nashville skyline

[13] Bob Dylan, ‘Lay Lady Lay’

Usually possessing the vocal warmth of a crow with a bandaged beak, Nashville Skyline found Dylan recovering from a shady motorcycle accident and experimenting with a new tone. He sounds like he’s gargling plums, but at least he’s trying to stick to the melody.

‘Lay Lady Lay’ is a sweaty plea for a bunk-up, but manages to be charming and delicate, with a slide guitar that sounds like the sun rising on lucky Bob and his worn-down conquest. The title line sounds like a yodel and is easily mimicked by Junior – she’s inhabiting the songs a little more these days rather than offering just the perfunctory shoe shuffle. She’ll be hissing ‘Positively 4th Street’ at her nursery mates before long.

[6] The Charlatans, ‘North Country Boy’

Junior was laughing again with this one. Coincidentally, I was singing. She rocked from side to side, like a chubby metronome, and was at one with The Charlatans’ good-time bluster. It’s a joyous record, sung with a smile on its lips. Their run of great singles was coming to an end, but it had been a cracking few years.

With this single, their Dylan passion was made flesh. The title’s a riff on ‘Girl From The North Country’, the sleeve’s a pastiche of Nashville Skyline’s, even Tim Burgess’s phrasing is the culmination of years of botched impressions.

Burgess has always been one for a bit of hero worship, from the Stone Roses through Dylan to, in recent years, Curtis Mayfield. He’s not gone as far as breaking his spine, though. Charlatan.