Five of Bob Dylan's best lyrics

From his prophetic vision of environmental apocalypse to the gentle intimacy of love in a cold climate, Bob Dylan has written some of the last century's most memorable lyrics.

Bob Dylan Source: AAP

Everyone has a favourite from his back catalogue of some 500 songs, but here are excerpts from some of his most famous:

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

And where have you been my darling young one?

I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains

I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways

I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests

Visions of Johanna

In this room the heat pipes just cough

The country music station plays soft

But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off

Just Louise and her lover so entwined

And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

Desolation Row

And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, my friend, you'd better leave"

And the only sound that's left after the ambulances go

Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row

Highway 61

Oh, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"

Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"

God said, "No" Abe say, "What?"

God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but

The next time you see me comin', you better run"

Mr Tambourine Man

Then take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves

The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow