10 Songs You Must Hear (That Are Under Two Minutes)
8. Oxford Town Bob Dylan
Written for a magazine looking for a song about James Meredith a black student who was enrolled into the University of Mississipp yet beautifully avoiding mention of the either the university or the boy and thus giving it a wider socio-political resonance, Oxford Town is the shortest song on The Freewheelin, coming in at about a minute and a half. The musics simplicity and contrastingly troubled lyrics lend it a wonderful balance of lightness and depth, and Dylan himself claims the slight ambiguity in the words is deliberate: It deals with the Meredith case, but then again it doesn't... I wrote that when it happened, and I could have written that yesterday. It's still the same. A strong amount of thought to apply to a song so short; the sort of thing few artists other than Dylan could do so effortlessly. Length 1:32
A mythical hedonist, a chronic solipsist, a poet armed with a mouth full of adjectives, a brain full of adverbs and a box full of laxatives. Writing words in a language that isn't real to impress people that I invented since The Big Bang.
