Dylan cover a day: Sad Eyed Lady of Lowlands, like you won’t believe

By Tony Attwood

I must admit I approached this classic with trepidation.  Of course it is a masterpiece of the genre, but it is just that I don’t think I’ve chosen to play it and listen with any sort of contemplative focus that I think the song needs to appreciate it, since I first bought it.   That failing is of course mine – the song is widely regarded as one of the greats, and yet I find I don’t want to give it 11 minutes of my time.  I bought the album in 1966 and dutifully played it a few times – and of course have listened a few times since, but it just doesn’t move me.   Work of genius it might be, so I guess the failings are all mine.

However in 2017 along came 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde – the album of the Old Crowe Medicine Show recorded the year before.  And then I discovered the composition properly.   But I’ll have to leave that recording to last in my little selection of Lowland covers, because for me it is such an overwhelmingly brilliant re-working of the song everything else falls into the shade.  Yet some of the covers deserve far more than that relegation.

And as I often try to say, that is just “for me.”  My response to music is always initially emotional, and I am sure that for everyone else it has always been a masterpiece, and perhaps Dylan’s original recording is still often listened to and noted as being a great work.  And indeed others have looked, listened and successfully taken the song elsewhere, and I’ll try and show in this little selection.

But if like me, the song is not for you, you are excused a complete run through all these tracks (although they are excellent), although if I may I would you not to skip everything but to go to the end of the article, for the final version in this collection really is beyond everything else.  (Although really I think you might get some enjoyment from the other versions that come before the grand finale.)

Jessica Rhaye and the Ramshackle Parade give us rhythms variations and harmonies that take us from the constancy of the original, without losing the message – but now the music brings us the thought that life does indeed go on, no matter what, and the memories of the past can be a useful bridge to the future.  Sometimes.

Moving on, I was very hesitant about including a solo version of the song, but Juliana Daily does carry it off through the restrained passion of her performance.  A memorable version indeed.

Weyes Blood keeps the feel of the original… at first but keeps my interest with the build up of the accompaniment and gives us an extra chorus and verse without lyrics at the end – which is a brave notion.   I didn’t think it would, but it does indeed work as a conclusion.

A solo guitar instrumental version of Sad Eyed Lady?  Surely that is impossible given that it is five identical musical verses (each of three sections) and what keeps us going are the lyrics… and yet it has been done – and again to my surprise, with success.  Although largely that is because it is by Ken Navarro.  And indeed this version really did invoke another re-think of the whole song.

But I must admit everything above is building up to this moment.   Old Crow, as you perhaps well know, did the whole double album some years back, in their own style.  And in fact they start “Sad Eyed Lady” by playing… yes their version of “Visions of Johanna”…. which amazingly does become “Sad Eyed Lady”.   It is a stunningly brilliant idea, and gives a completely new insight and meaning to the whole song.  In fact it virtually is a new song, except that when we get to the title line we know where we are.

Until I heard this version I really didn’t connect “Sad Eyed” with “Visions” and yet having heard both in the Old Crow versions, I suddenly realised they are both about the same woman.  OK she might not be real (how would I know?) but the image is the same.

So, back to “Sad Eyed”, the harmonies Old Crow find are extraordinary, in that they sound obvious, and yet I am not sure anyone thought of them before.

But most of all, this arrangement changes the entire meaning of the song.  The sadness is replaced by vigour.  Now the singer is fighting back.  He’s not defeated, he’s moving on, because he’s the one with life and vitality and a future.  The answer to “should I wait?” suddenly becomes “NO!  Absolutely not, there’s a world out there and it is waiting for me.”

So, the song now says, you are your own problem, not my problem.  I am moving on.  What a brilliant revision.

I have been so grateful over the years for a number of Old Crow reworkings of Dylan and I’ve noted these quite a few times on this site, but I think this one is the best of them all.

And if you have been lurking around Untold for a while you may recall my writing before the Old Crow’s version of “Visions” was how song was always meant to sound.   The same is true of “Sad Eyed Lady”.

And just in case you haven’t had enough here’s Visions by Old Crow

• 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. Oh Sister
  103. On the road again
  104. One more cup of coffee
  105. (Sooner or later) one of us must know
  106. One too many mornings
  107. Only a hobo
  108. Only a pawn in their game
  109. Outlaw Blues – prepare to be amazed
  110. Oxford Town
  111. Peggy Day and Pledging my time
  112. Please Mrs Henry
  113. Political world
  114. Positively 4th Street
  115. Precious Angel
  116. Property of Jesus
  117. Queen Jane Approximately
  118. Quinn the Eskimo as it should be performed.
  119. Quit your lowdown ways
  120. Rainy Day Women as never before
  121. Restless Farewell. Exquisite arrangements, unbelievable power
  122. A Dylan Cover a Day: Ring them bells in many different ways
  123. A Dylan cover a day: Romance in Durango, covered and re-written