Dylan Cover a Day: Obviously Five Believers

By Tony Attwood

This is one of those Dylan songs that has always seemed to me to be a bit of a rush and a bit of a mess – and besides is so very closely related to “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” (of which the less said the better) that it is really would not be remembered at all unless Dylan had written it and put it on the album.

And yet the origins wouldn’t matter if there was something new, or some particular insight in the song, but I’ve hardly ever found that to be the case.   There’s a review of the song by me on the site, but I’m not too sure that takes us very far – so if you want to learn more, Jochen has far more insight than me.    Interestingly though, with both came up with Toni Price’s version as one worth considering.

However ….

Old Crowe Medicine Show, as you will know if you are a regular reader, is a band I really admire, not least because they have given us a version of “Visions of Johanna” which is how I really think it should be performed.   And they have great fun with this piece – which is once again, really how it ought to be treated in my view.   And yes I know it was originally called “Black Dog Blues” with the suggestion that it is about depression, but I’ve never been able to find that concept in the music, and besides, Dylan chose to change the title, which either means the title is irrelevant, or it wasn’t about depression in the first place.

If you have time please do listen to the whole track – it is just fun, with brilliant musicians who have taken the idea and simply said, “let’s really go as fast as we can and see what happens.”  And what happens is just something else.

There is another version by the same band which is even crazier, via this link…

https://youtu.be/0IpOLaj4X3w

I just love the fun of that version, not because of the difficulty of playing it at that speed (and yes I have tried and failed).  I can sing it at hyper speed but it’s the music that makes it not the lyrics.

After that Eric-Scott Bloom seems almost sedate – and this is where I am on dodgy ground, for I may be getting people confused here.  I think that this is the same person who is known as Modartist (Facebook.com/modartist) but this could be one of my occasional confusions.  If you know more please say.

The music is fun, not pretentious in any way.

Top Jimmy and the rhythm pigs, face the same sort of problems that anyone has in trying to cover this song – there is just so much in there, and most of it is seemingly unrelated, that it is difficult to know what to do without a total musical rewrite.  But the band really do manage to keep my interest and the accompaniment doesn’t overwhelm, which can always be the temptation with this sort of music.

There’s a great instrumental break with the saxophonist really knowing where’s he’s going which certainly makes this version worth hearing.

There is another problem however, in that Dylan’s instrumentation is so distinctive that everyone feels the song cannot exist without retaining it, so one version of the song does tend to merge into another.  (Which is incidentally yet another reason why Old Crowe stands out.)

Toni Price is the only female vocalist who seems to have taken this on and released a recording, and there are odd moments that took me by surprise, but not really enough to make me want to go back and listen again.

All things considered, these are all worth hearing, if you have a mind to listen, but no one can beat the Old Crowe.  And not for the first time.

The Dylan Cover a Day series

I’ve cleaned up the list of past articles in this series and it seems like we’ve reached 100 here, as well as with Mike’s “Never Ending Tour” series.  Although no one has checked my counting so I might be wrong.

1. The song with numbers in the title.
2. Ain’t Talkin
3. All I really want to do
4.  Angelina
5.  Apple Suckling and Are you Ready.
6. As I went out one morning
7.  Ballad for a Friend
8. Ballad in Plain D
9. Ballad of a thin man
10.  Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
11. The ballad of Hollis Brown
12. Beyond here lies nothing
13. Blind Willie McTell
14.  Black Crow Blues (more fun than you might recall)
15. An unexpected cover of “Black Diamond Bay”
16. Blowin in the wind as never before
17. Bob Dylan’s Dream
18. You will not believe this… 115th Dream revisited
19. Boots of Spanish leather
20. Born in Time
21. Buckets of Rain
22. Can you please crawl out your window
23. Can’t wait
24. Changing of the Guard
25. Chimes of Freedom
26. Country Pie
27.  Crash on the Levee
28. Dark Eyes
29. Dear Landlord
30. Desolation Row as never ever before (twice)
31. Dignity.
32. Dirge
33. Don’t fall apart on me tonight.
34. Don’t think twice
35.  Down along the cove
36. Drifter’s Escape
37. Duquesne Whistle
38. Farewell Angelina
39. Foot of Pride and Forever Young
40. Fourth Time Around
41. From a Buick 6
42. Gates of Eden
43. Gotta Serve Somebody
44. Hard Rain’s a-gonna Fall.
45. Heart of Mine
46. High Water
47. Highway 61
48. Hurricane
49. I am a lonesome hobo
50. I believe in you
51. I contain multitudes
52. I don’t believe you.
53. I love you too much
54. I pity the poor immigrant. 
55. I shall be released
56. I threw it all away
57. I want you
58. I was young when I left home
59. I’ll remember you
60. Idiot Wind and  More idiot wind
61. If not for you, and a rant against prosody
62. If you Gotta Go, please go and do something different
63. If you see her say hello
64. Dylan cover a day: I’ll be your baby tonight
65. I’m not there.
66. In the Summertime, Is your love and an amazing Isis
67. It ain’t me babe
68. It takes a lot to laugh
69. It’s all over now Baby Blue
70. It’s all right ma
71. Just Like a Woman
72. Knocking on Heaven’s Door
73. Lay down your weary tune
74. Lay Lady Lay
75. Lenny Bruce
76. That brand new leopard skin pill box hat
77. Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
78. License to kill
79. Like a Rolling Stone
80. Love is just a four letter word
81. Love Sick
82. Maggies Farm!
83. Make you feel my love; a performance that made me cry.
84. Mama you’ve been on my mind
85. Man in a long black coat.
86. Masters of War
87. Meet me in the morning
88. Million Miles. Listen, and marvel.
89. Mississippi. Listen, and marvel (again)
90. Most likely you go your way
91. Most of the time and a rhythmic thing
92. Motorpsycho Nitemare
93. Mozambique
94. Mr Tambourine Man
95. My back pages, with a real treat at the end
96. New Morning
97. New Pony. Listen where and when appropriate
98. Nobody Cept You
99. North Country Blues
100. No time to think