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The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook (Bob Dylan) by Bob Dylan
The complete songbook from the greatest singer/songwriter of all time! Now with every song together in one giant volume, the ultimate Dylan songbook features over 329 tunes including all of his greatest hits as well as his lesser-known work. With melody line, chord symbols and full lyrics. Songs include Blowin in the Wind, Forever Young, Just Like a Woman, Mr. Tambourine Man, She Belongs to Me, Tangled Up in Blue, THe Times They Are Changin , Visions of Johanna and hundreds more.
- GenresMusicPoetryNonfiction
Paperback
First published October 1, 2000
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About the author
Bob Dylan
612 books1,520 followersBob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American singer-songwriter, author, musician, poet, and, of late, disc jockey who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of the anti-war and civil rights movements. His most recent studio album, Modern Times, released on August 29, 2006, entered the U.S. album charts at #1, making him, at age sixty five, the oldest living person to top those charts.
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature (2016).
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature (2016).
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 16, 2016
At U Minn I was entrusted with an "experimental section" of Freshman Comp in '68, and I gave daily writing assignments based on the Beatles and Bob Dylan. Irony, Dramatic Monologs/ Dialogs ("She's leaving Home"), Social critiques like "Nowhere Man," very Dylanesque, which the Beatles wrote after meeting Dylan, as Dylan wrote "Lay, Lady, Lay" (very McCartneylike) after meeting the Beatles.*
"Don't think twice, it's all right," includes the lines "You open your window, and I'll be gone/ You are the reason I'm travelin' on,/ but Don't think twice… Maybe his best line in the poem, "But Goodbye is too good a word now/ So I'll just say fare thee well…" It's a meta-linguistic line, something like the Beatles' punning "Blackbird," "You were only waiting for this Moment to Arise…" I think the Beatles' urbanity a match for Zimmerman-Dylan's symbols--the white dove sail, how many roads….Remember Dante started with one road, "Halfway down the road of my life," "Nel mezzo del cammin' di nostra vita…"
First time I saw Zimmerman in performance was my HS senior year; our clarinet player had a VW bug, and he drove three of us musicians up to Lenox to hear Joan Baez, who brought Dylan on stage to do a couple. I recall thinking he couldn't sing--esp compared to Baez-- but they were interesting songs. I believe I had seen either him or an imitator the Fall before in the Village, a NYC trip.
I believe I can speak for many in my generation trying to learn guitar in college, Hank Williams' "Weary Blues," but definitely "How Many Roads," and one of few real Dylan love songs, "Don't think Twice, it's all right." How many of us wished we could summon the will to leave with such grace, "you open your window, and I'll be gone…" How to part, take back love: a Palinode, the literary term. Maybe the best line in it, one capturing many teen relationships, "We never did too much talkin' anyway…" I must add a few of his early poems may have been written at the piano, for he played it in HS. And the HS Principal drew the curtain across his rock band. See the link below to his Hibbing HS and (later, Comm Coll) teacher.
I'm tempted to add the context of another U Minn grad student when I was there, and say Dylan in "Don't think twice" is leaving a girl in Lake Woebegone, but we doubt he'll stop at the Chatterbox Cafe. Why, I ask, is Bob Zimmerman more deserving of the literary Nobel than Mr Keilor? One other U of Minnesota teacher did get the Nobel, Saul Bellow, my advisor Leonard Unger's best friend in the 50's.
My Community College Pres Jack Hudnall was Dean at Hibbing Minn. Comm Coll. See
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/10...
Jack Hudnall knew the Zimmermans, who were depressed Bobby had dropped out of the U. As a comm coll teacher for almost forty years, I've always said, Bob Zimmerman should have gone to Hibbing Comm Coll; we could have made something of that boy.
*I think the Nobel Comm has opened a can of worms, because when I taught that course, and certain assignments from it over 25 years, the Beatles' poems always seemed slightly superior to Bob's, maybe in their urbanity. After all, for a Village Voice, Dylan retained lots of the N Minnesota boy, the folk element. Narrative stories like country western, but less predictable, less soap-operalike.
Oh, and serendipitous that Laureate Dario Fo dies the same day Robert Zimmerman was awarded the Nobel.
"Don't think twice, it's all right," includes the lines "You open your window, and I'll be gone/ You are the reason I'm travelin' on,/ but Don't think twice… Maybe his best line in the poem, "But Goodbye is too good a word now/ So I'll just say fare thee well…" It's a meta-linguistic line, something like the Beatles' punning "Blackbird," "You were only waiting for this Moment to Arise…" I think the Beatles' urbanity a match for Zimmerman-Dylan's symbols--the white dove sail, how many roads….Remember Dante started with one road, "Halfway down the road of my life," "Nel mezzo del cammin' di nostra vita…"
First time I saw Zimmerman in performance was my HS senior year; our clarinet player had a VW bug, and he drove three of us musicians up to Lenox to hear Joan Baez, who brought Dylan on stage to do a couple. I recall thinking he couldn't sing--esp compared to Baez-- but they were interesting songs. I believe I had seen either him or an imitator the Fall before in the Village, a NYC trip.
