Category Archives: Cover versions

The Best Dylan Covers: Antony and The Johnsons – Knocking On Heaven’s Door

Antony & the Johnsons 006

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door

“…an exercise in splendid simplicity…”
– Clinton Heylin (about Dylan’s song)

The Best Dylan Covers: Antony and The Johnsons – Knocking On Heaven’s Door

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is a song written and sung by Bob Dylan, for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The best western ever made, and probably the best film in history.

The song describes the collapse of a deputy sheriff; dying from a bullet wound, he tells his wife “Mama, take this badge off of me; I can’t use it anymore.” The saddest and best death scene you’ll ever witness  (yes, I love that film).

Antony and the Johnsons is a music group presenting the work of Antony Hegarty. Antony Hegarty (born 1971), often referred to simply as Antony, is an English singer, composer, and visual artist. Antony and the Johnsons has a done a few Dylan songs (all good), today we present their haunting and beautiful, Knocking on Heaven’s Door. It has been very popular in TV and movies lately, but it started out as part of the soundtrack to the Dylan “fable”, I’m Not There.

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The Best Dylan Covers: Johnny Rivers – Positively 4th Street

Johnny Rivers

The Best Dylan Covers: Johnny Rivers – Positively 4th Street

Positively 4th Street is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan, first recorded by Dylan in New York City on July 29, 1965. It was released as a single by Columbia Records on September 7, 1965.

Johnny Rivers was probably the first to cover this song, using it as the closing track on his Realization album in 1968. Dylan said in his best selling book Chronicles: Volume Onethat he preferred Johnny Rivers’ version of “Positively 4th Street” to his own recording of the song.

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– Bob Dylan : Chronicles Volume One

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7 Great Like A Rolling Stone cover versions

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 Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don’t talk so loud
Now you don’t seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal

Here are 7 great cover versions of “Like A Rolling Stone”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – (winterland 1968)

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The Best Dylan Covers: Bruce Springsteen – All Along The Watchtower

springsteen

The Best Dylan Covers: Bruce Springsteen – All Along The Watchtower

All Along the Watchtower” is a song written and recorded by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan’s subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan’s live albums.

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10 Good cover versions of Bob Dylan’s Christian songs (edit)

Bob Dylan

10 Good cover versions of Bob Dylan’s Christian songs

I love the “Christian period” in Dylan’s career, always have. In the beginning I felt quite alone in my belief in Dylan, but now he is finally getting recognised for his faith-based songs. The Bob Dylan records from that period are so much better than the critics at the time wrote, they were simply too shocked by his conversion to see the beauty in the songs. I have to say that not all critics were harsh, some recognised quality.

And so what if he’s taken up with the God of Wrath? Since when have you been so crazy about the God of Love? Or any other species of hippie bullshit?
– Robert Christgau

First his live shows from these years got well deserved praise and now finally the albums. They might not be among his best by Dylan’s standard, but by anyone else’s they’re actually quite decent!

Bob Dylan Gospel 2

Here are evidence that the songs are solid Bob Dylan compositions. I have tried not to only include gospel choirs, there are a lot of performances I could have chosen, but instead I’ve tried to show how the songs work in different styles.

Enjoy!

I Believe In You – Sinead O’Connor

Such a presence, and the voice, man!

What can I do for you – Helen Baylor:

Good gospel/soul!
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