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

Uncategorized

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

9 Comments

  1. As hard as Old Crow finds it to resist, and as hard as it’s tried, the Crow still
    fails at the attempt to destroy “Sad-Eyed Lady” ….

    How could Old Crow have ever thought that it could be done ….

    ie, by souping up the music and sounds of words of a song that are meant to be sorrowful ?

  4. Likely referenced sources of Sad-Eyed Lady such as:

    “…your eyes are dim …like motes in the sun do swim” (E Taylor)
    And “hard eyes that grow soft for an hour” (Swimburne)
    hardly bring quick-pickin’ blue grass music to mind

  6. At least give the artist the courtesy of checking the spelling of their name. It’s Old Crow not Crowe.

  7. You missed out the version by Steve Howe with Jon Anderson singing. It’s not perfect because some of the phrasing of the lines is slightly off but it’s got a lovely sound to it, even if it doesn’t stray too far from Bob. https://youtu.be/ouEwhnX18qY

  8. Thanks, Tony, for the Jessica Rhaye version. Never heard it before, love it at first sound. And of course, may the original remain 11+ mins long.

  9. Rolo expected the name spelled correctly??
    Nor am I disrespecting the band …
    just saying Dylan’s rendition is the way the song’s best expressed

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *