A Dylan cover a Day: (Sooner or Later) One of us must know

By Tony Attwood

There are some songs where I simply don’t want to go searching for multiple cover versions, because even before I start writing I know where the works of artistic genius are, and I don’t think I can go any further.

So I start in the obvious place, because I do have a very soft spot for Emma Swift’s work, and since this is also one of my favourite Dylan songs of all – as it has been since I first heard it upon its release – the combination of favoured song and favoured artist is overwhelming.

Ms Swift takes it slowly as her exquisite, perfect voice demands, and thus  I listen to this and believe every word.   And that is before we get to the chorus where without going over the top she utterly distinguishes verse from chorus in a way which I can’t imagine could be improved upon.

And I must add a word about the accompaniment – delightfully done so that the chorus and verse are instrumentally as well as vocally and lyrically distinguished from each other.

In many ways the verse accompaniment should not work – it uses the plink plink plink technique combined with a simple emphasis on each beat. But it works and it contrasts so elegantly with the chorus in every way.    Indeed if I were asked I’d give an award to this recording for “best accompaniment to a Dylan song ever”.

It is stunning it is gorgeous and it tears my heart apart even now as I am taken back to every breakup in a life that seems to have been full of break ups.

But I must tear myself and my tears away, and what better way than to move to Old Crowe.  With their live performances, there is the inevitable chat before the music starts, and if you want to skip it, jump the first 40 seconds.  But it is part of the show.

For me the amazing thing about this version is that having played the overwhelming Emma Swift version, this now takes me off to a different land and again I can be overwhelmed but in a different way.  Those harmonies in the chorus are wonderfully executed so that even though, by the start of verse two, we know what the arrangement consists of, it still engages totally.

Old Crowe of course have the strings (violin/s and double bass) at the heart of their arrangements, and yet I never ever feel I have had enough of their style of reworking.   Indeed listening, and listening and listening to Old Crowe I often find myself wondering how they work these violin parts out.   Are they originally improvised, or carefully worked out step by step?  I’d love to know.

And whoever would have thought of two pizzicato violins as an accompaniment?  Well, maybe lots of people, all better musicians than I, but certainly I could never have imagined it.   It takes me back to when I first heard it, it brings me forward to today, it brings tears to my eyes, it makes me marvel at what can be done when musical imagination is let loose.

My final choice is one that I owe to Jochen who highlighted the Chip Taylor version.  Jochen wrote “The most attractive cover, by far, is on Mojo’s 2016 Blonde On Blonde Revisited tribute, on the occasion of the monument’s fiftieth anniversary.”

And I must admit I am including it not because I personally value it alongside the above two renditions but because I respect Jochen’s opinion, and because even if it doesn’t appeal to me as the above two versions do, it is an extraordinary rendition, and the fact that emotionally it takes me in the wrong direction, is my problem, no one else’s.

The harmonies in the second verse are indeed delightful, but somehow with this song this isn’t at all where I want to be although I must admit this takes the notion of recording a Dylan cover to a new level.

I think for me it is the old problem of knowing the song so well that by the time we get to the moment in the song it starts snowing, musically I know what is happening, and emotionally this version makes me feel I am too far gone to be able to take any more.

And that’s always my problem: maybe because I started out my working life as a musician or maybe because there is far too much emotion in my world, the combination of the feelings expressed here combined with the fact that I know the song totally off by heart means I just can’t bear the pain.  And maybe that is why I love my two choices above:  Emma Swift makes the emotions bearable and Old Crowe makes them fun.  Chip Taylor however digs the knife into my heart, and that’s more than I can take.

 

The Dylan Cover a Day series

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
101. Obviously Five Believers
102. A Dylan Cover a Day: Oh Sister
103. On the road again
104. One more cup of coffee