It’s Monday, it’s snowing, and I’ve had Covid again all weekend. Here’s a list of Dylan songs from post-Time Out Of Mind that prove the old man can still write a damn fine tune.

1. “Workingman’s Blues #2”: From Modern Times, it sort of encapsulates a lot about latter-day Dylan stuff I really admire: the damn-near stately instrumentation, the rumination on man vs. society, and its allusions to older musical traditions and musicians.
2. “Duquesne Whistle”: From Tempest. It opens the album with a railroad rhythm and some choice slide guitar work. Dylan’s wry sense of humor comes through on this one pretty well, too.
3. “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”: From Dylan’s latest, Rough and Rowdy Ways. This messy blues shuffle memorializes the great Jimmy Reed in a style that wouldn’t sound out of place on Dylan’s own Highway 61 Revisited.
4. “Shake Shake Mama”: From Together Through Life. A lot of the songs on this one were written Robert Hunter, including this particular song. It’s also a bit unusual in that it features accordion heavily, a sound that livens up a lot of Dylan’s more staid arrangements.
5. “Tell Ol’ Bill”: From Bootleg Volume 8. As with the rest of his career, it seems that some of Dylan’s best songs end up on the cutting room floor for reasons I’ll never be able to understand. It’s a simple three-chord blues song, but damn if it isn’t compelling.
6. “High Water (For Charley Patton)”: From “Love And Theft”, which remains to this day my favorite latter-day Dylan album. “High Water” is a, well, a high point on a record that seems composed of high points. The standup bass and banjo really carry it for me.
7. “Early Roman Kings”: Tempest again. A slow-burn blues that proves that all men, even Bob Dylan, spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire.
8. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”: From Shadow Kingdom. Dylan is famous for reframing, recontextualizing, and reimagining his songs, especially as his voice has gotten older and rougher. Shadow Kingdom is a live-in-the-studio type of album, where he and his backing band took a bunch of old Dylan tunes and reimagined them in their current style. It’s just about all-acoustic, very subdued, and all-around lovely.
9. “My Wife’s Hometown”: From Together Through Life. “Hell’s my wife’s hometown,” Dylan croons wryly. It’s great and snarky and fun as hell.
10. “Ain’t Talkin'”: From Bootleg Series Volume 8. I prefer this version to the one that ended up on Modern Times, mostly because the drums are a bit more prominent here and Dylan’s vocals feel looser and more natural. Honestly, though, either version is pretty damn solid.