Links to the previous articles in this series are given at the end of this piece.
Jan’s Take 9: You’re A Big Girl Now
by Jochen Markhorst
In this series, we shine a spotlight on a thriving, fascinating, and polarising fringe phenomenon within Dylanology: the semi-professional cover artist. And more specifically, on a veteran from the southern part of a small country on the North Sea: Jan Barten from Breda, the Netherlands.
Jan: “This time, a percussion-free opening; just a piano and an acoustic guitar. An organ (Nord Stage) in the background. I’ve added a bit more reverb to the vocals. I think it creates a lovely sense of space that really suits this track. The bass (Roland RD600) doesn’t come in until quite late. And after an atmospheric piano solo, the drums finally kick in – by which point we’re already halfway through the track.”
For the Biograph collection box, Dylan chose Take 2 of “You’re A Big Girl Now” from the earlier New York sessions. Which is a chillingly beautiful recording from September ’74, scantily instrumented, with the tasteful, restrained organ by Paul Griffin, the virtuoso who so often manages to press the right key on Dylan recordings (the piano parts on “One Of Us Must Know” and “Like A Rolling Stone”, for example) and featuring Buddy Cage’s steel guitar, the master of New Riders Of The Purple Sage.
When the recordings in New York have been completed, and the album is ready to be pressed, Dylan goes to his family in Minnesota for Christmas. Brother David hears the pressings and has criticism which the maestro supports. The release is hastily postponed, and on 27 and 30 December 1974 Dylan re-records five of the ten songs with local musicians under the direction of David Zimmerman – including “You’re A Big Girl Now”. The accompaniment on the Minneapolis version is less desolate, even opens with an elegant, almost sweet guitar mosaic, contrasting beautifully with Dylan’s distraught recital – it is still difficult to choose between the two versions.
The song has a beautiful melody; the notes are in the right place to enhance the dramatic, melancholy lyrical content, but still: the performance is decisive, as the many unsuccessful covers demonstrate. The astute quote from T.S. Eliot (immature poets imitate, mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different) also applies to musicians.
The artists who try to imitate Dylan’s heartache (Lloyd Cole, My Morning Jacket, to name but two of the better-known) are whining, ruining a work of art. The colleagues who understand that they should not try to imitate Dylan, swing in the other direction, concentrate on the beauty of the composition and deliver a shiny, but unfortunately often flat, emotionless interpretation.
Mary Lee’s Corvette, for example (on her otherwise beautiful integral live performance of Blood On The Tracks, 2002), and even a grandmaster among the Dylan interpreters, the Texan Jimmy LaFave, is brilliant, but sterile (Austin Skyline, 1992).
The most enjoyable are the artists who only cherry-pick the best bits, and stay far away from the pangs of love. The collective Zita Swoon from Antwerp (who already produced a very attractive “Series Of Dreams”) performs live a dreamy, hushed version which puts emphasis on the music, not on the lyrics. Which is even more true for Dave’s True Story, a jazz/pop band from New York that chooses a Steely Dan approach on their fascinating tribute project Simple Twist Of Fate – DTS Does Dylan (2005), an album with seven jazzy Dylan covers.
Only “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” really does not fit in with the languid, nonchalant jazz arrangement, but the combo does produce a hauntingly beautiful cover of “You’re A Big Girl Now”. Two of them, even – the radio edit is slightly more compelling. Opening with a rustling cymbal – I’m back in the rain.
Dave’s True Story:
Jan is the third member in the Top 3 of the finest Big Girl covers – not least because he doesn’t so much try to imitate Dylan, but because he embodies that quote from Dylan’s Chronicles: “Musicians have always known that my songs were about more than just words.” Opening like a pop ballad. Polished – you can hear what Cat Stevens would have made of it – and the melancholy remains intact. And Jan elevates the pop ballad to a masterpiece through the trick he picked up from Paul Griffin. Back then, in New York, Griffin pressed a single, solitary key on his organ after 49 seconds.
Half a century later, Jan waits eight seconds longer, and achieves the same devastating, heart-wrenching impact. Immature musicians imitate, mature musicians steal; bad musicians deface what they take, and good musicians make it into something better, or at least something different.
Previously in the series
- Jan’s Take 1: It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
- Jan’s Take 2: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
- Jan’s Take 3: 4th Time Around
- Jan’s Take 4: To Be Alone With You
- Jan’s Take 5: Ballad Of Hollis Brown
- Jan’s Take 6: I Want You
- Jan’s Take 7: I Pity The Poor Immigrant
- Jan’s Take 8: Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
To be continued. Next up Jan’s Take 10: One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)