Bob Dylan

For The Records: The Cover Albums, Part Two

Well, here’s the concluding entry in my survey of recordings in that most star-crossed category, the covers album. Star-crossed in an almost literal way: here are stars performing the songs of other stars.

After listening to so many of these albums I can only conclude that placing one or two well-chosen covers on an album of your own original tunes works a lot better. The reason is a whole collection of tributes usually tends to lack coherence and make even the best artists look like a bar band.

The best way around this is for your covers album to have some sort of concept. The highest-ranking record of Part One of this survey (David Bowie’s Pin-ups) worked so well because of its tight focus. Bowie was paying homage to British bands and key songs from the 1964-67 period, just before he broke thru himself. A similar concept guides the first record reviewed here, the only one other than Pin-ups to gain an A- rating.

Songs From a Haunted Ballroom—The Skids (2021)

While not a household name, most fans of early UK punk will recall this tenacious band who moved down to London from their native Dunfermline in the late 70s. The Skids gained notoriety not just for their tough-guy rep (legend has it that they picked fights in clubs to get their names in the English music press) but also for their aggressive-but-artistic musical approach. That included at least two Brit punk classics: “Into the Valley” and “The Saints are Coming,” both of which are featured here in re-recorded versions.

The rest of Songs From a Haunted Ballroom have an association with the Kinema Ballroom, a vital but volatile music venue in their hometown. The Skids, whose guitarist was future Big Country leader Stuart Adamson, got their start here, playing live sets opening for the likes of the Clash before the place changed over to a discotheque later at night.

Both aspects of the Kinema are celebrated here. Mainstay vocalist Richard Jobson is joined here by ex-Big Country second guitarist Bruce Watson and his guitarist son Jamie Watson. The lads come charging out of the gate with Ultravox’s “Young Savage,” one of many allusions to the club’s stormy history (“Anything goes where no one knows your name”). They tip their hat to the Clash with a nice take on “Complete Control.” In light of the father-son axe duo backing him up, Jobson is obliged to use the song’s proclamation “You’re my guitar hero!” not once but twice.

Elsewhere, there are enthusiastic, high-energy tributes to the Adverts, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Mott the Hoople and Magazine. Just as welcome are some of the less obvious choices like Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove” and Garland Jeffrey’s “35mm Dreams.” The key track is probably their ominous take on David Essex’s glam hit “Rock On.” As an after-hours disco, the Kinema was a magnet for the region’s various violent gangs and apparently “Rock On” was the signal for the trouble to start. Jobson describes the scene in a mid-song monologue as the AV Toi (“the most mental gang in Scotland”) get ready to rumble. Grade: A-

Acid Eaters—The Ramones (1993)

As punk-rock pioneers, the Ramones need no introduction, but once you get past their mid-to-late 70s heyday, they become a lot less examined. By the late Eighties, original bassist and key songwriter Dee Dee Ramone had left, leaving CJ Ramone to man the front line with Joey and Johnny. CJ, who took some lead vocals, was an energizing figure but the band’s run was almost over.

On this, the Ramones’ penultimate studio album, the band matter-of-factly reposition themselves as acid-rock casualties: just look at the disconcerting covert art. Of course, it’s still them so don’t expect Dead-style noodling or Floydish space jams. Opener “Journey to the Center of the Mind” (sung by CJ) may be trippy but it also rocks.

The results here are entertaining if a bit predictable. The Ramones are in a comfort zone when covering their antecedents like the Animals, Seeds and Troggs. And it’s a blast to hear Joey’s long-loved voice singing the Who’s “Substitute” with no less than Pete Townsend guesting on guitar. The same goes when ol’ Bobby Dylan gets the Ramones’ patented faster-and-louder treatment. Their buzzsaw rendition of “My Back Pages” (check out Marky’s triple-time drumming and Joey’s rare lead guitar shredding) gives the Byrds’ celebrated version a run for its money

As usual, though, the results here vary. The Credence vibe (as in “Have You Ever Seen the Rain”) doesn’t seem to suit da brothers and their take on “Somebody to Love” (despite backing vocals by porn star Traci Lords) won’t make any baby boomer forget about Grace Slick. For my money, the Ramones’ best cover came on their next (and last) album Adios Amigos. Their version of “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” Tom Waits’ seriocomic take on the old Peter Pan trope, is made all the more affecting by being the final bittersweet salvo of the group’s perpetual teenage rebellion. (The video’s witty animation was done by famed comic artist Daniel “Ghost Story” Clowes). Grade: B (B+ if you add in the Tom Waits tune).

