I don’t know what it means either: an index to the current series appearing on this website.
For more details on this new series on cover versions of Dylan songs that were not previously considered in the last series, please see the intro to the previous article in this series.
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by Jürg Lehmann.
After listening again to 30 or 40 cover versions of “Abandoned Love”, I’ll stick with my favourite, Willie Nile. I think most interpreters fall into the Everly Brothers/George Harrison trap: they sing the song too softly and gently what makes everything so harmless, some even turn it into a ballad.
In contrast, Willie Nile hits the right tone (in my opinion, this doesn’t necessarily apply to the rest of his album Positively Bob).
It’s the tone that Dylan himself needs, especially in the recording at The Bitter End cafe on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village on July 3, 1975. I can hear regret, remorse, sadness, but also a kind of defiance and a lot of self-confidence.
Now of course I don’t want to say that you should sound like Dylan when you cover Dylan. But I think it’s important that this song comes across as sober and self-confident. I hear that in Nile’s version. Two other covers that also go in this direction are by Dramarama…
… and David Moore on Paupers, Peasants, Princes & Kings
(Editor’s note there is a pause at the start of this recording – at least me when I play it – but it does come to life. Give it a moment).
Up next in the series: Ain’t Talkin.
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For an index of all the Dylan covers that we included in the last series please see You gonna make me lonesome when you go – there is an index to all 176 articles in that series at the end of that piece.