Bob Dylan covers: Acoustic cover songs – music videos by the songwriters of the Laptop Sessions video blog. Daily music blog with new indie rock acoustic songs.
Well, my voice is still pretty much shot, so I did what I thought was logical… record another Dylan tune!
This is one that I’ve been saving for some time, as it’s one of my favorites — Bob Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” off his half-acoustic, half-electric album Bringing It All Back Home. I’ll be recording more off of this album in the future, but even a Dylan fan as devoted as myself hasn’t completely memorized “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”…
There’s some big news brewing for some live shows in the not-too-distant future, and as soon as dates are solidified, we’ll post them on the blog. For now, I really hope to see you for dinner at Testa’s in Southington this Saturday evening between 8:30 and 12:30. We’re prepared to play about 80 songs (which I don’t think we’ll get to, but we’re ready all the same!).
A final bit of good news — I hope to break 10,000 views on YouTube by my next post! Thanks again to all who have been watching my videos, both new and old, and I really hope you’ll come see them all — Jim’s, Jeff’s, and mine — at https://guitarbucketlist.com !!
You can look forward to an all-new session from Jeff tomorrow, and I’ll see you next session!
Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1963) – MAYBE
By Chris Moore:
Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1963)
(January 13, 1964)
Review:
There is no question that this is one of the all-time classic Dylan albums, its name giving a title to the general feeling shared by many in the sixties, but it is also an album that comes across as purposely topical, facts blurring in the name of poetic license at times; it may not be among his strongest albums, but it is an album that hosted several gems and made the great potential of this young singer/songwriter even clearer than before.
Top Two Tracks:
“With God on Our Side” & “Only a Pawn in Their Game”
Hey hey, everyone! Time for another Laptop Session acoustic cover song music video from yours truly, Jim Fusco!
Tonight, I bring you a song that I’ve known for a very long time- “It Ain’t Me Babe” by the Turtles. Of course, it took until Chris became interested in Bob Dylan (sometime around 2000) for me to realize that he actually wrote this song. So, why did I come back to it tonight?
Well, I love the Turtles version- it’s a great rock song that has slow parts on the verses and faster rockin’ parts on the choruses. Plus, it’s short and just has so much energy packed into it’s two minutes.
But, I also thought of covering it because I was just listening to “The Bob Dylan Show”, which is a radio show on our own WCJM Radio. This really isn’t a great show in terms of execution- Chris and I did it on a whim and Chris just wasn’t on his “A-game” when it came to on-air chatter. For the most part, the show seems forced and that’s probably why I kept it offline and in the archives since the summer of 2001 when it was recorded.
Actually, an interesting note- Chris talks about looking forward to when Dylan’s new album at the time, “Love and Theft”, would be released- he says he can’t wait for September 11th to get here. Little did we all know…
But, I digress.
The show actually redeems itself because of the music (which is surprising when talking about a show with all Bob Dylan music). The covers of his songs from Manfred Mann (“The Mighty Quinn”) and George Harrison (“I’d Have You Anytime” and the co-written “If Not For You”) are great additions. I actually listened to the show twice this week (putting up with the really poor dialogue- I’ve had better conversations with myself!) because I wanted to hear those great cover versions of Dylan’s songs again from the likes of Eric Clapton (“Born In Time”), Jimi Hendrix (“All Along the Watchtower”) and, of course, the Byrds.
So, after you’re done watching my acoustic cover song music video here today, you should head on over to WCJM Internet Radio and listen to “The Bob Dylan Show” (or any other show there) absolutely free! There’s nothing to sign up for or anything like that. Just click “Play” and start listening. Click HERE to visit the “Jammin’ With Jim Show” page and click on “The Bob Dylan Show”.
I hope you enjoy both forms of entertainment this Tuesday. I’m very excited for the next few days, as they’re starting to frame our new home and all employees at work were given a surprise free “Appreciation Day” off, so I get to choose any day in the next two weeks and just not go to work! I love my job. 🙂
Have a great one, and to echo Chris’ sentiment yesterday- please make sure to come back for another great acoustic rock cover song music video from our very own Jeff Copperthite on his “Thumpin’ Thursday” post! See you next week.
You know, usually, I just throw in that “rock” word in my post titles because it’s a good keyword for search engines. But, tonight, I’m proud to say that it rings true. And, on a new Bob Dylan song no-less!
