Since, according to the A.V. Club, everybody’s doing it and since it would tie thematically (very loosely) to another post this week (The theme? Arbitrary music lists!), I’ve decided to attempt to compile a list of one album from each year I’ve been alive. Presumably, most of these should be albums I listened to at the time or have since grown fond of. Having grown up in the ’80s, this could be tough….

1982 - Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen

1983 - “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Weird Al” Yankovic

1984 - Stop Making Sense, Talking Heads

1985 - Greatest Hits, The Cars

1986 - Then & Now… The Best of The Monkees, The Monkees

1987 - Cloud Nine, George Harrison

1988 - Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, Traveling Wilburys

1989 - Oh Mercy, Bob Dylan

1990 - Ragged Glory, Neil Young and Crazy Horse

1991 - The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3, Bob Dylan

1992 - Free At Last, dc Talk

1993 - World Gone Wrong, Bob Dylan

1994 - Wildflowers, Tom Petty

1995 - The Beatles Anthology Volume 1, The Beatles

1996 - Bringing Down The Horse, The Wallflowers

1997 - Time Out Of Mind, Bob Dylan

1998 - The Bootleg Series Volume 4, Bob Dylan

1999 - Looking Forward, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

2000 - Heartbreaker, Ryan Adams

2001 - “Love & Theft”, Bob Dylan

2002 - Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, Bright Eyes

2003 - Elephant, The White Stripes

2004 - The Delivery Man, Elvis Costello

2005 - Cold Roses, Ryan Adams and The Cardinals

2006 - Rabbit Fur Coat, Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins

2007 - tie: Icky Thump, White Stripes; The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, Josh Ritter

2008 - Seeing Things, Jakob Dylan

Okay, a few things. I’ve lived through some terrible, terrible times in music. The first five years are a crapshoot, though I know for a fact that I was listening to that Monkess cassette when it came out or very shortly thereafter. I think I heard that Weird Al album when I was a kid, though I was more familiar with his mid-career work (Bad Hair Day, etc.). I’d say 1995 marks the year that my music-listening caught up with current releases: pretty much everything from then on I heard right when it was released or shortly thereafter.  Before that, only 1986 and 1992 were years that I managed to stay current (at least current with the best that those two years had to offer).  The problem (or one of them) with this type of list is that there are naturally up years and down years.  For 1989, who could decide from among Oh Mercy, Neil Young’s Freedom, and Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever (which would have given Jeff Lynne a production triple crown for ‘87-‘89)?  Jenny Lewis managed to beat out Bob Dylan’s Modern Times in 2006, but Gillian Welch couldn’t pull off the upset in 2001.  Is Rabbit Fur Coat better than Time (The Revelator)?  No, Bob and Gillian (not to mention Ryan Adams’s Gold) managed to top anything that 2006 had to offer (or in Bob’s case, he failed to top himself).  By 2007, you might say I gave up or at least gave in and declared a tie; well, I challenge you to make that same call, especially with Allison Krauss & Robert Plant’s Raising Sand floating around as a third possibility.  Anyway, I’d already lost since I named five compilation albums to the list.  Conclusion: this has been a futile exercise that I’ve spent parts of a week on.  I challenge you to do better.

I was flipping through the car radio Sunday afternoon when, surprisingly enough, I came upon “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” (this was on WUMB, the only radio station I know of that would ever play this song). I was stunned moments later to find that my navigator/co-pilot had never heard the song. That famous false start and Tom Wilson’s uncontrollable laughter (later nicked by Ryan Adams to kickstart Heartbreaker). Jabs at The Beatles and the counterculture bookending a leap over a hot dog stand. An alternative American history that serves, essentially, as a preamble to the state of the union that was and is Highway 61 Revisited. How could she not have heard this song?!

Well, the answer, of course, is that most normal people, even those who do actually listen to Bob Dylan, haven’t heard every song he’s ever released (along with some he hasn’t). Since I have now been reminded of this little fact, I have decided to compile a list of Dylan songs that every music fan should know but may not because they are hidden on albums that wouldn’t make most Top 100 (or 500 {or 1000}) Album lists. In response to someone telling me once that they had never heard a particular song (I think it was The Beatles’ “Revolution”), I said that it should be played in hospital nurseries so everyone is aware of it. I won’t be using such a lofty guideline here; instead, I’ll say you should, if you own an mp3 player, go to your online music store of choice and download these songs, as you may not want to make (and some of them may not be worthy of) the financial commitment to the whole album. In other words, these are essential songs on, for lack of a better term, non-essential albums.