I believe I can speak for many in my generation trying to learn guitar in college, Hank Williams' "Weary Blues," but definitely "How Many Roads," and one of few real Dylan love songs, "Don't think Twice, it's all right." How many of us wished we could summon the will to leave with such grace, "you open your window, and I'll be gone…" How to part, take back love: a Palinode, the literary term. Maybe the best line in it, one capturing many teen relationships, "We never did too much talkin' anyway…" I must add a few of his early poems may have been written at the piano, for he played it in HS. And the HS Principal drew the curtain across his rock band. See the link below to his Hibbing HS and (later, Comm Coll) teacher.
I'm tempted to add the context of another U Minn grad student when I was there, and say Dylan in "Don't think twice" is leaving a girl in Lake Woebegone, but we doubt he'll stop at the Chatterbox Cafe. Why, I ask, is Bob Zimmerman more deserving of the literary Nobel than Mr Keilor? One other U of Minnesota teacher did get the Nobel, Saul Bellow, my advisor Leonard Unger's best friend in the 50's.
My Community College Pres Jack Hudnall was Dean at Hibbing Minn. Comm Coll. See
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/10...
Jack Hudnall knew the Zimmermans, who were depressed Bobby had dropped out of the U. As a comm coll teacher for almost forty years, I've always said, Bob Zimmerman should have gone to Hibbing Comm Coll; we could have made something of that boy.
*I think the Nobel Comm has opened a can of worms, because when I taught that course, and certain assignments from it over 25 years, the Beatles' poems always seemed slightly superior to Bob's, maybe in their urbanity. After all, for a Village Voice, Dylan retained lots of the N Minnesota boy, the folk element. Narrative stories like country western, but less predictable, less soap-operalike.
Oh, and serendipitous that Laureate Dario Fo dies the same day Robert Zimmerman was awarded the Nobel.
March 26, 2009
This songbook has an abundance of songs from the prolific Bob Dylan. But since it came out in 2001 and Bob is still writing (Thank God), it' not "complete".
Yet 325 of Bob's songs is a start.
A website that is superb when it comes to the exact chords that are used on the recordings is at:
http://dylanchords.info/
This site breaks all the songs down by albums.
If your a beginning guitar player or want to be and a Dylan fan, pick up this book or visit the above mentioned site, but eventually get the book. It's worth it.
When I started playing guitar I used Dylan's songs from his Freewheelin' period. They were simple chords and progressions, just what a beginner needs to keep them going.
Highly recommended!
Yet 325 of Bob's songs is a start.
A website that is superb when it comes to the exact chords that are used on the recordings is at:
http://dylanchords.info/
This site breaks all the songs down by albums.
If your a beginning guitar player or want to be and a Dylan fan, pick up this book or visit the above mentioned site, but eventually get the book. It's worth it.
When I started playing guitar I used Dylan's songs from his Freewheelin' period. They were simple chords and progressions, just what a beginner needs to keep them going.
Highly recommended!
September 10, 2011
If I get to see Jack Frost sometime in the present decade, then I will complete a run of SIX continuous decades of Bobness concerts. The reason I picked this songbook out the library was I spotted some song titles that didn't mean anything to me! There are over 325 in this collection.
To be expected everything is in standard tuning with chord boxes. The range is very extensive with Dylan songs from the very early catalogue with copyright dates in the early sixties right the way through to the late 1990's.
There are one or two arrangements in here that I have played in different keys. 'Arthur McBride' is given here in A and I prefer it in G, but all in all quite simple stuff, with timeless gems throughout.
To be expected everything is in standard tuning with chord boxes. The range is very extensive with Dylan songs from the very early catalogue with copyright dates in the early sixties right the way through to the late 1990's.
There are one or two arrangements in here that I have played in different keys. 'Arthur McBride' is given here in A and I prefer it in G, but all in all quite simple stuff, with timeless gems throughout.
September 6, 2012
What a body of work Mr. Bob Dylan has written! I saw Bob Dylan perform 2 weeks ago in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was highly impressed by his performance & his band.
These are some of the greatest songs ever written & the lyrics are some of the the greatest words ever put down by pen.
The book is in a lead-sheet/fake-book format with just melody in notation, lyrics, & chord symbols/guitar chord diagrams. To me, this format is perfect for formulating my own arrangements of Bob Dylan's songs.
I highly recommend this song book to everyone!
Peace,
James Murrell
http://www.jamesmurrellgtr.com
These are some of the greatest songs ever written & the lyrics are some of the the greatest words ever put down by pen.
The book is in a lead-sheet/fake-book format with just melody in notation, lyrics, & chord symbols/guitar chord diagrams. To me, this format is perfect for formulating my own arrangements of Bob Dylan's songs.
I highly recommend this song book to everyone!
Peace,
James Murrell
http://www.jamesmurrellgtr.com
December 26, 2012
One of my favorite ways to spend a free afternoon is flipping through the pages of this songbook with a guitar. Nobody compares to Bob Dylan. But nobody compares to you or me, either. Then again,"ain't no use in talking to me, just the same as talking to you. I'm everybody's brother and son. I ain't different than anyone." Bob Dylan is a master song writer and this book is gold.
September 21, 2012
The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook by Bob Dylan (Amsco Publications 2001)(782.42) ia huge! It contains close to 400 songs, and it has every Dylan song I've ever heard of. I finally understand the words to "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding." My rating: 6/10, finished 9/20/12.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews