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Dylan Week: The Top 10 Worst Bob Dylan Covers Ever
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 23, 2012
Modified May 23, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 23, 2012
Modified May 23, 2012
Share
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"I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now." We'll be celebrating Bob Dylan's 71st birthday with a series of posts this week. As mercurial as Dylan has always been, there is one thing we do know: for as long as Dylan has been writing songs, he has been writing to, for and about New York City. So far, we've listed our favorite Dylan covers, looked at the Freewheelin' album cover art, explored songs written about Robert Zimmerman and dived into our archives to see how Dylan has been depicted in comic books. Now, we'll look at the dark underbelly of Dylan fandom: terrible covers.
Alas, all the wonderful Rickenbacker-enhanced Byrds Bob Dylan cover songs can't make up for Ke$ha covering "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right." Amazingly, that's not even one of our top ten worst covers (don't get us wrong: those dramatic, over-emotive breaths before every line are HORRIBLE). While the I'm Not There soundtrack showcases everything good about modern bands covering Robert Zimmerman, the Amnesty International-curated Chimes Of Freedom compilation shows a lot of examples of what can go wrong. Click through to see the ten worst Dylan covers, including several from that compilation, spoken-word pieces, and a couple what-were-they-thinking? ones.
By the way, you can find a rather thorough listing of Dylan covers here. Below, let us know any terrible covers we've forgotten.
Tagged
bob dylan
dylan week
Music
rock
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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