The best cover versions of Dylan songs part 8

Compiled from readers’ suggestions by Tony Attwood.  Links to the previous suggestions are at the end.   Commentaries are my personal thoughts, not those of the readers who kindly suggested the songs for inclusion.

71: Tomorrow is a Long Time – Elvis Presley, suggested by Tom Haber.    Elvis Presley recorded the song on May 26, 1966 during a session for his album How Great Thou Art. Dylan once said that Presley’s cover of the song was “the one recording I treasure the most.”   I don’t normally listen to Elvis recordings but this really is extraordinary.

72: Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word – Joan Baez.  Suggested by Tom Haber.  The link is to the Untold Dylan review, which includes within it a recording of the song.

73: Love minus zero – The Walker Brothers.  Suggested by John Wyburn.

One of the extraordinary things about this little project of gathering together cover versions of Dylan songs is not just that I have got to hear some amazing versions of Dylan classics by other artists which I’d not come across before (such as this one) but also I have been reminded of other songs that I have not heard for years but which once were utterly fundamental to my life.   So it was here, with the Walker Brothers’ No Regrets. It remains for me one of the ten greatest pop songs of all times.  Before today I hadn’t heard it for years.

74: One more cup of coffee – The White Stripes.  Suggested by Diego D’Agostino.   Another extraordinary re-working that I’d not come across.  What he does, fractionally, to the timing, is just amazing.

75: Tomorrow is a long time – Rod Stewart.  Suggested by Diego D’Agostino

76: All along the watchtower – Brian Ferry.  Suggested by Diego D’Agostino

77:  New Pony – The Dead Weather.  Suggested by Diego D’Agostino

78: Highway 61 Revisited – Johnny Winter.  Suggested by Laura Leivick

79: Jokerman – Dylan.pl   Suggested by Anon.   This is Jokerman totally re-worked and sung in Polish (“Arlekin”).  Quite, utterly, amazing.   Available on Spotify.

80: Mr Tambourine Man – Melanie Safka.  Suggested Ken Fletcher.   Ken adds, “Dylan even played part of in his Theme Time radio show.”   I must say that it delivers an utterly haunting meaning of desperate lonliness that goes way beyond any other version I have heard.  It is almost too much to take.

Here are the earlier parts of the series

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7