An ode to an American music masterpiece

Every time I hear this song, I'm struck again by the beauty and power of its lyrics. It's just sublime, subtle storytelling of a quality that you don't often get in popular music or anywhere else for that matter. For example, the conversation it recounts at the family dinner table is adroit in the details that it reveals to us, and even more adroit in what it refuses to tell us, but what we come to understand on our own.

I've never sat down to list my Top 20 songs of all time, but I do think this would be on it, and probably pretty high. It's a masterpiece.