12—Patti Smith (2007)

Rising up from the same Lower East Side scene that birthed the Ramones, New York punk poetess Patti Smith showed a great knack for incorporating others’ work into her own on her revolutionary debut album in 1975. Horses kicked off with her radical recasting of the Van Morrison warhorse “Gloria” with her famous opening line, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.” On side two her group seamlessly added “Land of a Thousand Dances” to the outré 9-minute “Land.”

It wouldn’t be until 2007 that the covers-album bug would give Patti a bite. Smith is famously expansive in her fandom, so it’s no surprise that 12 is a grab-bag of songs of different eras and genres. If you want to know how to get from Jimi Hendrix to Tears for Fears to Neil Young in three easy steps, here you are. If you’ve been yearning for a slow-paced version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” complete with banjo and fiddle, your wait is over.

This will be a pleasurable listen for Patti Smith fans like me. But the fact that her take on “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” is my favorite thing here (despite not being even close to my favorite tune covered) goes to show just how random these records are. Grade: B-

Dylan—Bob Dylan (1973)

This long-derided album can’t be blamed on the artist. A record of traditional songs and covers, they are outtakes from 1970’s lowly-rated 2-LP set Self Portrait It was released against Dylan’s wishes by Columbia Records in “revenge” after Dylan had the audacity to jump ship to Asylum (he came back two albums later).

His largely indifferent takes of various non-originals made up about two-thirds of Self Portrait, and these are the leftovers. There are lackluster tributes to contemporaries (“Big Yellow Taxi” and “Mr. Bojangles”), a few deep oldies (“Spanish is the Loving Tongue” dates to 1907) and a three-hankie Elvis ballad (see below). Bob sings in his appealing “Nashville Skyline” voice but his delivery is lazy, and the record is marred by the overuse of a shrill female chorus too high in the mix. Some have suggested that the ever-cryptic Dylan was engaged in some perverse self-sabotage during this period. I tend to believe it. In his re-issue series, a collection from the same period, called Another Self Portrait, was released in 2013 and it’s freaking great. Grade: C-

Covers—Cat Power (2022)

Chan Marshall, the Atlanta-born singer/songwriter who goes by the stage name Cat Power, has been beguiling fans since she came on the scene in 1992. Her brand of subtle intensity may not be for everyone, but her unique musical stylings make her esp. suitable for doing other people’s material (this is her third, and most recent, covers album). Not everything here sticks the landing, but when it does it’s quietly captivating.

The best to my ears are her artful renditions of two poignant slow numbers. First is the Pogues’ “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” with Marshall accompanying herself on Mellotron (see below). Second is the Replacements’ barroom ballad “Here Comes a Regular.” There are other selections that show the depth of her musical appreciations: Nick Cave’s “I Had a Dream, Joe” and Kitty Wells’ proto-feminist anthem “God Didn’t Make Honky Tonk Angels,” the first C&W #1 hit by a solo woman. On the flip side, she does a song by lesser-chanteuse Lana Del Ray, Bob Seeger’s “Against the Wind” (barely recognizable) and a number from Ryan Gosling’s short-lived group. But with cover albums, variety is the spice of life. Grade: B

Kojak Variety—Elvis Costello (1995)

More “variety.’ First off, I’m glad that this album was named after a store near where it was recorded in Barbados, and not after the charmless TV detective played by Telly Savalas. Secondly, most know that Costello, a generational songwriting talent, has a keen ear for and encyclopedic knowledge of other great tunesmiths—he did a country covers LP (Almost Blue) only a few years into his career. This one also wisely sticks to a plan (the cover touts “Rhythm & Blues, Popular Ballads”) and said tunes are delivered in Elvis’ familiar self-assured style. You get them coming and going: songs by Willie Dixon, Mose Allison, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Richard, Jesse Winchester etc. Your favorite will depend on your preference for a particular tune. I love his emotive take on Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away” and esp. his elegiac take on Ray Davies’ bittersweet “Days.” This Kinks Klassic Kover was originally from the soundtrack of the Wim Wenders’ film “Until the End of the World,” where it was also a group sing-along during a campfire scene. Grade: B

Through the Looking Glass—Siouxsie and the Banshees (1987)

The distinctive, imperious voice of goth icon Siouxsie Sioux was well known by the time she and the Banshees decided to do this tribute album of early influences a la David Bowie’s Pin-Ups. And like Bowie, she was able to put a unique stamp on many of the well-chosen covers here. Dark and delectable tunes like John Cale’s “Gun,” the Doors’ “You’re Lost Little Girl,” and Kraftwerk’s “Hall of Mirrors” are naturals for her and delivered in excellent style.

