That is, what is your favorite cover of a Bob Dylan song?
Full disclosure; I’m not a big Dylan fan but I respect his song writing abilities. Still, to me he’s like the Babe Ruth of songwriting - throw that much stuff against the wall, some of it’s bound to stick (and don’t get me started on ‘Like a Rolling Stone’). But I digress, he did write some good stuff.
A couple of things Inspired this thread, going back to when I was a youg’un, I always like Ray Stevens’ I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (back before he went so right-wing). I was shocked later on to discover it was written by Dylan. Same could be said for Manfred Mann’s The Mighty Quinn. and much later, Garth Brooks’ To Make You Feel My Love. I’m sure there are others that have snuck by me as well.
Several weeks ago, I heard Maggie’s Farm by Rage Against the Machine. Not bad for metal. But the thing that really cinched it was One More Cup of Coffee by The White Stripes, that I heard for the first time last night. Man, that’s good.
Jimi Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower” is one of the greatest songs of all time. That’s pretty hard to beat. But of course personal taste will trump everything.
I always liked the ones where the arrangement is essentially the same but with a a voice that doesn’t make you want to drive a nail through your eardrums.
In the middle of a different song, Chris Thile of Nickel Creek jumps into a rapid-fire rendition of Subterranean Homesick Blues during his solo, breaking it up with a Bach lute piece performed on mandolin in the middle, then back to Dylan, and then finally the band finishes the original folk song.
I actually prefer Dylan’s versions of his own songs more than most versions made my someone covering them. But I admit Jimi’s cover of “Watchtower” is pretty damn awesome for the guitar work. I think Dylan spins the lyrics better there, though.
I should add that I mean his album versions of his songs. Dylan’s current voice can technically be described as ‘ruined’. I saw him last in person just before he got his Nobel, and I couldn’t even recognize some of my very favorite tunes of his. Still worth it to see the man, but for his later albums, I’m now grateful for autotune.
My brother and I couldn’t get tickets to the Bob Dylan 30th tribute at Madison Square Garden in 1992.
When I heard Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam start off “Masters of War” I was like, “Cool!” - and now I know he has performed it since so that’ll be my pick (as Jimi and the Byrds are taken).
I was massively pissed off that a New York crowd (they were probably not from New York) booed Sinead O’Conner when she started to sing, “I believe in you”. I’ve no great love for any of the tracks on “Slow Train Coming” and it was courageus of her - yet in Madison-fucking-Square Garden at a Bob Dylan tribute to get booed off the stage pisses me off to this day.
Anyways, her version from a rehearsal of “I believe in you” is a great Dylan cover and really, good on Kris Kristofferson for his support that night but Dylan should have done more than release the song 17 years later.
I tried that but still couldn’t get it to work. I don’t know which is more likely: that it’s just the internet being the internet or that I’m not capable of following simple directions. (Or both?)
The first track from “All Things Must Pass” - " I’d Have You Anytime" is also a Harrison-Dylan song.
Dylan doesn’t play anything (credited) so does that make it a cover? Probably not, yet worthy to say that drums are Alan White (Yes), Klaus Voormann (the 7th Beatle?) on bass and Eric Clapton on electric.
