10 Most Underrated Bob Dylan Songs
3. All The Tired Horses
Fifty years and change after its release, people still aren’t clear exactly what to make of Self Portrait. The album was released to a critical mauling, with songs sounding dashed off and flimsy. After the fact, Dylan claimed the album was a joke on those who deified him, which simultaneously sounds like something he’d do and a handy excuse.
“All The Tired Horses” starts the album off with unmatchable quality. One of the most beautiful tracks Dylan has ever recorded, it doesn’t feature his voice at all (hence the beauty), but rather a trio of women who repeat the song’s two line mantra for its three minute duration.
The instrumentation is warm and varied - guitars strum, a string section introduces itself piece by piece. It’s a strange song, one of the most conventionally pretty melodies Dylan has ever engaged in, but it’s quite clearly neither a spoof nor a throwaway.
Indeed it’s in many ways the least Dylan-esque track in his oeuvre, minimising his greatest power - language - and allowing a gorgeous, simple tune to do his talking for him.