by Jochen Markhorst
In this series, we shine a spotlight on a thriving, fascinating, and polarizing fringe phenomenon within Dylanology: the semi-professional cover artist. And more specifically, on a veteran from the southern part of a small country on the North Sea: Jan Barten from Breda, the Netherlands.
Jan: “This time, the arrangement has been kept extremely simple: just the acoustic piano (NordStage) and Fons’ powerful vocals.”
Dylan’s own opinion of Queen Jane remains unclear. Following the beautiful, yet rather casual studio recording (the guitars are out of tune), the song disappears into a drawer. Dylan doesn’t perform it. It hasn’t been forgotten, as evidenced, for example, by the baffling name-check in an interview with Robert Hilburn (Los Angeles Times, 23 November 1980), in which Hilburn wonders to what extent Dylan’s conversion influences the set list:
RH: Any of your songs that you couldn’t sing today? Any song that you couldn’t relate to?
BD: I don’t think so. I could probably sing them all, even Queen Jane Approximately.
“Even”? Strange, but he really does say so (“even Queen Jane”). He still doesn’t play it, though. That requires the persuasion of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, the frontmen of the Grateful Dead, who admire the song immensely.
July 1987 saw the moment finally arrive: the live debut of “Queen Jane Approximately”, twenty-two years after it was recorded, and a few months after Andy Warhol’s death, whose Factory, or rather its inhabitants, seems to have inspired the song back then.
It is one of the rare highlights of the otherwise rather lacklustre, muddled live album Dylan & The Dead (1989), and the spell seems to have been broken. In the years that follow, the maestro plays it fairly regularly, often in absolutely magnificent performances (November ’93, Supper Club, is a real gem), but after just one more performance in 2013, it seems to be truly over. Until that peculiar Covid-19 surprise, Shadow Kingdom, the staged black-and-white live concert streamed online from the non-existent Bon Bon Club in Marseille, where the song features as number three on the set list. A one-off revival; “Queen Jane” is not performed at any of the hundreds of concerts during the subsequent years-long Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour.
In the AARP interview, March 2015, the song doesn’t measure up to a classic like “I’m A Fool To Want You” on Shadows In The Night – at least, according to Dylan: “It’s easier for me to sing that song than ‘Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane.’ It used to be different. But that’s how it is now. Because ‘Queen Jane’ is perhaps a bit dated. There’s no denying that.”
Yeah well, Bob Dylan and his view of his own songs…
Elsewhere, the little masterpiece is held in higher regard. The Grateful Dead, mentioned earlier, have included it on their set list more than a hundred times – Queen Jane, along with Baby Blue and Masterpiece, ranks amongst The Dead’s three most frequently performed Dylan covers. The renditions are generally a real treat; not too drawn-out (by Dead-standards, that is: usually under eight minutes), with a strolling, driving beat from the two drummers and Garcia’s thin backing vocal in the chorus working brilliantly.
The Four Seasons’ take on Frankie Valli is somewhat hilarious. For some obscure reason, Valli suddenly lets out a massive scream, punctuates the shouting with what is presumably meant to be a mocking chuckle, and ends parlando (which is also completely off the mark). They were quick off the mark, though: it’s on side 2 – the Dylan side – of The 4 Seasons Sing Big Hits By Burt Bacharach… Hal David… Bob Dylan, which was released in November 1965. More charming, however, are the contemporaries of The Daily Flash, who produced a nice, rattling garage version in ’66.
Most of the beauty, however, is to be found in country rock circles, where the song remains popular to this day. Mojave 3, Montana Wildaxe, Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, the enchanting Emma Swift… the list is long, and the interpretations are always lovely.
The one cover that stands out above the rest comes in 2015 from seasoned Dylan fan Jimmy LaFave, who rarely puts a foot wrong. The spirit of Gene Clark lives on in the Texan, as is also evident from the rest of the wonderful album The Night Tribe. Live in 2015, when he is accompanied by the exceptional guitar talent Anthony da Costa, and that really tops it off.
Jan’s cover version is distinctive. He is the only one who radically strips away all the folk, rock and country elements and reduces the song entirely to black and white: to the keys of a single piano. In doing so, he even manages to bring out a faint hint of the quality of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, or the elegance of John Hiatt’s “Have A Little Faith In Me” – not even Dylan himself has ever seen Queen Jane like this. She’s not “a bit dated”. He should come and see her.
To be continued. Next up Jan’s Take 18: Father Of Night
Previously in the series
- Jan’s Take 1: It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
- Jan’s Take 2: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
- Jan’s Take 3: 4th Time Around
- Jan’s Take 4: To Be Alone With You
- Jan’s Take 5: Ballad Of Hollis Brown
- Jan’s Take 6: I Want You
- Jan’s Take 7: I Pity The Poor Immigrant
- Jan’s Take 8: Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
- Jan’s Take 9: You’re A Big Girl Now
- Jan’s Take 10: Sooner Or Later (One Of Us Must Know)
- Jan’s Take 11: Lay, Lady, Lay
- Jan’s Take 12: Forever Young
- Jan’s Take 13: From A Buick 6
- Jan’s Take 14: Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
- Jan’s Take 15: Girl From The North Country
- Jan’s Take 16: Ballad Of A Thin Man