While plenty of Bob Dylan‘s songs climbed to great heights on the charts, from “Like a Rolling Stone” to “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” to so many others, the iconic musician’s personal favorite track was definitely not one of his biggest hits.
Interestingly enough, the song Dylan considered his greatest accomplishment was never even released as a single. It also happened to appear on one of his least successful albums. As Dylan explained in an interview with NME, per SongFacts, he held the title track from 1981’s Shot of Love in particularly high esteem.
“The purpose of music is to elevate and inspire the spirit,” Dylan said. “To those who care where Bob Dylan is at, they should listen to ‘Shot of Love.’ It’s my most perfect song. It defines where I am spiritually, musically, romantically, and whatever else. It shows where my sympathies lie. It’s all there in that one song.”
Unfortunately for Dylan, fans and critics didn’t feel the same away about “Shot of Love” the song. They didn’t feel that way about the album, either, which was the final installment in his religious-themed trilogy of records (also including 1979’s Slow Train Coming and 1980’s Saved) and only sold about 200,000 copies, per Far Out Magazine.
In a 1983 conversation with Martin Keller, Dylan called Shot of Love his “most explosive album,” adding, “even going back to Blonde on Blonde or [The] Freewheelin’ [Bob Dylan] or any of those. Bringing It All Back Home or Highway 61 or wherever they were.”
“I may be totally wrong in saying that but I feel that same way about this,” he continued. “I feel the same way about this album as I did about when we recorded Bringing It All Back Home. It was like the breakthrough point. It’s the kind of music I’ve been striving to make, and I believe that in time, people will see that.”
Related: 1975 Bob Dylan Hit, Ranked Among ‘Greatest Songs of All Time,’ Took ’10 Years to Live and Two Years to Write’
Several years later, Dylan seemed to have come to terms with the public’s lukewarm reception to Shot of Love.
“People didn’t listen to [Shot of Love] in a realistic way,” he told Cameron Crowe during interviews for a booklet released with his Biograph box set.
“The record had something that, I don’t know, could have been made in the ’40s or maybe the ’50s,” Dylan reflected.
“There was a cross element of songs on it,” he said. “The critics wouldn’t allow the people to make up their own minds. All they talked about was Jesus this and Jesus that, like it was some kind of Methodist record. I don’t know what was happening, maybe Boy George or something, but Shot of Love didn’t fit into the current formula. It probably never will. Anyway, people were always looking for some excuse to write me off and this was as good as any. I can’t say if being ‘non-commercial’ is a put-down or a compliment.”
One thing’s for sure: All these years later, it’s clear that Shot of Love certainly did nothing to diminish Dylan’s musical legacy.
Related: Bob Dylan, 84, Stuns Fans by Kicking Off Concert With This Song for the First Time in Over 35 Years
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