“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” (Bob Dylan Cover)

For Bob Dylan chords and lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

It was definitely one of those “clouds parting” kind of Chris Moore Mondays for me.

First of all, I should clarify that “Chris Moore Mondays” is the title we use around here to remind you all that it’s my job to post a great cover song music video for you each and every Monday evening.  Next, I should explain the “clouds parting” aspect.  Well, I woke up around 5:30 this morning and was having serious difficulty getting myself out of bed.  Then, I noticed I had an email from bobdylan.com.

Long story short, I had woken up to find the link to a free download of the new, unreleased Bob Dylan track “Beyond Here Lies Nothin.'”  It will be track one on his upcoming album, Together Through Life, to be released on Tuesday, April 28th.  Sorry, Jim — this means that your birthday the following day is going to be something of an anti-climax.  😉

In all seriousness, this is an exciting bit of New Music Tuesday news.  After all, there were five years of separation between 2001’s Love and Theft and 2006’s Modern Times.  Now, it’s been less than three years and there’s a new release.  Based on the first track alone, I couldn’t be more excited.  It’s a pretty simple song — only three chords and a basic verse, chorus, repeat structure with a few instrumental breaks thrown in and a classic Dylan chorus style in which the lines in each chorus are slightly different.  I wasn’t sure what to think of the lyrics at first, but they’ve really grown on me today as I’ve listened to the song repeatedly and learned to play it.  I’m still not sure what to think of lines like “The whole world is my throne” or “And every window’s made of glass.”

The conclusion I’ve come to is that this is a deceptively simple song.  In the beginning of the song, Dylan sings of a lover in terms that express fairly standard love-song mentalities.  Still, by the end of the track, he compares himself to a ship in harbor with the sails up.  This implies that the ship is about to leave harbor, or perhaps that he is ready to move on to something — or someone — new.  And yet he goes on to tell his lover that she should lay her hand upon his head.  In typical Dylan fashion, even a love song has darker overtones, as played out in the chorus lines.  The choral sections really are my favorite lines.  “Beyond here lies nothin,'” he sings, “But the mountains of the past” or “Nothin’ done and nothin’ said.”  There is simply nowhere else he would rather be than where he is, as he acknowledges that there is nothing “beyond here.”  The questions, of course, are 1) where is “here”? and 2) does he really want to be “here” or are there simply no better options?

As I mentioned, it’s a fairly simple song.  Even I was able to figure it out in short order.  It’s three chords — Am, Dm, and E — easily within my register with an uptempo beat.  It’s actually caused a bit of a debate among Dylan fans who have disagreed over the use of accordion in the song and the state of Dylan’s vocal abilities.  As far as I’m concerned, the instrumentation is excellent, raw and loose but very intentional and fitting, accordion or no accordion.  As for Dylan’s voice, I read one user’s take on the fansite expectingrain.com.  He essentially said that Dylan’s vocals have deteriorated even more than they had on Modern Times.  My reaction is simple:

Really?

I mean, if you’ve followed Dylan over the past decade and enjoyed Time Out of Mind or the aforementioned two albums, then you know that his gritty vocals are fitting.  He may not stand a chance on American Idol, but I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing!  Another post that I read made a great deal of sense.  This user basically argued that Dylan’s vocals on studio recordings and during live performances should be weighed separately.  I agree with this — while his vocals may be a bit difficult to understand and follow in concerts at times, his studio recordings haven’t failed to impress me — including vocals, instruments, etc.

Needless to say, I hope you enjoy my take on this brand new Dylan song.  If you’re a guitarist, you should check out my chords and lyrics (see the link above) and have fun playing it yourself.  And, without further ado, I wish you a good night and a great week…

See you next session!

“New Pony” (Bob Dylan / Dead Weather Cover)

For Bob Dylan / Dead Weather chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another delay for the “double header” I promised last week or (technically) two weeks ago.  But I have a good reason for holding off!  Tonight, I’ve recorded “New Pony,” one of my least favorite Bob Dylan songs, because a brand new cover version was released on last week’s Dead Weather debut album.

First, I’ll give a little background on the original version of the song.  “New Pony” was first released on Bob Dylan’s 1978 album Street Legal.  To give you a little context here, Dylan had recently released Blood on the Tracks and Desire, arguably two of his best albums.  The year 1975 found him fully engaged in the Rolling Thunder Revue along with such artists as Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, poet Allen Ginsberg, and others.  Although he temporarily revived a different incarnation of the Revue in 1976, this phase of Dylan’s musical career was pretty much over by 1977.

This is not to say that life wasn’t busy for him.  This was right around the time that his marriage to Sara Dylan was breaking down and the divorce proceedings began.  A lot — perhaps too much — has been written about these personal aspects. 

Street Legal was the product of a few weeks of sessions involving a select group of musicians that Dylan had recently worked with.  Although his past two albums had met with critical success and his subsequent album, 1979’s Slow Train Coming, would earn him his first Grammy award, Street Legal has generally been lost in the valley between these two peaks.

