4 Excellent Bob Dylan Album Closers You Might Have Overlooked

When you’ve amassed a catalog as vast as Bob Dylan’s, you’ll inevitably end up with two tiers of recordings. There are songs that are well-known even to casual fans. And then there are those songs that slip under the radar to all but devoted backers.

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In terms of Bob Dylan’s greatest album closers, it would be easy to cite evergreens like “Desolation Row” and “Every Grain Of Sand”. But we’re going off the beaten path to reveal four outstanding closing tracks that you might not know if you’re not deep into Dylanology.

“Restless Farewell” from ‘The Times They Are A-Changin” (1964)

Dylan devoted most of his 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin’ to incendiary protest songs (“Only A Pawn In Their Game”, “The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll”) and woebegone songs of lost love (“Boots Of Spanish Leather”, “One Too Many Mornings”). But the closing track, “Restless Farewell”, comes off like a statement of individual purpose. It manages to be defiant and unapologetic without making the narrator sound unsympathetic. Dylan trotted this song out to play at Frank Sinatra’s 80th birthday celebration. Perhaps he sensed Ol’ Blue Eyes would appreciate the sentiment.

“Buckets Of Rain” from ‘Blood On The Tracks’ (1975)

On top of being one of the most striking albums about relationship squabbles ever delivered, Blood On The Tracks stands out for being a collection of songs that grab you by the lapel and demand your attention. Even on some of the quieter tracks, Dylan maintains a hushed intensity that keeps you in its thrall. But the closing track, “Buckets Of Rain”, ambles about in almost unassuming fashion. After all the violent emotions that have coursed through the other songs, the narrator here almost shrugs its shoulders at it all. The counterintuitive ending delivers the ideal finishing touch to this masterpiece of a record.

“Dark Eyes” from ‘Empire Burlesque’ (1985)

It might be a bit gracious to call Dylan’s 1985 Empire Burlesque polarizing. We think it’s underrated, but you’ll probably discover that a good portion of Dylan’s fandom was turned off by the 80s production embellishments all over the songs. But for the final song, Bob jumped into the time machine and recorded it with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica like the old days. And what a beauty of a song it turned out to be. “Dark Eyes” features a narrator who can’t quite come to grips with societal norms and finds himself out on an island. “All I see are dark eyes,” Dylan laments in the touching refrains.

“Ain’t Talkin’” from ‘Modern Times’ (2006)

Since Dylan delivered his comeback album Time Out Of Mind in 1997, his consistency level has been as high as it’s ever been over a long stretch of time. There’s not an album in his last six of original material that’s been anything close to a clunker. The problem is that they’ve all been so great that individual albums from that stretch have a hard time standing out as classics. Modern Times, released in 2006, delivered typically sharp stuff from Dylan. That includes “Ain’t Talkin’”, the stunner of a closing track. The narrator roams the Earth like a postapocalyptic Clint Eastwood, hell-bent on revenge while knowing that he’s damned no matter what.

Photo by Val Wilmer/Redferns