what are you on about? Perhaps the greatest cover version of all time, let alone Dylan songs, is Hendrix's 'All along the watchtower'. Its far superior to the Dylan version in almost every sense
Actually, I have to agree. That's one exception; the Dylan version is only ok, and the Hendrix cover is awesomely awesome.
I think that for Bob Dylan, Leonad Cohen, and Tom Waits (all artists with distinctive writing styles and voices that are good but unconventional) the challenge of doing a cover is to try to get away from their interpretation.
Nobody is ever going to try to do a Bob Dylan song *like Bob Dylan does it* and succeed in doing it better. The only way to make a cover work is to do it some other way.
It also means that when you compare a cover to the original you have to accept that it could never be a replacement for the original becuase it's trying to do something different and, of course, the original will alway be irreplacable.
For example, "Please call me, Baby" is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs but I think the Sally Norvell cover (on New Coat of Paint) is a complete success. I am in awe of the fact that she reverses the genders in the song (singing it as a woman, about a man storming off in a huff) but retains the gender dynamic in the original (about a emotionally inaccessible man and a frustrated and emotional woman) while singing the exact same song). I think it's brilliant, but it only works as a companion to / commentary on the original.
BTW, I don't know Dylan covers but I heard on recently that I think is fantastic.
Caetano Veloso covers "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" on _A Foreign Sound_ and it's supurb. The opening 30 seconds are a little week, but taken as a whole it's one of the best performances I've heard in the last year. -- Seriously, when I got it I started playing it for everyone I knew. And then I got his anthology and, instead, I've been playing everyone I meet "Maria Bethania" (of his 1971 album) but the Dylan cover is still on of the best covers of anyone that I've heard.
That should be "I've head one" that is fantastic.
Caetano Veloso covers "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" on _A Foreign Sound_ and it's supurb.
Are you pulling my leg, Nick? It's certainly adventurous, but there's no way to get past the accent. I mean, that song is all words. And it's practically jaunty, which I don't think is quite right for the song.
I'm not pulling your leg. It does seem to be a version that people either love or hate. I'm not a Dylan fan so I may not be the best person to judge but I'm entirely serious in saying that it's a great performance.
Oddly enough his accent is much more pronounced on that song than on the others on the album. I assumed that it was, in part, his response to Dylan's famous slurring of words.
I think he succeeds in something very difficult which is to both give weight and meaning to all of the words and also make clear that in some cases the words are chosen just for the sounds.
But it is, as I said, a cover that does not try to duplicate the original, but to find its own way through the words and music.
BTW, as long as you're listening I'd be curious if you would listen to Maria Bethania (all the way through -- including the odd section at the end) and let me know what you think. I've been listening to that song a bunch lately.
FWIW, I will add that the review at allmusic.com singles out "It's alright Ma" as one of the failures on the album so it's possible that I'm more in the minority than you but I think it's one of, if not the best track on the album.
My main point is that for a cover to work it has to live on terms it just be a copy and when the original is particularly distinctive (as almost all Dylan songs are) it increases the distance a cover has to travel to escape the shadow of the original. I think the Caetano Veloso version succeeds in both communicating the greatness of the song and in being alive as an interpretation and performance.
Unfortunately, Rhapsody doesn't have Maria Bethania.
Ah, well, I appreciate your looking. It is also a song that makes the people I play it for either love it or scratch their heads and ask me what I was possibly thinking.