Bob Dylan is often the worst interpreter of his own songs. Not because of the old saw that his voice is bad (it's not). Rather, the songs themselves often combine the angry and the elegiac, but when Dylan does his own songs there's often a kind of sneering quality and so you don't hear the elegiac. More generally, the best covers of his songs are almost in dialogue with Dylan, discovering aspects of them that are not prominent in his versions. The songs themselves are so rich that these facets are waiting there to be uncovered.* Consider for example, Bryan Ferry's cover of "Don't Think Twice," at right.
Unlike Dylan's (or Johnny Cash's version, for that matter)** there's just absolutely nothing sneering about it, and the melody and sentiment*** becomes even more universal, expressing what a drag it is when things have gone so comperehensively bollocks up that a friendship ends, and also what is sometimes the correct response. The narrator starts by simply blaming his friend ("You're the reason"), but (especially in Ferry's performance) can't really sustain this reaction even though he tries throughout. And its clear that the dawning realization of his own complicity doesn't really change anything. All he can do is evict himself from his friend's life, sadness slowly crowding out the anger.
[Notes:
*Compare to the Beatles, who are almost impossible to cover. I wish I had more insight into why Dylan and the Beatles are at such opposite ends in this regard. The simple answer is that the Beatles' melodies are typically a whole lot more complicated. But this isn't quite right, because even simple three chord songs like "Why Don't we Do it in the Road" lose almost everything when you cover them. Somehow the Beatles' own versions of their songs are so canonical that most covers just sound like bad imitations or incompetent experimentation.****
**The absolute nadir, sneerwise, of Cash covering Dylan is it ain't me. Like so much else with Cash, June Carter ended up savings things. The anger assumes a comedic aspect, completely clear in the live performance to which I've linked. His pronunciation of "babe" is completely different than on the recorded version, less clipped and condescending, and note how June Carter says "the words" at 2:18 right after Cash sings "someone who knows" and before he sings "your heart." Ha!
Of course when the anger is turned inward Cash beats Dylan at his own material. Consider his wonderful cover of One Too Many Mornings, which paved the way for the cover of Kris Kristopherson's Sunday Morning Coming Down, five years later, which so many great country songs have descended from (e.g. Roger Allan Wade's funny send-up If You're Going to be Dumb).
***I realize I might have this wrong a little bit, even with respect to Ferry's performance. Melody and expression speak much more to me than lyrics. But for some people, the words are by far the most important thing, so much so that rock music is really a species of poetry for them. The best rock critics, like Greil Marcus, have brilliant things to say about how lyrics, melody, and expressive aspects of the performance play off against one another.
****Joe Cocker's A Little Help From my Friends is of course an exception, where he actually manages to get the suit to fit himself and it's something to behold. Los Lobos' Tomorrow Never Knows is beyond excellent, but like so many Beatles covers you are left wondering why not just listen to the original. Nothing new is really added. The third level is the most common, where the cover is demonstrably worse. Even a walking divinity like Stevie Wonder ends up being underwhelming (e.g. his version of We Can Work it Out).]
New APPS 
Leave a reply to om Cancel reply