The pace is somewhat faster than Dylan’s version. And they do here, despite this being pretty pretty trite.Ĭhimes Of Freedom… when the three singers, Jim McGuinn, Dave Crosby and Gene Clark get together on the chorus, it’s pure magic. Where Dylan affects a real sense of comedy and sincerity in his version by singing it the way he means it, every single ‘pop’ version of this eschews that for a simple run-through, such that the words lose all their meaning. Pity they leave out half the verses…why?Īll I Really Want To Do… and even though this also sounds great, it doesn’t really make much sense turning it into a tin pan pop song. You can’t fault this-the lyrics even beg the song to be done this way. “Take me for a trip on your magic swirling ship,” and that’s exactly what they do. It’s like toasting marshmallows over a campfire on a cool summer night. Love the little bass part and the jangly electric guitar lines. Tambourine Man… is sooo dreamy and lyrical, all soft burred edges and note perfect harmonizing, pure heavenly pop. It nearly always fails as an instrumental or a trite pop version, which this is to some extent, but it’s still one of the best. I’ve never really liked most bands’ covers of this. The Times They Are A-Changin’… jangle jangle, hi-hat/drum snare, and you’ve got to love the warm throaty harmonizing on, “And you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.” I love the lead singer’s voice here-it’s an oddly accented thing, though I’m not exactly sure who it is-Jim McGuinn perhaps. Odetta for example, played Dylan with real feeling, whereas The Byrds airbrush much of that feeling into the ether. And in that sense, this is not the best Dylan covers album by a long stretch. You just find yourself humming or singing the words, forgetting that the words are supposed to mean something. ![]() The tone arm floats beautifully across the record and when it’s done, you don’t feel arrested in any way. But something about the pillowy, pleasing softness of The Byrd’s playing Dylan leaves me wanting more. More likely I’m overly familiar with hearing these songs covered time and time again. Perhaps I’m too familiar with the Byrds’s sound. Having played the LP over a few times lately, I don’t find myself getting terribly hooked. He says something like, “I can’t understand why they do that to my songs,” and I shall stop ‘quoting’ Dylan right there because I don’t want to put words in his mouth without having a solid source, but he went on to say something about the meaninglessness of watering it down, turning his music into silly pop songs, and what’s that all about? On the other hand, in Chronicles, he raves about David Crosby. I remember reading a particularly disparaging comment from Dylan once, though I forget where, about The Byrds’ versions of his songs. The harmonizing and arrangements are second to none and it really would be churlish to lambast them for trivializing Dylan, because at the same time, they brought him to a far wider audience. So The Byrds take Dylan songs and sweeten them for the ear, make them commercial, radio-friendly, but somehow steal the grit, soul and message out of many of the songs at the same time. ![]() And I had a copy of Younger Than Yesterday on CD ten years ago, which again, for me contained the ‘original’ version of “My Back Pages.” Tambourine Man” – the one I’ve always known. Tambourine Man” for example, in my mind it sounds like the “Mr. I guess for a lot of people born after Dylan’s 60s era, people like me growing up in the 70s that is, the Byrds’ versions of certain Dylan’s songs were the definitive ones. In fact, an earlier version of this album was released in 1970 for the Japan market only, but according to the liner notes, pretty much everything here was already available on The Byrds’ 60s albums. Despite the 1979 release date, this compilation gathered Dylan songs recorded and released by The Byrds in the years 1965-1970. Here it is, surely the biggest selling album of Dylan covers ever.
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