Bob Dylan — Lyric Analysis
LyricScope analyzed the lyrics of 442 songs across 38 albums by Bob Dylan. They use 7,707 unique words out of 51,296 (lexical richness MATTR 0.75), with an average of 116 content words per song. Emotional tone: 41% of songs positive, 38% neutral, 21% negative.
Most used words by Bob Dylan
- know (485)
- love (463)
- one (406)
- come (376)
- see (344)
- said (315)
- man (298)
- time (297)
- baby (282)
- say (272)
- day (245)
- back (244)
- way (235)
- let (225)
- night (224)
- tell (209)
- heart (208)
- right (194)
- away (184)
- long (179)
Signature phrases
- “light shine light” (28)
- “shine light shine” (28)
- “last night” (26)
- “santa claus” (26)
- “come back” (24)
- “key west” (24)
- “one day” (23)
- “god knows” (23)
- “rum pum pum” (21)
- “one time” (21)
Colors in the lyrics
- black (96)
- blue (69)
- white (59)
- gold (58)
- silver (36)
- red (34)
- brown (20)
- rose (14)
Albums analyzed
- Bob Dylan (1962)
- The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
- The Times They Are A‐Changin’ (1964)
- Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964)
- Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
- Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
- Blonde on Blonde (1966)
- John Wesley Harding (1967)
- Nashville Skyline (1969)
- Self Portrait (1970)
- New Morning (1970)
- Dylan (1973)
- Planet Waves (1974)
- Blood on the Tracks (1975)
- The Basement Tapes (1975)
- Desire (1976)
- Street‐Legal (1978)
- Slow Train Coming (1979)
- Saved (1980)
- Shot of Love (1981)
- Infidels (1983)
- Empire Burlesque (1985)
- Knocked Out Loaded (1986)
- Down in the Groove (1988)
- Oh Mercy (1989)
- Under the Red Sky (1990)
- Good as I Been to You (1992)
- World Gone Wrong (1993)
- Time Out of Mind (1997)
- “Love and Theft” (2001)
- Modern Times (2006)
- Together Through Life (2009)
- Christmas in the Heart (2009)
- Tempest (2012)
- Shadows in the Night (2015)
- Fallen Angels (2016)
- Triplicate (2017)
- Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020)