♫ Mr Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan ♫
It’s unfortunate that in the music industry, the cover bands are remembered more than the originals. This seems pretty oxymoronic, especially considering how much our society attempts to adhere to it’s “credit where credit is due” mantra. We can’t ‘cover’ someone else’s term paper, we can’t ‘cover’ copyrighted logos and phrases. So why do we find it so okay to cover someone else’s musical art?
I stumbled upon the idea earlier this evening, when I plopped on one of my old Dylan records. I’m not a huge Bob fan, so I don’t often listen to his records. I was amazed at how many of his songs I recognized—not as his, but by some other band. It seemed as if he was the main source of musical material in the mid-60′s. The worst part is, most people wouldn’t know these songs were covers, let alone that they were by Bob Dylan.
I felt so ashamed. Too many songs I knew and loved were actually by Dylan, and I never knew it. For a few minutes, I saw myself as one of those ignorant teens from our generation that never knew those rappers were sampling Dead or Alive, The Police, and other 80′s tunes.
At least a cover is more respectful than blatantly sampling a beat from a song and slandering it. Listening to hip hop artists (if they deserve the title of artist) prostitute their way through singles without an ounce of credit to the original is disgusting. Now I don’t feel quite so bad about misquoting covers.
Popular Dylan Covers:
- Mr Tabouring Man – The Byrds
- All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
- It Ain’t Me, Babe – The Turtles
