Dylan Project Update

Bob Dylan The Times They Are a-Changin'

I'm still focusing on a Dylan album every few days...I know, I was going to devote a full week to each one, but the more I'd listen to one album the more it would make me want to hear something else by the man, so I spend 3 or 4 days with an album and then move on to another.
So far I've gone pretty deep into Another Side of Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I enjoyed both of those immensely, and for the past couple of days I've really enjoyed The Times They Are a-Changin'. It's definately one of Bob's most consistantly good albums, and I can't think of a single song on it that I don't really like. Standout tracks at this point are "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" (talk about BLEAK), "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (I've always liked that one), "Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather", "When the Ship Comes In" (I love all that Old Testament symbolic imagery) and "With God On Our Side".

So far so good in this "Dylan Project", but I'm a little worried about how I'm going to handle some of the later Dylan releases. I put on Before The Flood yesterday for a change of pace (from all the acoustic Dylan I'd been immersed in) and I thought it was awful (at least the first 6 or 7 songs, I turned it off after that). Maybe by the time I get around to it in the cycle I will have amassed the kind of respect for Dylan that will enable me to appreciate it.