Track Listing

1. Watching the river flow
2. Don't think twice it's alright
3. Lay lady lay
4. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again
5. I'll be your baby tonight
6. All I really want to do
7. My back pages
8. Maggie's farm
9. Tonight I'll be staying here with you
10. She belongs to me
11. All along the watchtower
12. Mighty Quinn
13. Just like Tom Thumb's blues
14. Hard rain's a gonna fall
15. If not for you
16. It's all over now baby blue
17. Tomorrow is a long time
18. When I paint my masterpiece
19. I shall be released
20. You ain't goin' nowhere
21. Down in the flood

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14992 in Music
• Released on: 1996-06-03
• Number of discs: 2

Customer Reviews

Glaring omission from an ace set.
If you want a great intro to Dylan, this is a pretty good collection. Be aware, however, that one of his finest, spiky, bitter and twisted songs, "Positively 4th Street", ought to be on here (it's on the vinyl) but isn't. It was a single release from 1965, and still gets airplay from the better DJs; if you like the rest of these songs, and you hear "4th Street" on the radio, you'll want to get it too. Sadly you won't find it easily; it's on the later "Essential" compilation, and it's on Biograph, but that's it, CD-wise. So compare the tracklistings carefully before you choose.

One of the strongest compilation albums of all time
The 21 tracks on this 1972 release are the same as on 1971's "Greatest Hits, vol. II", and both albums are greatest hits-compilations only in the loosest sense of the word.
1966's "Greatest Hits" was excactly that, Dylan's greatest hits, but this is much more - and in a way even better.

"More Greatest Hits" compile genuine hit singles, rarities and album tracks, making this double album one of the strongest releases in the Dylan catalogue.It starts off with the non-album track "Watching The River Flow" (covered by Joe Cocker among others), which is one of Dylan's best rock songs, and one of the highlights of the album (well, they're pretty much all highlights). And it's this mixture of singles and non-singles that makes this such a fabulous album...it shows the incredible breadth and depth of Dylan's talent much better than a literal hits compilation could have done.

Other highlights include "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again" (one of the longer titles in popular music!), a live version of another non-LP track, "When I Paint My Masterpiece", the simple, country-ish "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight", and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". But as I said, they're really all highlights. "My Back Pages", "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "I Shall Be Released", "If Not For You", "Lay, Lady, Lay", "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You", "The Mighty Quinn"....well, you get the picture.

On most of these songs, Dylan is backed by other musicians, making them more immediately accessible than his earliest, sometimes rather harsh folk songs.
All in all, this is a super CD, and should not be missed. "More Greatest Hits" features some of the very best songs recorded by popular music's greatest and most versatile talent, and it proves that there was much, much more to Bob Dylan than just an angry protest singer with a harmonica rack and a handful of weird, stream-of-consciousness narratives.

A remarkable collection of underappreciated songs
I was busy learning how to breathe and walk about the time this second Greatest Hits album was released in 1971, so this period of Bob Dylan’s career was quite unknown to me when I became a fan as a teenager. I was familiar with early classics such as Blowin’ in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone, but the songs featured on this Greatest Hits Volume 2 package have been somewhat overlooked over the years. What few Dylan songs I would hear on the radio were the early wonders featured on the original Greatest Hits album. Thus, this 2-CD set of songs has helped fill a real void in my musical knowledge and experience. Dylan’s remarkable versatility and diverse means of delivering his message are revealed in this collection of songs hand-picked by the man himself. There is great variety here, from up-tempo tracks such as Maggie’s Farm and The Mighty Quinn to slow, romantic ballads like Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You and If Not For You to long, story-telling songs such as Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall which bear traces of stream-of-consciousness revelatory wonder. What strikes me the most here, though, is the dramatic difference in Dylan’s vocal delivery. Tunes such as Lay, Lady, Lay and Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You feature a rather smooth, even refined voice that bears only a slight resemblance to the gritty vocals of Dylan’s youth and the gravelly potency of his later releases.

The very notion of “greatest hits” almost seems beneath Dylan’s standards. A Dylan “hit” is not necessarily a song that topped the charts; each of these songs is a hit because of the incredible writing and singing that gave it life. Some of these tracks weren’t even popularized by Bob Dylan: All Along the Watchtower, for example, immediately brings to mind Jimi Hendrix. Notwithstanding this, each of these 21 tracks belong heart and soul to the man who wrote them and performed them in his unmatched, unique way. The most significant of these tracks, in my opinion, are Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again, My Back Pages, Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, and It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about this compilation, though, is its inclusion of the powerful, previously unreleased recordings Watching the River Flow, Tomorrow Is a Long Time (a live version from 1963, no less), the incredible When I Paint My Masterpiece, I Shall Be Released, You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere, and Down in the Flood.

I think a person needs to have a degree of appreciation of Bob Dylan before introducing himself to the songs on this second volume of his greatest hits. Start with his early classics and/or his critically acclaimed albums of the late 90s and early twenty-first century. Once you are properly grounded in Dylanology, you will marvel at the talent and power displayed on the somewhat neglected and definitely underappreciated tracks featured on this Greatest Hits Volume 2 compilation.