Dylan cover of the day: Can you please crawl out your window

by Tony Attwood

A list of the past articles in this series is published at the end of the article.

This is a very odd situation and I hadn’t appreciated this until now – there was seemingly a cover version of the song before Dylan released his single. This seemingly came out in October 1965, two months before Dylan’s version was released.

And of course I have to include the Hendrix version, which sounds of course like no one else. But really doesn’t make any extra sense of what we have here in terms of the lyrics, or the extraordinarily odd chord sequence. I had hoped Hendrix could have made more of that because even now, all these decades later, it just sounds… odd.

Wilko Johnson (of Dr Feelgood) and Roger Daltry had a decent bash which I much prefer to Hendrix – and I think they make much more sense of the music than Dylan ever did.

That extra musical twist at the end and start of each verse really helps. So does the brass – if it is brass, and not an organ playing with a mouthorgan. Oh dear my ears are getting too old.

Les Frandkin’s version makes minimal changes but he really does get a different feel out of the music – which really is an art in itself. Who else would have thought of singing this singing this song in harmonies on every other line. That is a really clever idea, and unlike most clever ideas it really works. I just wish they had thought of an alternative to the cymbal hit between each verse.

In fact I haven’t really wanted to listen to this song in years, but this version changes my mind. It just shows what can be done with good musicians and a lot of imagination – I do hope you play that record to the end.

Just one more

I had hopes for this recording at the start but really it didn’t get developed, and became more akin to the original as it progressed. But the vocalist does a good job reinterpreting the lyrics.

So I didn’t find anyone taking the song somewhere completely different. But a nice little diversion from the tedious of reality. Although perhaps not as good as going for a six mile walk across some rather exciting countryside with a good friend.

But still, can’t win them all.

The series so far…

Untold Dylan was created in 2008 and is published daily – currently twice a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. Details of some of our series are given at the top of the page and in the Recent Posts list, which appears both on the right side of the page and at the very foot of the page (helpful if you are reading on a phone). Some of our past articles which form part of a series are also included on the home page.

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