It's Not Nearly Over

We all know that Bob Dylan is our greatest popular song lyricist. So many of his songs are so fundamentally well constructed that there is much room for interpretation for countless admirers. Dylan's vocals and performance styles can be an acquired taste (I like it), so it is interesting to listen to the many cover versions of his songs. There are some where his original leaves the covers in the dust. Forget Eric Clapton and Guns 'n Roses, it is Dylan's haunting and stark "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" that is definitive.

On the other hand, Jimi Hendrix performed what may be the greatest rock cover ever performed when he took Dylan's acoustic folk "All Along the Watchtower" and turned it into a maelstrom. Dylan was so impressed that he, like everyone else, started to perform Hendrix's arrangement to where it was almost like Dylan was covering Hendrix instead of vice versa.

One of my favorite Dylan songs has got to be "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" from 1965's Bringing It All Back Home. It has inspired a number of gorgeous covers that do what good covers should do: take the original song and do something new with it. The artist covering the song should put his or her stamp on it. The many covers of "Baby Blue" certainly do that. Here are some favorites. First, below is Dylan's original:



One of the first covers of the song was from 1966 by Van Morrison and his rock band Them. While maintaining the basic song structure, Van makes the song taut and greatly improves on Bob's version (you might recognize the sample used in Beck's 1996 "Jack-Ass"):



The preeminent Dylan interpreters, The Byrds, recorded two very different versions of the song. I love the later one, which is from their later country period. They slow it down to a country lilt, and I was listening to it last night at about 3 a.m. and at that moment, I swore it was loveliest song I'd ever heard. Check out those gorgeous Byrd harmonies (even though it is not their most famous period) and the sublime slide playing from Clarence White:



Here is a haunting, ethereal take on the song from the cult Texas psychedelic band 13th Floor Elevators. The lo-fi recording quality adds to the Roky Erikson/Elevators mystique. I've got all of the Elevators albums on LP, and they make for great late night listening. I also kind of dig this creepy accompanying video I found on YouTube...



And finally check out Falco's take, where he works off of Van's version and makes it a jazzy, boozy tune that actually works quite well...



There are many other versions, including from The Animals, Joni Mitchell, The Grateful Dead, Bad Religion, Echo & the Bunnymen, etc.

The sign of a song that is so well written is that it works as a basic template on which each artist can make their mark.