The five funniest Bob Dylan lyrics
Among his exhaustive body of work, folk rock heavyweight Bob Dylan has plumbed every facet of the human condition, boasting some of the most acclaimed poetry across love, protest, countercultural upheaval, philosophy, and even some Christian born-again spirituality. Such weighty themes never get in the way of a good line, however. Scattered throughout his hefty oeuvre are witticisms and comedic set-ups that reflect Dylan’s unique and surreal humour.
Some of his biggest hits show Dylan leaning into the role of a whirlwind raconteur filled with colourful verbal collages that can trigger a laugh if you’re paying attention. ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues” expressionistic capture of 1960s tumult is a darkly hilarious rollercoaster swerving around drug busts, state violence, and political paranoia amid its Beat stream-of-consciousness sardonicism.
Dylan, at his best, can often lace his writing with absurdist scenarios and imagery. While not ‘haha’ funny, there’s a The Garden of Earthly Delights busyness to Bringing It All Back Home‘s ‘Gates of Eden’ with its details of screaming grey flannel dwarves and black motorcycle Madonnas, imbuing his eccentricity with heady existential fodder for his “sacrilegious lullaby” on salvation.
There’s also the laughs from falling flat on a bad lyric or stodgy collaboration. With a recording career spanning six decades, you can’t blame the vagabond for occasionally running out of steam, be it Dylan’s dally with hip-hop on Kurtis Blow’s ‘Street Rock’, the meandering snore-fest with Jerry Garcia on 1987’s Dylan & The Dead, or crises in writer’s block, penning songs about watching too much television on ‘TV Talkin’ Song’ or the same album’s ‘Wiggle Wiggle’, a baffling oddity in Dylan’s repertoire that’s almost knowingly provocative in its banality.
Five funniest Bob Dylan lyrics:
‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ (Bringing It All Back Home, 1965)
“The man said, ‘Get out of here, I’ll tear you limb from limb’. I said, ‘You know, they refused Jesus, too’, he said, ‘You’re not him’.”
Dylan and album producer Tom Wilson breaking into laughter, ruining the track’s take, sets the tone for ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’. A spiritual sequel of sorts to 1963’s ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream’, we’re taking on a topsy-turvy blast through American literacy and historical lore, zig-zagging frantically around Moby Dick, the Pilgrims, and Scottish pirates, in one of the best examples of his ‘talking blues’ cuts.
Lifting the veil on the mythology America drapes itself in, Dylan sets up a two-sentence scenario with biting satire, taking a swipe at religious dogma as well as the USA’s failure to live up to its “give me your poor your huddled masses” principles.
‘I Shall Be Free’ (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1962)
“He said, ‘My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?’ I said, ‘My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren’.”
Ending his sophomore album with a lighter, comedic piece contrasting with the record’s more solemn character, Dylan reworks the 19th-century folk song popularised via Lead Belly’s and Woody Guthrie’s ‘We Shall Be Free’ and explores the empty promises made from electoral candidates during every campaign, reaching out to a drunk voter and sweeping through numerous Hollywood stars of the era.
It could just be a satirical swipe at politicians bandying with stars of the era for populist appeal, or Dylan’s reeling off of glamour models in response to how the country can “grow” may well be a boner gag. Among such smart and literate lyrical collages, it’s nice to know even Dylan’s not above a nob joke.
‘Motorpsycho Nightmare’ (Another Side of Bob Dylan, 1964)
“I like Fidel Castro and his beard.”
Crafting a comic scenario composed of Psycho, La Dolce Vita, and the McCarthyism that plagued conservative America, Dylan indulges in the bawdy travelling salesman jokes, the narrator stays at a farmhouse on the condition he doesn’t touch the farmer’s tempting daughter, Rita.
Upon Rita’s offer of a shower “looking like Tony Perkins” (the actor who played Norman Bates), the narrator gets spooked and looks to alert the farmer’s attention, yelling out the most outrageous remark he could muster and chased out of the house for being an “unpatriotic rotten doctor Commie rat”. Poking fun at the Cold War paranoia of the era, it’s a line that’s surface-level funny and subversive, however deep you want to go.
‘Tombstone Blues’ (Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)
“The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken!”
In another dive into the blasphemous appropriation of the Bible’s biggest names, Dylan casts St Paul and John the Baptist rubbing shoulders with Jack the Ripper and Paul Rever’s horse in another tumbling narrative of crowded surreality, exploring mortality and exorcising the anxieties surrounding the Vietnam War.
Playing on the terms for cowardice, ‘chickenshit’ and ‘yellowbelly’, the line perfectly encapsulates Dylan’s gift for double-take lyrical cheap shots, appearing nonsensical but making sense in the gut over the brain. Spoken by the commander-in-chief while “chasing a fly”, one can’t help but read a devastating yet subtle condemnation of Lydon B Johnson’s chaotic foreign policy.
‘Bye and Bye’ (Love and Theft, 2001)
“I’m sittin’ on my watch, so I can be on time.”
Much analysis has been poured into this easy-listening cut, from a possible love letter to Americana roots music that no longer exists, mortality, or even a character on the verge of familicide, Dylan dresses the lyrical ambiguity in a deceptive Rat Pack, late-night swing dress-up, indulging in his admiration for Frank Sinatra in anticipating his follow-up Shadows in the Night.
It’s a simple line because it’s all it needs to be. Easily imagined quipped by Groucho Marx in his heyday, Dylan throws a dash of dry wit among the song’s nostalgic wistfulness, happy to hover between caricature and elder statesman of rock and pop when he sees fit.
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