Ten ultrashort Dylan songs

Mind Map © Hans Buskes

Telling a story in less than 2 minutes?

If you would ask me to sum up Dylan’s short songs (let’s say around or less than 2 minutes), I would come up with Father of Night, Subterranean Homesick Blues and that’s about it. An automated mind map analysis (Jet Pilot, 0:49 and 69 words, is not included in the mind map, because it’s only a fragment) reveal there is a whole bunch of short songs and some interesting facts about them:

1. the shortest is indeed Father of Night (1:27)
2. 90 % of the songs stem from the period 1967-1970
3. Subterranean Homesick Blues is not in the top 10
4. among them some of Dylan’s finest songs

Tolstoy was famous for his very short stories. In the Netherlands there is a new genre, ZKV (ultrashort stories), telling a story in as few words as possible. Does Dylan succeed in the ultrashort songs? Yes he does. Listen for example to Father of Night and Crash in the levee (rediscovered this beautiful gem from Basement Tapes).

Imagine the length of all this 10 short songs equals the length of one song, Highlands.

Postscript

Many readers mail me about All the tired horses in the sun being the shortest song. In words yes (16 words) in length no (3:10). The song is longer than all the 10 songs mentioned.