from Carnival of Rust
3. "Dreaming Wide Awake" from Twilight Theatre
4. "Sorry Go 'Round" from Carnival of Rust

For Your Playlist: Side B
1. "Cradled in Love" from Temple of Thought
2. "The Ultimate Fling (The Director's Cut)" from Revolution Roulette
3. "Don't Mess With Me" (live) from the Carnival of Rust EP
4. "The Beautiful Ones" from the Lift EP

You can't listen to much of them on Spotify. As such, only half of these songs were in my original Poets of the Fall sampler list, but the ones filling the gaps are still pretty good, especially the live version of "Don't Mess With Me". PotF have 5 albums to date and they're each worth every cent, in my opinion. It's really hard to pick a favorite. They are all clearly the same band but each has kind of its own nuance, like a set of siblings that strongly resemble each other but are not quite twins:

Photo by Tami Webb

By the way, one of these is my wonderful Prince Genuine, and yes, I introduced him to Poets of the Fall too, and yes, he also likes them a lot. His favorite song is "Lift" which was kind of what I was hoping. :)

"My advice is to not let the boys in": Bob Dylan

Predictably, perhaps, this post begins with the beginning. In this case, it would have been the car, again, though which car I cannot quite say, nor could I pinpoint the year. I think it was before the tapes came out from the depths of the entertainment center, and well before the surviving vinyl came sneaking into the house. This may even have been before Dad bought me Fleetwood Mac, and maybe even before he tried to impress upon me the merits of James Taylor and Hall & Oates (how would he have guessed I'd pick Judas Priest and Ozzy over both of those respectable acts?*). I can tell you it was nighttime, and the whole family was in there, and Dad said he had a treat for us. He popped a CD in and admonished me to take note of the violin on this album. This seemed like an appropriate connection to make, since at the time I hadn't yet admitted to myself that I'd given up playing it.

Lo and behold, after a few measures of gentle, serious guitar, there it came- the low, husky voice of a violin with a story to tell. At first, I felt curious.

Then, that voice. Not particularly pleasant, especially not compared to the violin, which spiraled like ribbons around it. I put on my best sub-teen sour face and turned it toward the window. My siblings were equally, and more vocally, tickled to mockery by the singer. Mom was on his and Dad's side, and on the verge of chiding us on our poor taste, when the wording in the lyrics turned a little coarse. But in the end, good taste (and a dab of forgiveness for the aforementioned lyrics to "Hurricane") won out. Although it took months of hearing Desire in the car (Mom played "Mozambique" on endless repeat), and some of my own initiative, I ended up falling for Bob Dylan. Like anybody in their right musical mind does sooner or later. 

What was once in my mind was the most obnoxious song on that record, "Isis", is now one of my favorites. And when somebody asks me if anybody asked me about the very best Bob Dylan song, despite my modest gemlike collection of Bob Dylan's catalog, I have to again point to Desire and say the best song is "Sara".

If I have my history right, Desire was recorded at, well, record speed, and it came at a dramatic moment in Robert Zimmerman's personal life, too- his marriage was ending and his wife was in the studio when he recorded "Sara". It was a song for/about her. Again, if my memory serves, he only allowed for one cut of that song, because it was so personal and emotional. If this legend is true, its truth is supported in the recording. You can hear the sorrow and the love of something that was lost. 

I used to have a link to a video of some concert footage where he actually choked up a little in the middle, and you can see a escape his eye, but apparently it has been removed from YouTube for copyright issues. This version is less emotional compared to that, but I think my assessment still stands. 

Above all, I love Dylan's lyrics. I love that he can/could say more in a single song in the lyrical fashion of the bluesmen than some artists say in their entire careers. He changed the game more singlehandedly than anybody since the game was invented. The Beatles changed the way they wrote songs because he once said he'd like them better if their songs had any depth of content. Bowie wrote "Song for Bob Dylan" and put it on his Hunky Dory album, that "his words were truthful vengeance that could pin us to the floor."

Not that it's all been glory and roses where his track record is concerned- I once heard a critic's quote about his Christmas album that ran something like: "When Dylan sings 'I'll Be Home For Christmas' it sounds more like a threat than a promise." But again, that's part of being human, and you could expect nothing less from as fascinating and idiosyncratic an artist as he is. 

I did see him in concert, so to speak. I didn't catch much of the show, and if I felt vindictive I'd suggest you ask my baby sister why that is, but it suffices me to say that we were late and that's OK. The concert was at the Coliseum at the Arizona State Fair, which is a totally acceptable venue for acts that are not Bob Dylan. As it was, his voice rolled like a wave of thunder and static electricity through the place, with the static, unfortunately, winning out. I barely recognized the songs I arrived in time to hear, the sound was so bad. And I think it's a reasonable point to say that an already unique voice has not really aged that well. But I'm willing to let it slide, because he's freakin' Bob Dylan, rock's original anti-hero. (Other acts that came up short for some reason will not be so lucky, but we'll talk about that later.)

Here's why YOU should also like Bob Dylan (search for the playlist under the name "Don't Let the Boys In: Bob Dylan" on Spotify):

For Your Playlist: Side A

1. "Tangled Up In Blue" from Blood on the Tracks

2. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from Bringing It All Back Home

3. "The Times They Are A-Changin" from the album of the same title

4. "All Along the Watchtower" from John Wesley Harding

For Your Playlist: Side B

1. "Tombstone Blues" from Highway 61 Revisited

2. "Thunder on the Mountain" from Modern Times 

3.  "I Want You" from Blonde on Blonde

4. "Sara" from Desire

Don't Let the Boys In: Bob Dylan

*By the way, I appreciate James Taylor and Hall & Oates a lot more now than I did when I was twelve or thirteen. Might just go to show ya that sometimes it's the softer stuff that requires a more mature listener.