America's greatest songwriter, Bob Dylan, turns 73 today. We celebrate with some outstanding covers of some of his best songs. There are two reasons for sending you to the covers: Dylan's own renditions tend to get removed from YouTube very shortly after they've been posted; many cannot stand Dylan's voice. If you are among the latter, these renditions may change your mind about his music.
Steven Stills, The Ballad of Hollis Brown
Jimi Hendrix, All Along the Watchtower
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late.
Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather
Byrds, Chimes of Freedom
Lucinda Williams, Positively Fourth Street
Joan Baez, Daddy You've Been on My Mind
Judy Collins, Mr. Tambourine Man
Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
Peter, Paul and Mary, Don't Think Twice It's Alright
The Band, When I Paint My Masterpiece
Alanis Morissette, Subterranean Homesick Blues/(3:09) Blowin' in the Wind
Peter, Paul and Mary, Too Much of Nothing
The Band, I Shall Be Released
Laurence Auster comments: This Dylan song can seem amorphous and mystical in the negative sense, especially as it became a kind of countercultural anthem and meaningless through overuse. But the lyrics are coherent and profound, especially the first verse:
They say everything can be replaced
They say every distance is not near
But I remember every face
Of every man who put me here.
The modern world tells us that everything is fungible, nothing is of real value, everything can and should be replaced—our spouse, our culture, our religion, our history, our sexual nature, our race, everything. It is the view of atomistic liberal man, forever creating himself out of his preferences, not dependent on any larger world of which he is a part. The singer is saying, No, this isn’t true. Things have real and particular values and they cannot be cast off and replaced by other things. And, though we seem to be distant, we are connected. I am connected to all the men, the creators and builders and poets and philosophers, and my own relatives and friends, who have come before me or influenced me, who created the world in which I live.
Bloomfield, Kooper, Stills, It Takes a Lot to Laugh. it Take a Train to Cry
Finally, one by the master himself, Not Dark Yet. Thanks, Bob, for over 50 years of music, memories, and inspiration. May the Never Ending Tour roll on, and may you die with your boots on.
Addendum: I just now discovered this great version of Visions of Johanna by Marianne Faithful. Not that it comes close to the surreal magic of the best Dylan versions. . . .
Addendum 5/25: Having listened to Faithful's Visions a few more times, it impresses me even more. But it still does not come close to the surreal magic, et cetera.