Biograph (1985)


 

Disc One
  1. Lay Lady Lay
  2. Baby Let Me Follow You Down
  3. If Not For You
  4. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
  5. I'll Keep it With Mine
  6. The Times They Are A-Changin'
  7. Blowin' in the Wind
  8. Masters of War
  9. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
  10.Percy's Song
  11.Mixed Up Confusion
  12.Tombstone Blues
  13.The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar
  14.Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)
  15.Like a Rolling Stone
  16.Lay Down Your Weary Tune
  17.Subterranean Homesick Blues
  18.I Don't Believe YOu (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
  
Disc Two
  1. Visions of Johanna
  2. Every Grain of Sand
  3. Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
  4. Mr. Tamborine Man
  5. Dear Landlord
  6. It Ain't Me Babe
  7. You Angel You
  8. Million Dollar Bash
  9. To Ramona
  10.Your a Big Girl Now
  11.Abandoned Love
  12.Tangled Up in Blue
  13.It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
  14.Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
  15.Positively 4th Street
  16.Isis
  17.Jet Pilot
  
Disc Three
  1. Caribbean Wind
  2. Up to me
  3. Baby, I'm in the Mood for You
  4. I Wanna Be Your Lover
  5. I Want You
  6. Heart of Mine
  7. On a Night Like This
  8. Just Like a Woman
  9. Romance in Durango
  10.Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)
  11.Gotta Serve Somebody
  12.I Believe in You
  13.Time Passes Slowly
  14.I Shall Be Released
  15.Knockin' on Heaven's Door
  16.All Along the Watchtower
  17.Solid Rock
  18.Forever Young

 

Released in 1985, Biograph marked not just a milestone in Bob Dylan’s career, but a watershed moment in the history of recorded music. If the term "box set" was not yet fully canonized at the time, this release gave it both shape and precedent. In scope, ambition, and design, Biograph became the blueprint by which all subsequent anthology collections would be judged: a comprehensive career overview blending canonical hits with rarities, alternate takes, and long-lost gems.

Though Dylan's catalogue had already begun to sprawl across decades, Biograph distilled his formidable body of work into three densely packed discs, weaving a loose but purposeful narrative through 53 tracks. The collection is not rigorously chronological, but it moves with a sense of evolving time—early recordings weighted toward the beginning, with later-period selections appearing further on. It is less a timeline than a journey through shifting identities, each track a signpost on the road of Dylan’s continuous reinvention.

If there is a flaw in the set, it lies only in its necessary limitations. Even by the mid-1980s, Dylan's recorded output far exceeded the capacity of any standard anthology, and inevitably, some beloved tracks are conspicuously absent. Yet the curatorial principle seems sound: this is not a “greatest hits” album in the conventional sense, but rather a biography in sound—an attempt to capture the essence of an artist not merely by what he released, but also by what he withheld.

The most compelling aspect of Biograph may be its unreleased material. From discarded studio cuts to revelatory alternate versions, these selections affirm what many fans and critics had long suspected: that Dylan’s outtakes often rival, and sometimes surpass, the songs he officially released. Even without delving into the later Bootleg Series, this collection makes a strong case for Dylan as a vault of creative excess—an artist whose "cutting room floor" would be the envy of any songwriter.

Moreover, Biograph offers listeners an opportunity to witness not just Dylan’s stylistic shifts—from protest to electric, gospel to postmodern abstraction—but the sheer magnitude of his range. The selections span acoustic minimalism and full-band bombast, sardonic wit and aching sincerity, all stitched together by a voice that continually resists being pinned to a single moment or meaning.

By the time of its release, Dylan’s pace had already begun to slow. The box set arrived as both a retrospective and, in some sense, a pause—a moment to take stock before the next transformation. For longtime devotees, it was a confirmation of his genius; for newcomers, an ideal point of entry. In either case, Biograph remains a monumental and deeply rewarding achievement, one of the earliest and most effective portraits of an artist rendered not in ink or image, but in sound.


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