Why does a simple, hardly known Dylan song, get recorded over and over again?

By Tony Attwood

Yesterday I wrote a piece on this site, How the most subtle of musical changes gave “Bob Dylan’s Dream” a totally different meaning; an article which looked at the way musical changes from the original song “Lady Franklin’s Lament,” took away some of the desperate sadness of that original.

There is no dispute that the music of Bob Dylan’s Dream, was not only lifted from the earlier song, and then itself was changed by Bob over time.   The sad edge that we hear in the early performances has gone by the time it was recorded – not because the lyrics were changed – they were not, but because of the way the music was subtly changed.

And this led me to think: this really is a defining element within Bob’s work.   Indeed we all know of course that Bob would regularly rewrite the music of his songs (although he has done this far less in recent years) while retaining the lyrics as before.  And I am sure we can all think of examples of songs that have turned up in concert sounding really quite different from the recorded version.

But what I have not done in the past (and I am sure this is just a failure of my own thinking) is to consider why he does this, and what the implications are of it.

With “Bob Dylan’s Dream” the changes that Bob introduced to the music in the recorded version, lightened the message somewhat, even though the lyrics stayed the same.  So having published that little piece yesterday I then started to ponder, “was this a common practice by Bob across the years of his constant touring?”   To take a song and change the music, not just because that’s what he did, but to develop or even change the message?

In his early years of composing Bob would, as we all know, take tunes that he liked and re-work them.   For example as has previously been pointed out on this site he used “Railroading on the great divide”…

… as the music for “Only a hobo”.

This borrowing of tunes and indeed extracts from lyrics for subsequent songs was how folk music was propagated.  Occasionally a new song might be found, and then quite possibly that too would be part of the collection of available melodies that could be used and re-used for new lyrics.  For there are always many more people who can write interesting lyrics, compared with people who can write interesting melodies.

So it is not too great a leap to suggest that Bob knew both “Railroading” and “Only a miner,” when he took up the musical theme…

And this “Only a Hobo” was born.

This reworking of old songs was of course the tradition of the folk music that evolved in the British Isles centuries before, with the songs then being taken to North America, and then with new melodies and themes being found as time went by.

So this evolution of songs was nothing new, and all Bob was doing was applying this approach to more modern music.   It also, incidentally, throws a new light on Bob’s fairly well-known objection to people recording his concerts.  That objection can be seen as being related to his desire to protect his copyright, and thus his income, but it perhaps should also be seen in relation to his desire for the music to be left to mutate into new forms, rather than be fixed.

The view that songs are or should be in a state of flux comes of course from the folk tradition.  And it seems to me that Bob’s valuing of the way in which songs can mutate and evolve should be seen as a central part of his approach to music, and his own desire to mutate his own songs – at least until a few years ago.  This in turn could be an explanation for Bob’s dislike of recordings of his shows being put on the internet – for the existence of those recordings could in some ways “fix” the approach to the song.   Bob instead (in this view) wanted to aid the mutation of the song to continue, (although of course this view is countered to some extent by the way in which Dylan didn’t do too much to vary the Hendrix version of Watchtower, once Bob had started playing the electric version).

This leads to an interesting thesis: that the performance of songs should not really be seen as the finishing point, as happens once they are released on record, but rather as a part of an ongoing journey.

Of course, the journies themselves can lead to one particular version of a song becoming seen as the definitive version, such as has happened to some degree for Rod Stewart’s “Only a Hobo”.

But even here this was far from being the only version.     The Johnson Mountain Boys took us back into the folk tradition of earlier eras with the addition of a banjo and violin and thus making the song much lighter.   The change in the musical arrangement gives us a totally different feeling from that of Dylan and Stewart.  For here there is now a deliberate total disconnect between the lyrics and the song, which add considerably to the poignancy of the song as a whole.

Now this desire to change the musical arrangement of Dylan’s song is something that does not happen to the works of most other recording artists, and even where it does happen it most certainly doesn’t happen so often as it does with the music of Bob Dylan.   Take this for example

Indeed as we go back to the cover versions, there seems to be something in what we might otherwise consider a fairly unexceptional Dylan song that makes musicians think of reworking the song.  Consider this by the Hobo String Band for example.   It is still the same song, but the message and feeling within the song is quite different.

