Cover Versions, Dylanish, Hard-to-find, Kraut-y

Tunng In Cheek

Craig McAllister

Here’s a thing. Actually, you might be aware of this already, so if that’s the case bear with me. If not, prepare yourself for some startling music trivia.

I was listening to one of Dylan‘s Bootleg Series CDs while doing stuff around the house. It was the ’64 Philharmonic Hall one, where Joan Baez ruins everything by guesting on 4 or 5 tracks. Normally I tend to skip her. I cannae stand her voice or the way she calls him “Bobby Dylan” or the way she ruins a great song like ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’ with her high pitched harmonies, poor phrasing and wrong words.

I. Just. Cannae. Stand. Her.

And by all accounts, most of the time, Bobby couldn’t either.

dylan baez 1

(Caption Competition: ______________)

Because I was pottering roon the hoose yesterday, she managed to get past my Baez Detector and suddenly came bursting into earshot. And this is what I noticed….

She sang a version of old folk traditional Silver Dagger. No vocals by Dylan, though he plays along with some rudimentary, scrubbed acoustic guitar and wheezy harmonica. Other than that it’s Joan Alone and it stinks. But the melody was familiar. Very familiar. And then it dawned on me.

Saint Etienne have nicked it, note for note for their ‘own’ no. 47 in ’94 smash hit Like A Motorway.

A quick bit of googling proved me correct. The motorik thunk of Like a Motorway is indeed based on the melody of ancient 19th Century traditional song Silver Dagger. Not only that, but on parent album Tiger Bay, Saint Etienne seemingly based many of the songs around old folk melodies, beating forward-thinking modernist laptop folkies such as Tunng and Psapp by a good few years. I suppose that explains Tiger Bay‘s olde worlde ‘Welcome Bonny Boat’-inspired cover. But whodathunkit, eh?

bonny boat

Original

Cover version

Silver Dagger is currently doing the rounds in the form of a version by White Antelope. White Antelope is the side project of Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold. But you knew that already. His version is dynamite. One man, his delicately skipping guitar and a perfectly in tune reverb-soaked vocal.

Unlike Moany Joany, this boy can really sing. If you’re desperate to hear a Baez version you’ll have to look elsewhere I’m afraid. I’m not sullying this fine site with rubbish like that.

*Bonus Track!

Here’s Robin Pecknold/White Antelope giving Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe the full-on Fleet Foxes treatment. Stunning.

Robin Pecknold/White Antelope 

 

Published by Craig McAllister

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12 thoughts on “Tunng In Cheek”

  3. Hey Dick Clark! No probs. No offence taken. Ya big cloth-eared deafie.

    Simon – you’re right about Pete n Bob – the Magpie touch indeed. But sampling is a whole different ball game altogether. I liked the fact that they stole a whole ancient melody for their own uptempo Krautrock groover. If I was to write about the samples on their records I might still be writing at Christmas – howzabout the very obvious Dusty Springfield sample on Nothing Can Stop Us for starters?

    Thanks to both of you for the commnets etc

  4. Yeah, samples are something else. I love that magpie thing; it’s always been one of my favourite things, spotting the influences/thefts! Weller got me started on that one…

  10. favorite st etienne track and album. great post. great way of stealing/sampling really. admirable. the public domain is there for a reason.

  11. The book you picture there is one I have a copy of, and it’s a laugh riot at times to read. Evidently Farina was an egomaniac and outright liar on a similar level to Dylan, who was well known (the recordings exist as evidence) of making up fake biographical detail about his life, to such a degree that I question the guy’s psychological fitness. With Farina, he was a wannabe with some slight talent. Why these sorts are virtually worshiped by the gullible is beyond me. Just enjoy the music, folks, don’t treat musicians like idols; that’s rather adolescent.

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