Personally, I have always liked this album.  Sure, the female background singers come across as a bit cheesy at times (have you heard “Baby, Stop Crying”?) and the instrumentation can be a bit much at times, but there are some great songs.  “Changing of the Guards” is one of my favorite album openers and boasts a rare fade-in.  “Is Your Love in Vain?” and “True Love Tends to Forget” are fantastic Dylan deep cuts.  And “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” is a narrative wrapped in the best, darkest mood you’ve ever felt.  (Jerry Garcia recorded a great version of the latter.)

As for “New Pony”?  Well, it generally ranks as one of my least favorite Dylan recordings of all time, and certainly on this record.  In fact, it’s the very rare track that I may occasionally skip when listening to the album.  Why it was placed in the number 2 slot, I’ll never know.

That being said, let’s flash forward to 2009.  Last week, the Dead Weather released their debut album, Horehound.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this group, this is a side project band composed of the White Stripes’ Jack White (drums, some vocals, acoustic guitar on one track), the Kills’ Alison Mosshart (lead vocals), Queens of the Stone Age’s Dead Fertita (guitar, etc.), and Jack Lawrence (bass, etc.).  I really liked last year’s Raconteurs album (Jack White and Jack Lawrence’s other side project band), so I figured I would give this one a shot as well.

Long review short, I was not as impressed as I had hoped to be.  (My one-sentence review is coming shortly!)  That being said, the album certainly has its moments, and for me, one of the best moments is track seven when they cover Dylan’s “New Pony.”

This is an excellent example of a band you wouldn’t necessarily think of as being heavily influenced by Bob Dylan turning around and pulling off a stand-up interpretation of one of his songs.  After hearing it, I thought that this song fit better on this album than it did on Street Legal.  In that sense, I was happy to assign “New Pony” to a better place in my estimation of Dylan’s catalog of songs.

So, without further ado, I submit to you my acoustic rendition of the song as a send-up to the 1978 Dylan version and a tip of the hat to the brand-new 2009 version by the Dead Weather.  I found that I was psyched to learn this ridiculously easy (at least chord-wise) song.  Anyone who visits the Laptop Sessions on any regular basis knows that I’m no stranger to a Bob Dylan cover song, but I never thought I’d be recording this one.

Well, at least not until I ran out of all the other ones in 2045 or so…

I hope you enjoy this, and be sure to stop back tomorrow for Jim Fusco’s Tuesday post, a couple days later for Jeff Copperthite’s Thumpin’ Thursday, and later this week for at least one more post from your truly.  (I’ve got so much to say about other music and non-music related topics, but I think this is quite enough for one post!)

See you next session!

“New Pony” by Bob Dylan (Covered by the Dead Weather) – Chords, Tabs, & How to Play

For the cover song music video, CLICK HERE!

“New Pony”
Bob Dylan (Covered by the Dead Weather)

A
I had a pony; her name was Lucifer.
I had a pony; her name was Lucifer.
A                     E
She broke her leg and needed shooting;
E                                                                        A
I swear it hurt me more than it could’ve hurted her.

Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X.
Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Miss X.
She got such as sweet disposition;
I never know what the poor girl’s gonna do to me next.

I got a new pony; she knows how to fox trot, lope, and pace.
I got a new pony; she knows how to fox trot, lope, and pace.
She got great big hind legs;
Long big shiny hair hanging in her face.

SOLO

Everybody says you’re using voodoo; I’ve seen your feet walk by themselves.
Everybody says you’re using voodoo; I’ve seen your feet walk by themselves.
Oh baby, but that god that you’ve been praying to
Gonna give you back what you wishing on someone else.

Come over here, pony; I wanna climb up one time on you.
Come over here, pony; I wanna climb up one time on you.
You oh so nasty and you’re so bad,
But I swear I love you, yes, I do.

Announcing: The Launch of the Redesigned JimFusco.com!

After weeks of work, Jim Fusco has completed his new website at http://jimfusco.com!  This new site features all of Jim’s albums, new and old, plus his biography, videos, and much more!

The new site focuses on Jim’s music throughout the years and has a great new look- his signature counts as his new logo, plus there’s a great new set of photos that grace every page.  Plus, there’s some cool interactive features, as each time you load a page, a random different photo appears, and a different quote about Jim shows-up in the header bar.  You’ll also see links to Jim’s new Facebook fan page and his popular YouTube channel.

Updates were also made accordingly to the Masters of the Universe tribute page at http://jimfusco.com/albums.html.  You’ll notice that there is no longer a formal store, but a simple PayPal shopping cart.  Jim hopes this new design will make his site more appealing to new fans and ones that have loved his music for the past nine years.

Now that this project is complete, Jim is moving-on to songwriting again, so expect some great announcements about a new album in the coming months!