Other tracks go next level: Iggy Pop loved Siouxsie’s version of his nocturnal road-tripping “The Passenger” (which added a neat brass section) so much that he asked to do a later duet version with her. Her goth take on the Billie Holiday nightmare classic “Strange Fruit” is not afraid to sit up right up there in the pantheon. And her eerie vocal on Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel” gives that early punk gem a second life, with guitarist John Valentine Carruthers ably reproducing the song’s infamous 8-note guitar motif while wisely avoiding a go at Tom Verlaine’s nervy, virtuoso solo. Grade B+

I didn’t have time to fully review Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 1986 covers LP Kicking Against the Pricks but was taken by its closing number. It became a signature song (along with “Georgy Girl”) for fellow Australians the Seekers. Written by Tom Springfield, it seems an appropriate place to close. Like a carnival, cover albums have plenty of fleeting pleasure before they move on to another town, while you turn back to your favorite artists doing original material.

Make Mine a Double #1: Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” (1966)

Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde was rock’s first word on double studio albums and for many fans and critics it was the last word as well. There are those who would stand up for different personal favorites, many for the two-baggers released by the other figureheads in the holy trinity of the Sixties. Blonde on Blonde is not as willfully versatile as the Beatles’ “White Album” and it doesn’t rock out as hard as the Stones’ Exile on Main Street. But it does pre-figure the musical stretching-out of the former and nearly matches the grittiness of the latter. What it has over both of them of course are the lyrics. It s no surprise that Dylan, who had already fixed his place as the voice of a generation with socially-conscious anthems like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They are A-Changin’,” would release an album that had his followers up into the wee hours trying to interpret every verbose stanza. But even in the wake of two seminal masterworks (Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing it all Back Home) this one stands out as a singular force of nature, the full flowering of his golden era. A severe motorcycle accident, an event whose details are still shrouded in mystery, sidelined Dylan only a few months after BOB’s release in May 1966. When he re-emerged a couple of years later it would be to resume a career that would run pretty much uninterrupted into the 21st century. But although there were to be some highlights to come, Dylan would never again conjure up the untamed genius that informs the music on these four sides.


“Let’s try and get one in focus, shall we?”

Dylan was all about cutting against the grain of audience expectations back in those heady days, always one step ahead of the listeners who would claim him for their own. Blonde on Blonde’s off-focus cover photo shows the inscrutable artist wrapped tightly in a scarf and only half looking into the camera, defying you to know him. This was reinforced as soon as the needle was dropped onto side one. A sliding trombone note at the start of “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35” seems to pull you inside the doors of a Salvation Army mission where all notions of temperance have been cast aside: the brass band is three sheets to the wind and men are hootin’ and a-hollerin’ as the singer declares that “everybody must get stoned.” Although this refrain would prove popular with the burgeoning freak culture (and help propel the single to #2 on the Billboard charts despite some radio station bans) a closer listen reveals a stoning more in a literal or Biblical sense, and men can expect the brickbats being thrown by the fairer sex (or just straight society in general) to follow them all the way from the breakfast table to “when you’re sent down to your grave.” The inebriated refrain now suggests that for him and everyone else, to live and love is to hurt. A lot of the rest of the album hashes out this notion with the rarest of rock poetry and a willingness to further push the envelope musically. Dylan even channels Elmore James on the next track, “Pledging My Time.” This track sounds as if it were cut on the South Side of Chicago and not in Nashville where this recording mostly took place. The same goes for “Obviously Five Believers” and the saucy “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” where Dylan’s rare turn on lead guitar will leave listeners with both ears ringing.

It’s hard to find original Dylan music on YT, but this Mark Ronson re-mix (with added elements) shows Bob’s lasting influence in a contemporary light

These tracks would seem to give some literal basis for the oft-stated belief that this Minnesota-bred son of middle-class Jewish parents is one of the greatest of all white blues singers. But those are the fun tunes of BOB. The real hurting comes on Dylan’s more allusive, acoustic balladry: side one concludes with the masterful co-mingling of romantic and existential angst in “Visions of Johanna” and “One of Must Know (Sooner or Later).” The latter’s depiction of a confused, non-starter of a relationship, where Dylan stretches out the last note of each verse until it sounds like a lifetime of regret, is thought to be about his rumored affair with Warhol “It Girl” Edie Sedgwick. Other likely inspirations are his first wife Sara (they secretly married in late 1965), former paramour/vocal partner Joan Baez and maybe old girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Many Dylanologists have a soft spot for this particular parlor game. But the ageless reverie on love’s complications, and the pursuit of mysterious females whose attractions are both majestic and ephemeral, transcend biographical speculation. “Nobody feels any pain/tonight as I stand inside the rain,” is the famous opening couplet of the oft-covered “Just Like a Woman.” A young lady one moment described as Queen Mary is soon said to be “like all the rest/ with her fog, her amphetamines and her pearls.” This dude can’t abide in a free-fire zone between womanly wiles and girlish immaturity, only allowing on the way out that “I was hungry and it was your world.” “I Want You” was the second most successful of the LP’s four singles (#20 Billboard) and something of an anomaly in Dylan’s songbook. A sprightly pop number redolent of much mid-Sixties AM fare, its chorus is simplicity itself—the repetition of the title with “sooo baaad” tagged onto the end—though the verses are as cryptic as ever.

