Bringing it All Back Home / Highway 61 Revisited

I feel like these two albums, Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited, represents what most people have in mind when they think of Bob Dylan. These records have a sampling of tracks that are among his most popular tunes and some of his most iconic “Protest Era” output. It also represents some of his most covered work. I’m very interested in cover work of Bob Dylan’s songs; It’s interesting which songs stand out to particular bands and the reasoning behind covering them is always more deep than just liking the sound.

The first cover I want to share is “Maggie’s Farm” as covered by Rage Against the Machine on their 2000 album Renegades, which is composed of nothing but covers:

Rage Against the Machine is a very blunt band. Their name says it all when it comes to what their typical message is in their songs. They use heavy bass and drum rhythm and a distinctive distorted guitar sound that requires them to assure their listeners in the linear notes of every album that ‘All sounds made by guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.” Rage is a very angry band, and they tapped into the anger of the lyrics to this song. Bob Dylan’s jibe at industrial laborers’ frustrations with an antiquated lyrical ballad that sounds like it was written on a chain gang. Rage’s lyrics always pose the same sort mentality that screams about chain gang injustice, and though I think Bob would probably find Rage’s politics a little extreme, they definitely capture the frustration of the whole protest outlaw. Ironic one of the songs that Bob got booed for going electric with would be covered in such an extremely electric fashion. The electricity funnels itself into an even more blatant expression of anger when the Rage Against the Machine version spends a verse quietly enraged, singing through clenched teeth until they can’t even hold in their outrage any longer, and each verse throughout the song is punctuated by the instrumentation quieting so that he can put a final foot down of defiance at each of Maggie’s family members.

The next cover from this album I want to share is “Outlaw Blues” as covered by The White Stripes from their 2004 Under the Blackpool Lights DVD:

The White Stripes have actually covered Bob several times on their albums (“One More Cup of Coffee” on 1999′s The White Stripes, “New Pony” by Jack White’s new side project, The Dead Weather, on their debut album, 2009′s Horehound). The White Stripes have a similar approach to music as Bob Dylan. A lot of is stripped down, as you can tell from the entire band consisting of a simple drum set and a fuzzed-out tube amplified guitar, and is very derivative of what came before. The White Stripe’s style is largely influenced by the same folk music and delta blues that Bob Dylan infuses his own work with, albeit in a much more heavily distorted and stylized way. But, along with the traditional music that The White Stripes are influenced by, he also pays tribute to the artists that directly inspired them, such as Bob Dylan (they are also known for their cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” as well as Screaming Lord Sutch’s “Jack the Ripper,” which this cover of “Outlaw Blues” leads directly into on the DVD:

).

There’s another cover from Bringing it All Back Home that I find significant. It’s a recording of “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” by Roger McGuinn for the soundtrack to the movie Easy Rider:

This cover is an interesting story. According to the accompanying booklet by Lee Hill to the 35th Anniversary DVD of the film, Dennis Hopper, who directed the movie, showed Dylan a rough cut of the film which included “It’s Alright Ma” over the closing credits, but Dylan disliked the image of the two rebel bikers being gunned down by rednecks being attached to his song. Hopper and Peter Fonda argued with Dylan that he missed the point of the film until Dylan consented to allow the song as long as it didn’t play over the end credits and if they didn’t use his version of the song. Dylan spontaneously wrote new lyrics to the song on the spot and told them to give them to Roger McGuinn of The Byrds, that “he’ll know what to do with it” (28). Dylan also co-wrote the lyrics for “The Ballad of the Easy Rider,” the song that did wind up being played over the credits and also sung by Roger McGuinn (though Dylan isn’t credited). I would like to argue that Dylan did get the point of the film. The film is supposed to be an expression of the 60′s generation coming to a close; it represents the death of the hippie ideal and was meant to provide the voice of an entire generation. The soundtrack to this movie plays an important role in this message, with long stretches of film devoted to panoramic shots of countryside, small towns, and Captain America and Bucky riding their motorcycles to the music. Dylan was never trying to be that voice of the generation that they so desperately wanted him to be, and he didn’t want to be included on the soundtrack to it, both literally and figuratively. He wanted to distance himself from that image, and while the lyrics to “It’s Alright Ma” does illicit those images of unheralded freedom, it isn’t meant to be seen in a nostalgic way or a sentimental way like it would imply by using it over the heavily metaphoric climax to this film.

Side note: Easy Rider is one of my favorite films, and if anyone hasn’t seen it, I not only apologize for ruining the ending, but beg of you to go see it yourself.

There are also a few songs from Highway 61 Revisited that have notable covers to me. The first is a cover of “Like a Rolling Stone” by the other legendary Bob, Bob Marley:

The song is nearly unrecognizable until you get to the refrain, but I can’t help but smile at this version. And I think the aim of most of Marley’s music was to be uplifting, and this song, lyrically, represented those who needed the most uplifting. Once again, we come into the realm of putting the label of leader to the impoverished on Dylan, but this song did give voice to the frustrated, and while he may not have wanted the responsibility of being a leader, Dylan, like Marley, had a goal of pointing out these types of issues. Bob Marley wanted to uplift those who were not only impoverished of financial wealth, but those impoverished of the soul, and I don’t think Mr. Dylan would object to his music being used to attempt to effect change in people’s attitudes, and when the message meets one, it will meet many, as I’m sure Bob Marley reached a whole new audience untouched by Bob Dylan.

I’m going to wrap this up with one last cover, “Desolation Row” as covered by My Chemical Romance for the soundtrack to the 2009 film version of Watchmen:

This is a super-quick, punk rock version, clocking in at just under three minutes, as opposed to the eleven minute album version. This is another example of something that Bob Dylan wanted to avoid: his music being metamorphosed into something anthemic. This video shows another example of a group latching onto the innate anger in the song, and illustrates it as a general angst of the nation’s youth towards the establishment. Excising a good portion of the song’s lyrics relegate this single to mere Bob Dylan idolatry, taking the core values of the early Bob Dylan library and transforming it into something that I don’t feel Bob Dylan really intended.

But really, Bob Dylan’s intentions are one thing, but the fact that these songs have become distilled and re-emerged as something a lot bigger than the man as something anthemic and inspirational is a very really element to the music after it left Bob’s hands. I think covers of these songs can be used as a definite measuring stick to compare what Dylan set out to do and what happened by accident.

(Also, during my scrounging for these videos, I stumbled across a very cool article: 50 Best Bob Dylan Covers of All Time )

- Shaun Baker

~ by shibadou on October 6, 2009.