Tonight, I bring you a cool tune from Bob Dylan’s new album, “Together Through Life”. Tonight’s post will be partially about this song and partially my review of the album.
“Forgetful Heart” is the first real “rock” song I’ve heard Dylan do for a long, long time. Not since “Love and Theft” have we heard Dylan rock out. Yes, he’s had some “rompin’ type” of tunes, but most of them are blues and are very, very long. This song is on the shorter side and doesn’t really have that “old standard” sound that we’re so used to hearing from Dylan lately. This is a pure rock song and for this tune at least, his gritty voice serves us well. The electric guitar, although subdued, is a great addition. I hope we get to hear a live version of this song someday with a little more kick and a lot more speed. I play my version about double the speed of Dylan’s original.
Of course, my bad luck continues tonight. You can see the microphone very clearly in the shot. I even recorded an original song for tomorrow. I made sure to get the microphone even closer to my mouth so I could sing these lower-register songs over the acoustic guitar. Turns out, I forgot to select the external microphone input and it recorded off of the built-in mic. Ugh.
Now, onto the album. Let me start off by saying that I’ve heard the album about 20 times so far. I’m really enjoying it. But, it certainly isn’t as good as “Modern Times”. That album is simply great. And, I’ve discovered the reasons why “Together Through Life” doesn’t match up.
The first time I heard “Together Through Life”, I felt like I knew the words and could even sorta sing along to the tunes. The tunes are very predictable and always follow the patterns you think they’re going to follow- especially Dylan’s middle-eights. But, then again, this ablum does have things like choruses (except for a couple songs) and middle-eights, which are pretty much non-existant on “Modern Times”. In fact, the song structure on “Together…” is very similar to “Nashville Skyline” in that the songs sound, well, normal.
But, that’s one of the problems! On “Modern Times”, I still can’t remember all the words and I must’ve heard it forty times. Chris knows I’m a whiz when it comes to lyrics. Dylan has such a way with words- in fact, it really is very poetic. But, you just can’t predict what he’s going to say next. He always switches it up and comes up with great ways of expressing simple sentiments, “When you’re near, I’m a thousand times happier than I could ever say.” What a great way to say, “I love you.”
But, on this album, and it may be because of his writing partner for the project, the lyrics are much simpler and there are only a few hints of Dylan word-greatness.
Dylan’s voice on the album has continued to deteriorate from previous efforts. Honestly- he almost sounds GOOD on “Modern Times”! But, I figured this one out, too- check the songs he sings softly. Those, he sounds fine. It’s the songs he sings louder (even if just in volume and not angrier or screaming) in that he sounds terrible. I don’t care if a gruff voice would contribute to some angry songs. That’s the argument I always hear. You want that? Get frickin’ John Stamos. There comes a point when it’s too much. “This Dream of You” is a classic song. It can become a standard of American songwriting. But, this song is just ruined by his faling voice. Listen to the way his voice just dies on the word “moment” and you’ll hear what I hear. That song would sound amazing coming from a 30 year old Dylan.
Anyway, again, I really like the album, but I did find myself going back and listening to great tracks on “Modern Times” like “Spirit on the Water”, “Workingman’s Blues”, and “Someday Baby”.
I can still do without all those blues songs, though. Talk about a cop-out!
Hopefully, someday, we’ll hear a real rock album from Bob Dylan again. But, until then, I’ll hold onto “Forgetful Heart” and dream of days past.
Bob Dylan Acoustic Rock Cover Songs and Free mp3 Downloads
Widely recognized as one of the best songwriters of his generation, Bob Dylan is an artist that redefined acoustic guitar music, especially original and even indie music. Certainly, Dylan grew up in a tumultuous time – the 1960s – before the time of video blogs. Whereas we may now turn to the internet to vent our feelings and to read the feelings of others, many in his time turned to his new acoustic music. Acoustic songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” made him famous and he created new rock music, most notably with “Like A Rolling Stone,” lauded my many music reviews as one of the best rock songs of all time. He has released new music as recently as the new millennium and continues to flex his muscle as a songwriter – the MTV Unplugged concert was a recent high point – as well as performing covers, such as a cover song version of “Mutineer” for the Warren Zevon tribute album. The songwriters of the Laptop Sessions have devoted many music video blog entries to his impressive and extensive catalog, including duets between Chris and Jim as well as a rare Triple Threat Tuesday event.
