Your mercury mouth

No prizes for guessing the theme of this lyrics quiz, which is a kind of follow-up to Rob’s. With a couple of exceptions these aren’t memorable lines in themselves, but a lot of them are in the vicinity of memorable lines; I think overall it’s pretty easy.

1. And the whole world is on your case
   - “Make you feel my love” (JaneyG)
2. Come here and step into the light
   - “Highway 61 revisited” (ejh)
3. Don’t tell her it isn’t so
   - “If you see her say hello” (Rob)
4. Even the nobles get properly handled
   - “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (skidmarx)
5. He was staring into space
   - “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” (chjh)
6. He wasn’t too small and he wasn’t too big
   - “Man Gave Names To All The Animals” (JaneyG)
7. Hunted like a crocodile
   - “Shelter from the Storm” (chjh)
8. I know that Fortune is waiting to be kind
   - “Mississippi”
9. I wait for them to interrupt
   - “I want you” (Rob)
10. I’m a generous bomb
    - “Please Mrs Henry”
11. I’ve been to gay Paree
    - “Not dark yet” (Rob)
12. It makes you feel violent and strange
    - “No time to think”
13. It’s so hard to get on
    – “Visions of Johanna” (ejh)
14. Ninety-nine years he just don’t deserve
    - “Percy’s song” (Rob)
15. One bird book and a buzzard and a crow
    - “Tiny Montgomery” (chjh)
16. She’s so hard to recognise
    - “True love tends to forget” (JaneyG)
17. There’s a new day at dawn
    “Where are you tonight? (Journey through dark heat)” – chjh
18. When the children were babies
    - “Sara” (chjh)
19. White ladder all covered with water
    - “A hard rain’s a-gonna fall” (Rob)
20. You weren’t really from the farm
    - “(Sooner or Later) One of Us Must Know” (ejh)

Answers in comments.

Bonus question: what’s true (at the time of writing) of “All Along The Watchtower”, “Like A Rolling Stone”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Maggie’s Farm”, “Tangled Up In Blue” and “Blowin’ In The Wind” but no other songs? And which three songs are most likely to be added to this list?

Update 7 down, 13 to go (or 9 and 11 if Chris chips in his two guesses). Not that it helps, but #8 has been one of my favourite Dylan songs ever since I first heard it, at a folk club about five years ago; that folk club is also the only place I’ve ever heard #1, although I understand it’s become a bit of a standard. Apart from those, the only songs on the list with folkie connections are #4, #14 and #19; in the case of #7 I suspect a debt to “Lakes of Pontchartrain” (“If it weren’t for the alligators I’d sleep out in the wood”), but that may be a stretch.

Update 2 Ten of the remaining 13 songs first appeared on record within one five-year period. Hell of a period.

Update 3 9 down, 11 to go. (Five-year period: nine of the remaining 11.) Chris, do you want to take #7? (Never mind, chjh nabbed it.)

Update 4 7 left. Apart from #10, which chjh spotted as being on the Basement Tapes, they’re on five different albums, three of which have already had a track named (two tracks in one case).

Update 5 6 left; five different albums (including the Basement Tapes), two of which have already had a track named. (Nothing else off BotT, in other words.)

Update 6 Not done yet, but we’re getting there. Thanks to JaneyG for naming both the sublime “TLTTF” (there is some great stuff on Street Legal) and the ridiculous “MGNTATA” (the next line is “Ahhh…. think I’ll call it a pig”). Incidentally, the clues to the bonus questions, and my reply to comment 2, are all on this page (clicking on the titles is not required).

Absolutely final update Beans spilt. Sorry nobody got “Mississippi”; it’s a fantastic song, particularly if you hear it sung by somebody who’s still got a voice. “No Time To Think” is a great song, too – once again, I strongly recommend Street Legal, particularly the remastered CD (the mix of the original LP was dreadful).

The supplementary questions were about live performances. “All Along The Watchtower”, “Like A Rolling Stone”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Maggie’s Farm”, “Tangled Up In Blue” and “Blowin’ In The Wind” are the only songs Dylan has played live over 1,000 times – nearly 2,000 for the first two of them. Coming up on the rails with 900+ are “It Ain’t Me Babe”, “Mr Tambourine Man” and “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35″. “Please Mrs Henry”, “Tiny Montgomery” and “No Time To Think” have never been played live by Dylan; more intriguingly, “Percy’s Song” and “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” are among the songs that he’s played live precisely once.