Capping off the romance-related material is the song most associated with the new Mrs. Dylan, “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” (Sara’s last name by her first marriage was Lownds). This is also the piece that inaugurated a feature of many double LPs to come: one song that would take up an entire album side. At just over eleven minutes, it’s only about half the length of many that would follow, but could hardly be less epic. A languorous, long-unspooling melody gives Dylan plenty of space to recount in head-spinning detail his intended’s many strange attributes: “your mercury mouth in the missionary times”, “your childhood flames on your midnight rug”, even “your sheet metal memory of Cannery Row.” Like several other songs on BOB, “Sad Eyed Lady” ends with a plaintive harmonica coda, as if giving us the opportunity to absorb the amazing rush of words that has just blown by. Yet for all the audacious application of language on the album (much of it said to have been written on the spot in a room off the studio), little of it is expended on the sort of topical song that much of Dylan’s considerable reputation had been built on. Some may have wished for more in this vein, if only for a break from the singer’s illiberal views on the opposite sex, as on “Just Like a Woman” and “4th Time Around”, the fraternal twin of the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.”

The closest we get to the old Protest Bob is on “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again.” In no less than nine verses he runs a down a list of peculiar misadventures across a fabled American landscape, one that suggests the growing unease of a turbulent decade. There is the typical inventory of colorful Dylan characters: a gun-toting senator who enforces mandatory attendance at his son’s wedding, a preacher with “twenty pounds of headlines stapled to his chest”, cigarette-punching railroad men who “drink up your blood like wine” and Rosie, a woman of easy leisure who resides next to the “honky tonk lagoon.” After each bizarre encounter the narrator is left to question, “is this really the end” and trying to figure out “what you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice,” a sentiment that could easily extend to the nation as a whole. “Memphis Blues Again” is also the best example of the album’s unusual musical symbiosis between Dylan’s regular hipster sidemen (Al Kooper, Robbie Robertson) and the cool precision of the Nashville studio players like multi-instrumentalist Charlie McCoy, versatile drummer Kenny Buttrey and guitarist Joe South, soon to become a notable singer-songwriter himself. With its intro resembling a freight train picking up speed and the dramatic series of hammered chords at the end, it’s little wonder that director Todd Haynes used this tune to play over the opening scene of his Dylan fantasia/biopic, I’m Not There.


Welcome to the Old Weird America. Todd Hayne’s brilliant opening sequence in “I’m Not There”

Haynes notably resorted to using six actors to portray his subject’s elusive persona and myriad career phases. Nothing is ever clear-cut with Dylan, including the release history of Blonde on Blonde. Although Columbia Records insists that they put out the record in May of ’66, it reportedly did not reach the charts (or have its review in major publications) until that July—-which could technically make the Mother of Invention’s Freak Out! rock’s first double studio album to hit the stores. Either way, Dylan’s popularity was peaking along with his skill set; Blonde on Blonde topped off at #9 in the U.S. and inspired a multitude down the path that led to a more independent–minded and ambitious style of youth music. A reluctant standard bearer in the first place, the June 29th motorcycle accident saw to it that Dylan would largely be on the sidelines for the revolutionary late 60s. Secluded in Woodstock (even, or especially, during a certain music festival) while raising a family and releasing a series of uneven albums, Dylan would not return fully to the public eye until his triumphant 1974 comeback tour with the Band. The BOB rocker “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” served as a ferocious show-opening mission statement while “Rainy Day Women” proved a natural crowd pleaser and “Just Like a Woman” was an acoustic set highlight. His separation from, attempted reconciliation with, and eventual divorce from Sara served as raw material for many songs on subsequent albums, especially with Blood on the Tracks, his Seventies high water mark. It was a decade after this epoch-making double album that people saw the flip side of the inspiration that had served as a catalyst for some of pop music’s most memorable songwriting.

In this new series, I’ll take a in-depth look at a classic (or not so classic) double album every 10-14 days.
Next up: Husker Du’s “Zen Arcade”