My Dylan top five

I’m ready with my final list of Bob Dylan’s top five songs. How can I resist? I’ve tried to rank them in some kind of order, but it’s hard to do.

Mind you, I’m not saying these are his best or most important songs. I think most of us would agree that “Like a Rolling Stone,” from “Highway 61 Revisited” (1965), is both, but it’s been so overplayed that I usually change the station. (But I’ll listen to the “Royal Albert Hall” version from 1966 anytime, with Zimmy’s barely audible “Play fucking loud!” admonition at the beginning.) Rather, these are the Dylan songs I most like to listen to right now. That could change.

With that caveat, here we go.

1. “Tombstone Blues.” (From “Highway 61.”) Dylan at the absolute top of his form. From start to finish, “Highway 61” features the best singing of his career. You may not like his voice, but he’s got a sense of timing that Miles Davis and Charlie Parker — not to mention Snoop Dogg — could appreciate. On “Tombstone Blues,” Mike Bloomfield’s howling guitar and Al Kooper’s zonked-out organ compete for attention. Similar to “Rolling Stone,” but more unhinged. “The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken” anticipates Robert Duvall in “Apocalypse Now” by 14 years.

2. “Not Dark Yet.” (From “Time Out of Mind,” 1997.) Not a merely a sentimental pick. I’ve found Dylan’s latter-years revival to be as enjoyable as any period of his career. Someone — I think it was in the New Yorker — once described “Not Dark Yet” as the first great rock song of old age, and he was right. The somewhat clichéd lyrics mask a depth and sadness that emerges only after repeated listens. And the instrumental passage, though it may be more Daniel Lanois’ doings than Dylan’s, is as moving as anything that’s ever appeared on a Dylan album. Distant drums, signaling that the Reaper is at hand.

3. “Chimes of Freedom.” (From “Another Side of Bob Dylan,” 1964.) I somewhat reluctantly dropped “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” to make room for my only choice from Dylan’s acoustic period. I don’t like Dylan’s early message songs, including “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” (Sorry, Esther.) “Chimes” seems like a message song, but it’s actually as poetically obscure as anything he’s ever written — like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” but more evocative. “Mad mystic hammering” and “the wild cathedral evening” indeed. Chills, thrills.

4. “Idiot Wind.” (From “Blood on the Tracks,” 1975.) Maybe not the most accomplished song on this, his best album (along with “Highway 61”). But “Tangled Up in Blue” has been overplayed, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” is overly mannered and “You’re a Big Girl Now,” wonderful as it is, is just a bit too polite. “Idiot Wind” is a howl of anger and anguish. And the media critic in me can’t help but fall for the opening line: “Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press.”

5. “Thunder on the Mountain.” (From “Modern Times,” 2006.) Dylan the wordsmith is all the way back here, growling over a Chuck Berry beat about everything from Alicia Keys to “suck[ing] the milk out of a thousand cows.” As biting as “Tombstone Blues,” but with a sense of humanity and humor, too. Not exactly linear, but there are some amazing lines that stick with you. One could serve as an epitaph for his career: “Gonna sleep over there, that’s where the music’s coming from/ I don’t need any guide, I already know the way.”

What? Nothing from “Blonde on Blonde” (1966)? Sadly, no. A great album, but I’m going to have to give it a pass. (“Visions of Johanna” tempts me, though.) But let’s face it — I could compile Dylan top fives for a month, and come up with something different every time.

Heck, I could do a top five just from songs he never put on proper albums: “Series of Dreams,” “Blind Willie McTell,” “Positively Fourth Street,” “Up to Me” and “I Shall Be Released.” How’s that? For most people, those five outtakes would add up to a brilliant career.