Tune du Jour: “My Back Pages” – Bob Dylan
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes: The Byrds vs. The Ramones vs. Wolfgang Niedecken and Anne de Wolfe vs. The Brother and Sisters
VOTE, COMMENT, then DO SOMETHING NICE FOR YOURSELF
CoverMeImpressed.blog CoverMeImpressed.blog CoverMeImpressed.blog
Truely one of Dylan’s most beautiful songs. The poetry just flows …
The Original
Bob Dylan:
The 30th Anniversary Concert
The sheer amount of musical royalty on stage is just unbelievable. Has there ever been anything like it before or after?
Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, among others …:
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes
The Byrds vs. The Ramones vs. Wolfgang Niedecken and Anne de Wolfe vs. The Brothers and Sisters
The Byrds:
The Ramones:
Wolfgang Niedecken and Anne de Wolfe:
The Brothers and Sisters:
SPACE
Oh the disharmony! Much like Harlan County there are no neutrals here. It is your solemn responsibility to decide which cover song prevails. In other words … Which Side Are You On!??!
Disclaimer: Votes cast from Florida may or may not be counted.
cover me impressed 
I’m goin’ with The Byrds.
The combination of the jingly-jangly echo of McGuinn’s magical electric twelve-string guitar, backed by the soaring angelic perfection of the vocal harmonies from the era before Crosby was fired, combine for some of the greatest “rock” music ever made.
You wanna talk about a preponderance of talent on a single stage? Look no further than the star-studded lineup of the original Byrds.
That All Star version from Bobfest is so magical. All those hall of famers trading verses and sharing mikes is a living dream. Who’d have guessed that Petty and Harrison would go first? The gospel version very good. The arrangement fits the song nicely. The phrase corpse evangelists jumps out at me every time. I love those two words together. Mongrel dogs who teach is another. Wolfgang and Anne de Wolfe. That’s a lot of wolf! Love the violin. All I can say is ich fand das sehr erfreulich. Ramones? Where’s Joey? Did the KKK take him away? Is he being beaten by a brat with a baseball bat? C.J. Ramone on lead vocals does not cut it for me. The Byrds still do it best. They took Bob’s sketch and made it into a painting. This and Chimes of Freedom are my favorite Byrds covers of his Bobness. There are 6 verses to the song. The Byrds chose to sing verses 1,2,5 and 6. It works and not too long to be a single.
Hmmm…. a gospelification, punkification, Germanification, and an electricfolkification…
This really is one of my fave Dylan songs, lyrically and melodically. I’m not a fan of gospel, and although I can see how this song lends itself to a gospel interpretation. I admired the effort more than I enjoyed the result.
It’s no secret that I love the Ramones. They’ve done a lot of covers over the years, and some songs lend themselves to be covered by them than others, like Surfin’ Bird. This one, maybe not as much. Not terrible, but not ideal.
I hated the German version. German is kind of an ugly language, and the lyrics of this song are as important as the melody. This song didn’t survive the translation. We go from Visions of Johanna to Phlegm of Bavaria.
And then there are the Byrds — the undisputed masters of the Dylan cover. Those chiming guitars, those harmonies… they make it sound inevitable, like the song had been waiting for them all along. Of course they got my vote.
Even to such a stoic man as Dylan, the luminaries that paid him tribute at his 30th anniversary (or as Neil succinctly put it, “Bobfest”) must have given him a rush.
The Byrds? It’s nice but I would just as soon listen to Bob do it.
The Ramones? Too rough for this beautiful song.
So for me it came down to Niedecken/de Wolfe or The Brothers and Sisters. I was very impressed with both. In the end, I went with the Germans.