(For the record, “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” will not appear on this list since it is from one of Bob’s essential albums, Bringing It All Back Home. I’m still not sure how that one could slip through the cracks.)

1. Song To Woody, Bob Dylan - Bob borrows a tune from a Woody Guthrie song to write a song to Woody Guthrie.  I wonder if he ever heard it.

2. Tomorrow Is A Long Time,  Greatest Hits, Volume 2 - a more straightforward companion to “Boots Of Spanish Leather.”

3. When I Paint My Masterpiece,  Greatest Hits, Volume 2 - Bob dodges lions and yearns for a Coke.

4. Tough Mama, Planet Waves - Every part of this song sounds like a chorus, but it doesn’t have one.  How do you do that?

5. Idiot Wind, Hard Rain - In case you couldn’t tell from the cover, Bob’s angry.

6. Senor (Tales of Yankee Power), Street Legal - “Son, this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing.”

7. Solid Rock, Saved - Testify.

8. I and I, Infidels - Bob cobbles.

9. Tangled Up In Blue, Real Live - “Tangled” has been at least four great songs.

10. Dark Eyes, Empire Burlesque - written about a “call girl,” and “Poor wretch” according to Bob in Chronicles, Volume 1.

11. Abandoned Love, Biograph - An even better version exists that Bob performed after taking the stage from Ramblin’ Jack Elliot at The Bitter End.  This one will do, though.

12. Caribbean Wind, Biograph - One of several songs on this list that could embarrass most artists, given that Bob chose not to release it initially.

13. Up To Me, Biograph - left off of Blood On The Tracks, an album of mysterious decisions.

14. Man in the Long Black Coat, Oh Mercy - written in New Orleans after a man named Sun Pie gave him a WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPA bumper sticker.  I’m not making this up: Bob might have.

15. Every Grain Of Sand, The Bootleg Series, Volume 3 - Bob on piano, dog on background vocals.

16. Blind Willie McTell, The Bootleg Series, Volume 3 - Bob borrows a tune from “St. James Infirmary” and warps it into a song to Blind Willie McTell.  Everyone should hear this.

I think that’s a fairly tidy list. I tried to be as discriminate as possible. I didn’t include songs that can be found on “Greatest Hits” or “Best of” collections, with the obvious exception of 2 and 3 on the list. Greatest Hits, Volume 2 is an odd collection: it came out in 1971 but includes mostly songs that were released prior to the original Greatest Hits, which had come out only four years earlier anyway. In addition, the double-album includes a couple of previously unreleased older recordings and a few new songs: “Tomorrow Is A Long Time” and “When I Paint My Masterpiece” are the best of those. Some may argue with my distinction of “essential” and “non-essential” (Isn’t Infidels essential? Is Modern Times truly essential?) Basically, if an album had three or more songs that I thought people should know, then, for the purposes of this list, I disregarded it and considered it worthy of full purchase for casual fans (with Biograph, a three-disc boxed set, being the exception here). All in all, I would say this post was non-essential.

Here is a brief list of songs to brighten your Independence Day before the fireworks light up your Independence Night (so poetic…).

1. Tears Of Rage - Bob Dylan & The Band, The Basement Tapes, 1975 (recorded 1967)

A condensed Shakespearean drama with a rare Bob Dylan/Richard Manuel co-writing credit.  This might not be the way to kick things off if you’re planning a mix.

2. New York, New York - Ryan Adams, Gold, 2001

I don’t think it’s cool anymore to like this song if you’re a Ryan Adams fan, and it may not even be cool to like Ryan Adams anymore.  I’ll take both strikes.  Bonus points for immediately preceding a song called “Firecracker.”

3. American Gangster Time - Elvis Costello, Momofuku, 2008

Leave it to a non-citizen to dedicate a song’s entire refrain to flag etiquette.  This works on a generally patriotic level.

4. Like A Hurricane - Neil Young, American Stars ‘N Bars, 1977

This song has been caught in my head and was released on an album with what is clearly a very patriotic title.  Does this list even make sense?

Falling just short of this list is Martina McBride’s “Independence Day,” mostly because it’s a schlocky hickory-dickory-doo of a song and, essentially, the anti-“Stand By Your Man” (which, of course, could have been a good thing in surer hands).

Happy 4th of July!