Tag Archives: Cover versions

Bob Dylan, Cover versions

5 good cover versions of Bob Dylan’s Not Dark Yet

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bob dylan not dark yet

“Not Dark Yet” is a song by Bob Dylan, released on his 1997 album Time Out of Mind and also as the first single on August 25, 1997. The song appears on the album The Passion of the Christ: Songs Inspired by The Passion of the Christ, and also features on the Wonder Boys soundtrack. It is also played in the ending part of the documentary Why We Fight.

Many people have tried to do a cover of the track, some did a good job. I have picked some of the best.

Micah P Hinson – Not Dark Yet:

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Bob Dylan, Cover versions, The Best Songs

Five good and two GREAT versions of Bob Dylan’s Abandoned Love

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Bob Dylan & Sara Dylan

Abandoned Love is a beautiful song, one of Dylan’s finest. A lovely song that Bob Dylan recorded for (but left out of) Desire in NYC, July 31, 1975. It was later released on Biograph in 1985. The only live version Dylan did of the song is even better. We include both of Dylan’s takes on the song here (the two great ones), but first we will present five cover versions (the three good ones).

Five good cover versions:

Chuck Prophet – Abandoned Love (live):

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Bob Dylan, Cat Power, Cover versions, Sound

Cat Power covers Bob Dylan and sings about him

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cat-power

I’m going to my first Cat Power/Chan Marshall show this Tuesday, I’m really looking forward to it. I have listened a lot to her music lately and she has some great interpretations of songs by Bob Dylan.

Charlyn Marie Marshall (born January 21, 1972), also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall’s first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands.

Marshall was discovered opening for Liz Phair in 1994 by Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Tim Foljahn of Two Dollar Guitar, with whom she recorded her first two albums, Dear Sir (1995) and Myra Lee (1996), on the same day in 1994. In 1996 she signed with Matador Records, and released a third album of new material with Shelley and Foljahn, What Would the Community Think. Following this she released the critically acclaimed Moon Pix (1998), recorded with members of the Dirty Three, and The Covers Record (2000), a collection of sparsely recorded cover songs. After a brief hiatus she reemerged in 2003 with You Are Free, featuring guest musicians Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder, followed by the soul-influenced The Greatest (2006), recorded with numerous Memphis studio musicians, and a second covers album, Jukebox (2008). In 2012 she released the self-produced Sun, which opened at number 10 on the Billboard 200, the highest charting album of her career to date.

Here are the Dylan covers done by Cat Power that I managed to dig up, enjoy!

Cat Power aka Chan Marshall – Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again one of the best tracks on the I’m Not There soundtrack (audio):

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Bob Dylan, Cover versions

4 good and one great version of Bob Dylan’s Sweetheart like you

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sweetheart like you

Sweetheart Like You is a song to a woman, it sounds like a love song, but also a warning not to stray away from home/God.

It was released on the album Infidels that was released October 27, 1983.

Oliver Trager’s book, Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, mentions that some have criticized this song as sexist. Indeed, music critic Tim Riley makes that accusation in his book, Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary, singling out lyrics like “…a woman like you should be at home/That’s where you belong/Taking care of somebody nice/Who don’t know how to do you wrong.” However, Trager also cites other interpretations that dispute this claim.

Some have argued that “Sweetheart Like You” is being sung to the Christian church (“what’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?”), claiming that Dylan is mourning the church’s deviation from scriptural truth. I think this is stretching the analysis a bit too far, but everyone is entitled to his/her opinions.

I love the melody, I love the song.

Let us start with the 4 good ones:

Very fine version from World party/Carl Wallinger – Sweetheart Like You (Audio):

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Bob Dylan, Cover versions

5 great cover versions of Ring Them Bells

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ring1

photo: Taken from a bootleg of Oh Mercy outtakes

The lyrics of the Dylan’s song Ring Them Bells are dark, to me, they are much darker than  the melody reveals. The Melody sounds sombre but uplifting in its own dignified way. I can understand why so many artists have made their own interpretations of the song. I have picked a few that I like especially good.

Let us start with Sarah Jarosz’s acoustic performance of Ring Them Bells for Vanguard and Sugar Hill Record’s The Americana Sessions recorded and taped at Minutia Studios in Nashville, TN. It is taken from  Jarosz’s 2011 album,  Follow Me Downavailable on Sugar Hill Records.

Sarah Jarosz – Ring Them Bells:

 

My second choice is quite different but equally good.

Sufjan Stevens – Ring Them Bells (audio):

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