Bob Dylan Love Songs

Crooning in his back of the throat voice, Dylan’s song about love and loss from Nashville Skyline is one of his finest. The melody is sublime, despite the songs inherent sadness. The bridge has an almost Beatlesque quality to it. A stand out ballad on an otherwise upbeat record.

Blood on the Tracks is Dylan’s love lament, and this song completely delivers. Told as a story between two lovers, Simple Twist of Fate goes in and out of a narrative and first person story. Some of Dylan’s finest lyrics—“They sat together in the park / as the evening sky grew dark / he looked around and he felt a spark / tingle to his bones./ ‘Twas then he felt alone…” Ahh…bliss.

Maybe one of Dylan’s only straight-up feel good love songs. Off of Blonde on Blonde, I Want You is fast and furious. Great feel. Impossible not to sing along without imitating “soooo baaaad.”

Off of his latest masterpiece, When The Deal Goes Down isn’t exactly a love song. It’s more of “I lost you, but we’ll be together again once we’re….dead.” Okay, not very romantic. But the song is starkly beautiful and moving.

Produced by Daniel Lanois, Time Out of Mind has a distinctively ethereal sound. Standing in the Doorway is well over 7 minutes long, and each verse tells the story of a lover lost. It’s perhaps one of the most devastating and powerful songs on the record, and perhaps Dylan’s entire catalogue.

Reportedly written for his ex-wife, Sara ends the album Desire. The song, like all on the record, has a distinctive sound using a violin as a centerpiece. Dylan name checks another one of his most powerful love songs when he sings “stayin up for days in the Chelsea hotel / writing Sad Eyed Lady for the low-lands for you.”

Perhaps Dylan’s most famous ballad, Shelter From the Storm is as much about love as it is about loss. Each verse grows the tale of falling in and out of love. On Blood on the Tracks, this song is the centerpiece to Dylan’s most personal, and confessional record.