20 Bob Dylan Songs That Reflect a Legacy of A-Changin On the heels of Bob Dylan receiving a Berklee honorary doctorate, we take stock of one of the most singularly iconic catalogs in American music history.
November 17, 2025
By
Bryan Parys
Image by Val Wilmer/Getty Images
How do you summarize Bob Dylan?
Short answer: You don't.
For starters, there's the question of which Bob Dylan we're talking about-the folk troubadour, the folk traitor, the civil rights activist, the Christian convert, the Jewish re-convert, the Nobel Prize winner, and most recently, the Berklee honorary Doctor of Music. And then there's the name Bob Dylan itself, which is just one of many pseudonyms-Elston Gunn, Boo Wilbury, and Jack Frost, to name a few-for the man born in 1941 as Robert Zimmerman.
Bob Dylan receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2012 for his significant contributions to civil rights and culture (novelist and fellow awardee Toni Morrison looks on from the lower left).
Public domain image by Bill Ingalls/NASA
Take a quick glance at the song titles and lyrics throughout his career, and this fluidity and refusal to be defined starts to make more sense: wind blowing, stones rolling, times changing. Whenever we think we know who he is, he's there to say it ain't me, babe.
Unpredictability has been the one constant throughout a career that is now in its sixth decade. His chameleonic artistic impulses and reticence to give interviews created a fervent fanbase that prefigures the kind of obsessive commentary now commonplace on the internet. Before the Beyhive or the Barbz, there were Dylanologists, one of whom received a restraining order after he wouldnt stop rifling through Dylans garbage. He's led his public life in such a confounding way that the only sure bet toward understanding him is to turn to his music.
Which is why, in addition to awarding Dylan an honorary degree, Berklee recently paid tribute to Dylan through the Signature Series concert Watching the River Flow: A Roots Salute to Bob Dylan, produced by Matt Glaser, artistic director of the Americana Roots Program. Like the legend's catalog itself, the concert spanned many genres, including rock, gospel, blues, and jazz, with a throughline of the roots and Americana styles that first drew Dylan to a life in music.
In the following playlist, take a listen to some of the original versions of the songs featured in the performance, along with other songs that show the radical depth and breadth of a career that continues to be less about the answers, and more about the wind.
Authors Note: I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my colleague Annette Fantasia and the musician and poet Patrick Weatherly, who, when I casually asked separately if they had any recommendations for Dylan songs that had to be on this playlist, both sent me massive documents of their own thoughts-a combined 6,000+ words. If you have any Dylanologists in your life, ask them for their favorite song. Better pull up a comfortable chair.
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20 Bob Dylan Songs That Reflect a Legacy of A-Changin On the heels of Bob Dylan receiving a Berklee honorary doctorate, we take stock of one of the most singularly iconic catalogs in American music history.