We can go on finding more and more reworkings of this not especially well-known Dylan song each of which can give a slightly revised interpretation to the lyrics.  Some, for example feel sad, some ironic, but some also celebrate the life of the central character.   This is Jonathan Edwards & The Seldom Scene.

Now this raises a question that I have not seen posed in other articles or books (but if I have missed someone’s treatise on the subject please do tell me).   This question is, “why are Bob’s songs treated in this way?  Why are so many varied versions recorded?”

Is it that there is something within Bob’s original (even where he is using a reworking of a traditional theme) that makes them suitable for revision, or is it always because it is a Dylan song, and therefore because of that, people are more likely to pay attention?

Now my point here, and forgive me for emphasising it again, is not the lyrics.   For I am not sure there is too much in these lyrics that would make multiple performers want to record the song.  It’s a plaintive piece, it has a message, but really, it’s not that deep.  So I move on to ask, is it something in the original melody that induces this desire to rework the song?   Or is it something in the music and lyrics combined which makes other performers want to take on the idea of doing their own version?

I am not in any way trying to argue that each cover version of a Dylan song adds something spectacular to the song, nor am I trying to suggest that every Dylan song has something in the music that makes lots of artists want to record it.  But I do think it is possible to argue that Dylan’s music (rather than just the lyrics) can attract other musicians to have a go at further developing the song.

What’s more these new versions of the songs have kept coming over the decades.  This version below comes from 2010 – getting on for half a century after Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song.

Now the question is, are all these people recording this song because it is a Dylan work, or because there is something particular about the lyrics or perhaps the music?  The version above is from Lötsjön and was recorded in 2013 – so we have now hit the half century.

What I also find interesting, is that what I have always thought of as a fairly ordinary Dylan song, has gone on being recorded, and indeed has moved into translations.  This version is in Hungarian (I think – please forgive me if I have got this wrong).

My last example today is Zwykły włóczęga which is the song in Polish performed by Martyna Jakubowicz, and in listening to this I come back to my main point.  Why have so many people wanted to work on this song?  It could be argued that it is just the lyrics, but I think there is more.  I think it is the simple melody that draws people in – in short it is the music of Bob Dylan that is attracting all these artists to the song.  For the fact is that no matter what the language, the melody is indeed always very memorable.

For there is something particular about the music of this piece.  As you may well know, most pop and rock songs come with a solid four beats in a bar, which if the band want to give the music some swing, also includes an emphasis on the second and fourth beat of the bar.)

But we get none of that here, for “Only a hobo” has a time signature of 6/8, which means that to count the beats one would recite:

1 2 3 1 2 3; 1 2 3 1 2 3.

And there is no option to vary this, as one might do by putting an accent on the second and fourth beat of a bar in a standard 4/4 beat.   Here, in each group of six beats the first and fourth beat (which I have written in accordance with musical convention as “1” each time) has the accent.   So what we hear is

1 2 3 1 2 3

So my question (mostly directed to myself at this stage) is WHY do some many bands want to record a Dylan song, even when it is, like this, a fairly obscure Dylan song?  Is it because

a) Dylan wrote it and the band can say “This is a Dylan song” or

b) There is something particular in the lyrics that makes it interesting or

c) There is something particular in the music that makes it interesting.

The classic answers would be a) or b) or both.   Being perverse I am starting to think that at least in part the answer is c), and that this is the case because the way Dylan writes the music makes the songs very adaptable.

Now in these cases, Dylan has given us a fairly straightforward recording, but each of the artists featured above has found something else to do with this song – which is often not the case with folk, rock, or pop songs.

So I seem to be starting a journey that says to me, it is Dylan’s music, so largely ignored by critics who seem to want to do nothing but crawl over the lyrics, that allows at least some of the songs he has composed to be varied and developed, both by himself and by other bands.  The fact that critics don’t seem to want to write about this, doesn’t worry me.   After all this is UNTOLD Dylan. And of course you don’t have to read if you don’t want to.

But I do think I might be onto something here.  So if you know of a book that already says all this, please do write to Tony@schools.co.uk and tell me, and I’ll stop wasting your time, and mine.  Otherwise, I rather think I shall continue this theme.