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You are here: Home / Music / If not for you

If not for you

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I’m not the biggest Bob Dylan fan and this isn’t his best song, but when they played it at Starbucks this morning, it cut right through the usual Norah Jones and Sting. Anyway, it seemed appropriate on a blog that runs on fumes and comments (not in that order).

Update. There was a tv show in the early 1990s (I remember seeing it in 1991 or 1992) that had this as its theme song, done by someone who sounded like a folkier version of Suzanne Vega. What was it? I can’t remember.

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  2. 2.

    rob!

    The version of this (off of The Bootleg Series Vol.1-3) with George Harrison on guitar is beautiful. Plus you get to hear Bob say, in a kindly voice, “Hey George!” before the first verse.

  5. 5.

    AhabTRuler

    I’m not the biggest Bob Dylan fan

    Yeah, well, Bob Dylan isn’t the biggest DougJ fan, either!

    Nah, I’m fucking with you. He loves your work.

  6. 6.

    schrodinger's cat

    I discovered Dylan after I saw PBS show on him, I think it was called No Direction Home. I like his early work. Listening to Masters of War for the first time was a revelation, almost felt like he had written it after watching Cheney and Rumsfeld’s shenanigans.

  8. 8.

    DougJ

    @Punchy:

    They’re fast. That’s the only reason I go. My local place is too slow…plus they hits of the ’80s all the time (I’m not kidding).

  14. 14.

    cleek

    it’s taken me a long long time to get into Dylan. and even now, i’m still only Highway 61 +/- 2 records. later or earlier haven’t done anything for me.

  18. 18.

    eastriver

    @DougJ:

    No, Manfred Mann’s version is better. And Dylan sucks, no matter if you juxtapose him against String and Snorah Jones.

    Adenoidal punch-me-now hippie.

  22. 22.

    John O

    @DougJ:

    There are some I love.

    Tangled Up in Blue always kills me for some reason, as does his ode to Joan, How Does It Feel? (I don’t think that’s the name but too lazy to look it up) since I like angry songs sometimes.

  27. 27.

    DougJ

    @John O:

    I love Tangled Up In Blue and Twist Of Fate. The latter is one of those songs I can’t get through because it’s too much, like For the Good Times and the Langley Schools version of Desperado.

  28. 28.

    Tax Analyst

    @General Egali Tarian Stuck:

    Manfred Mann – Blinded By the Light

    Originally a Bruce Springsteen song from waaaay back early in his career.

    EDIT: OOPS! I missed all the many comments after the General’s making this reference and debating Bruce vs. Manfred as to the better version. I never really cared for Manfred Mann’s version while I’ve always liked Springsteen’s.

  31. 31.

    Tax Analyst

    @DougJ:

    I love Tangled Up In Blue and Twist Of Fate.

    FYI – There was a really knockout version of “Tangled Up In Blue” done in the early-to-mid 70’s by a Bay Area group called the “Hoodoo Rhythm Devils” (I’m not kidding). I got it on a Demo release vinyl LP for $1 a long time ago. I don’t know if it’s available on CD or not now…it wasn’t the last time I checked a couple years ago.

    EDIT: I looked around a bit and apparently there is a compilation CD of some of their best songs (and most of the album I bought back then was quite good). I don’t have time to check further on it tonight.

  35. 35.

    gbear

    I always thought that Dylan’s ‘The Mighty Quinn’ was Manfred Mann’s best cover song. (Quinn the Eskimo, not Sally Quinn).

    My favorite two Dylan albums by far are the transition (folkie to rocker) albums – Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.

  36. 36.

    Tax Analyst

    @John O:

    How Does It Feel? (I don’t think that’s the name but too lazy to look it up) since I like angry songs sometimes

    Are you referring to “Like A Rolling Stone”? The line “How does it feel?” is a recurring line in that one.

    I always kind of liked Joan Baez’s version of “Twist of Fate” off her “Diamonds & Rust” album. Obviously, she sings it from a different POV than Bob did…for one verse she mimics Dylan’s nasal vocal style.

    Her version is a very rock-ish version, which was somewhat of an oddity for Baez to say the least. She’s got a good version of the Allman Bros. “Blue Sky” on that same album, and a nice cover of John Prine’s “Hello In There” also.

  37. 37.

    Tax Analyst

    @gbear:

    My favorite two Dylan albums by far are the transition (folkie to rocker) albums – Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.

    Me too.

  40. 40.

    Neutron Flux

    @Tax Analyst: Wow, I did not know that anyone had ever covered Hello in There. I try to own everything John Prine has put out. That song always makes it to my top 10.

  41. 41.

    birthmarker

    Joan Baez’ version of Boulder to Birmingham beats the pants off Emmylou Harris’s version. And Emmylou wrote it. And Emmylou was born in Birmingham. And I’ve seen Bob Dylan two or three times in Birmingham! Go Birmingham!

  42. 42.

    Ridge

    This song is from the LP “New Morning”; recorded after the motorcycle wreck and more “homey” in theme. A couple of great songs on it including “Went to see the gypsy” Which is really cool.

    R

  43. 43.

    Nylund

    I’m going to go with the Manfred Mann version because it sounds like he says, “wrapped up like a douche” instead of “revved up like a deuce” and it makes me laugh, even though I am way too old to laugh at such juvenile things.

  46. 46.

    tworivers

    @Tax Analyst:

    Me three.

    To this I would add Blonde on Blonde and John Wesley Harding (which doesn’t get the attention it deserves).

    From the folkie period, Another Side is really nice too.

  47. 47.

    p.a.

    All the above, and Nashville Skyline. His cd’s from the ‘naughts’ are too stylistically random, and his voice is shot, but they display an archivists love of American ‘folk’ music; folk defined as anything not-classical, not-improv jazz. Or as XTC called it, funk-pop-a-roll.

  48. 48.

    EdTheRed

    @Nylund: See, I’m gonna go with the Boss’s version over Manfred Mann’s, because the Boss’s lyric, “Cut loose like a deuce,” actually makes sense (a two being pretty much the first thing you discard in draw poker, or, alternately, a deuce meaning a souped-up ’32 Ford)…whereas neither “Revved up like a deuce” nor “wrapped up like a douche” make sense.

    Although “wrapped up like a douche is definitely at top-10 all-time misunderstood lyric…and also the basis for a great skit on that 90s-era comedy show, the Vacant Lot.

  51. 51.

    frankdawg

    @ Nyland
    I just assumed Mann was wrapped up like a douche – thats what it sounded like to me.

    Those who are stunned by “Masters of War” should also listen to “With God On My Side”. Its like he had a crystal ball.

    Then look up Phil Ochs – Between those two you’d start to wonder if they knew more than they pretended.

    Unfun fact: Useless meat-tube, Norm Coleman quoted “Times Are A’changing” at length in his acceptance speech when he was nominated for US Senate.

  53. 53.

    Jeff Ryan

    Jimi Hendrix’ cover of All Along the Watchtower – best cover of any Dylan song by any artist in all of music history.

  54. 54.

    Josh

    Jeff Ryan, maybe so; but Seeger’s “Who Killed Davey Moore?” and Fairport’s “Percy’s Song” are up there.

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