Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.
[W]hen I sing other people’s songs… I’ve known them so long that they feel like they’re my songs, you know? Obviously, I don’t get the publishing for them, but I feel like they’re part of me, because they also formed the way I write songs. Those songs are like my parents or my elder brother, you know? [Laughs.] I may not possess them, but they’re certainly family. I don’t know if family is something you possess or something that possesses you. – Robyn Hitchcock
If Robyn Hitchcock sees Bob Dylan’s songs as family, then 2002’s Robyn Sings was him organizing a great family reunion. It was a two-CD collection of live Dylan covers; the second CD recreated the famed “Royal Albert Hall” concert. It’s got a bootleg sound and one clown who thinks it’s funny to yell “Judas!” after every song, but it gets the job done. The real treasure, though, is on the first disc, which is what we’ll focus on here today.
Dylan was clearly a huge influence on Hitchcock’s writing; the surreal bent, the intense visual imagery–it all tracks. Hitchcock has repaid his debts by talking about his huge fandom in multiple interviews (this one‘s a really good one), and by covering the man dozens and dozens of times. You can tell listening to Robyn Sings that the music is a part of his DNA now. He comes across as singing Dylan not to bring attention to himself, nor to pay tribute to a musical muse, but as an expression of self. Not every artist can do that, and a lot fewer can pull that off while covering Bob Dylan. Robyn Hitchcock can.
Robyn Hitchcock – Visions of Johanna (Bob Dylan cover)
“‘Visions of Johanna’ for me is the matrix,” Hitchcock said in an interview. “It’s where I come from as a songwriter. To me, that defined what a song could be.” He bookends disc one of Robyn Sings with it; the first version is more Dylanesque, the second more Hitchcockian. You really can’t go wrong with either one, in no small part for the way Hitchcock sings “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.” No other line could provide a clearer roadmap for Robyn’s own writings.
Robyn Hitchcock – Fourth Time Around (Bob Dylan cover)
“Without sounding sacrilegious,” says allmusic.com, “Hitchcock’s voice is more pleasing than Dylan’s and his acoustic guitar playing is also better, making his versions, much like the Byrds’ and Jimi Hendrix’s before him, arguably superior to the Dylan takes.” “Fourth Time Around” is a good example of that. Pared down to one acoustic guitar, the song becomes hypnotic – so much so that when Hitchcock briefly forgets a lyric, the listener is almost physically jarred.
Robyn Hitchcock – Not Dark Yet (Bob Dylan cover)
When Dylan faces the sunset of his life, radios the world over are sure to play “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” But the fact is, Dylan has written a second definitive song about confronting his mortality, in “Not Dark Yet.” (Parenthetically, who else has written multiple standards about death? The only other name that comes to my mind is Warren Zevon.) Hitchcock’s take, like Dylan’s, is able to express the Job-like suffering with both wryness and a keen sense of the not-always-sweet mystery of life.
Robyn Hitchcock – Dignity (Bob Dylan cover)
“Dignity”‘s path to release was a rocky, winding one. Dylan took multiple cracks at it, which he later called “a fishing expedition gone nowhere.” Left off Oh Mercy, it emerged five years later as collector bait on Greatest Hits, Vol. 3. Hitchcock’s version feels like a quiet trot, one that picks up the pace when the bass enters. Both he and Dylan show a wandering spirit, but it took Hitchcock to prove that not all who wander are lost.
Robyn Hitchcock – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan cover)
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” is hugely significant in Dylan’s career. He used the song to kick Donovan to the curb/kerb in Don’t Look Back; he also used it to close his Dylan-goes-electric set at Newport. It’s also gotten many covers from many significant artists–Them, the Animals, Marianne Faithfull, and Bryan Ferry, to name but a few. Hitchcock’s cover marks the one time on Robyn Sings that he changes Dylan’s melody. This makes the song more his own, and not coincidentally, it’s one of the strongest songs on the album.
