What's the best Bob Dylan song that Bob Dylan didn't write?

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For me, s'gotta be Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' "Rich".
Cracking Nashvillian arrangement, technically undemanding but catchy vocal melody, and a lyric that's a complex blend of pathos, spite and empathy. Oh, and an acknowlegement in the final line of the influence of the Fab Four.

She left you, 1958
When the thought of another fifteen years
Was more than she could face
But did you miss her much? Well, hey
You never gave her too much thought
In your newspaper grey

So waste away to Morro Bay
You never got around to yesterday
But money is for taking, yes
And rich is what? To be forsaken
Grey and giving it away

And even Jesus has a price
You're making credit card donations to television faith healers
Born-again missionaries come to Morro Bay
They saved your body, but your mind
And everything you earned
You're going to throw it all away
And waste away tomorrow

CA is where everybody falls
Down off the wagon
And under the wheels

Remember 1970?
When the thought of a day without a drink
Was more than you could face
But did you miss her much? Well, hey
You never gave her too much thought
In your newspaper grey

So waste away to Morro Bay
Saved your body but your mind paid
But money is for taking, yes
And rich is what? To be forsaken
Grey and giving it away

You're going to hurt somebody if you can
You're going to make somebody understand
Baby, you're a rich man.

― Palomino (Palomino), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:05 (twenty-three years ago)

"bette davis eyes"

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:08 (twenty-three years ago)

"Ballad of Easy Rider"

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Rammellzee vs. K-Rob's "Beat Bop," which could have been on The Basement Tapes

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:11 (twenty-three years ago)

(note: the following is to be said in a tired voice whose narrator begs to be shot in the head)

SIGH... STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Come to think of it, the lyrics to "I am the Resurrection" by the Stone Roses could very well have been Bob Dylan. Maybe.

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Bob Seger - "Persecution Smith"

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Robert Wyatt, "Blues in Bob Minor"

Roger's in the archive looking up casement
Martha's in the government digging up the basement
Rebel into representative for the voter
Shadow backhencher couldn't get a word in
Turned up anyway - issues burning
All consuming - drinks in the cabinet
Spent a lot of time just examining the building
drinks on the house? you must be joking
Corridors of power cuts toy telephone bills
Long time no see underneath the floorboard
Looking for the roots of the family treetops
Toe's in the water but you've only got ten.

Fingers in the eel pie poke around tip top
Tunnelling a wormhole Eartha Kitty catfish
Meadow brown peacock - pupa-larva-caterpillar
Hibernate in winter of our discotheque no
End in sight - more like a spiral - coil
Or curler - just unwinding - very slowly
Revealing endless disappearing pipelines
Genuflecting - bowing deeply - it
Don't take a weathergirl to see where
The wind is blowing - what the wind is bending

Isobars are opening - sex to midnight
Cabinet shuffling homeward bound - taking
A detour - rendezvous do - chapel in the valley
Of the blown up doll - that's not Martha
Shunting in a siding - she got homework
Up to here
Roger's in the footnotes up to his elbones
Verse and chapter disinterred
Borrowing a bookcase don't come easy
The weight of the evidence in parenthesis
Beggars tightly furled belief

Heads on blockabeater repetition on the line
Shell shock supertroopers - whirl banking oil palm
Intercontinental drift - over the rainbow
Over the sea to ska rocker skintone
hirsuit missed a link and that's not all
That he got missing inna thousand years of
Orthotoxic waste disposal - god proposal
Jealous sky - whatever is a girl to do
To break the service in its tried and tested
And found wanting state of oh! boy network
Stewardship?

Little Johnny Aardvark never hurt
Nobody - Martha friend and Roger too
Tone down a little - sotto voce - some tall order
Given that four minutes seems eternity time
In the bushed up world of waspish Vsigns
A-sides sui-C-side salads of the bad young B-sides
What's the point of digging deeper just to lay
The ghost of Sala Hal-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub?

"Don't give up" the dead man cried
"There's more of us than there of you
Soon you'll all be on our side - forever more or
Lester Young died - 'Fat Girl' also - blowing all the blues
Away side - dust ain't just dust - trust us like we
Live forever - broken loose from greystone tether
Keep on tiptoe through the archive - we are dead
But you are alive - Martha yes and Roger too
Until you let the gringos grind you down"

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:42 (twenty-three years ago)

no, KK, we're looking for good songs

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Matos' answer is OTM. (Only because "Beat Bop" should be mentioned any and everywhere.)

But I say something by Peter Laughner..."Sylvia Plath" or "Baudelaire," maybe. Or Jeff Tweedy's acoustic version of "Sunken Treasure," which sounds so frighteningly like young Bob it's uncanny.

― M Specktor (M Specktor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Various Walkabouts songs to thread.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 23:02 (twenty-three years ago)

'Long Way To The Light' by Mike Scott or The Go-Betweens' 'Love Is A Sign' would both sound good on Blood On The Tracks.

Felt's 'Ballad Of The Band', but maybe that's too obvious.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 23:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I'll second 'Bette Davis Eyes,' and throw in 'A Public Execution' as an honorable mention.

― J (Jay), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 23:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Agree with M. Specktor on the Peter Laughner thing. I'd say "Cinderella Backstreet."

― Douglas (Douglas), Thursday, 24 July 2003 01:48 (twenty-three years ago)

How about Gene Clark's "Spanish Guitar"? Zimmy reportedly said himself that he wish he'd written it...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 24 July 2003 02:35 (twenty-three years ago)

I second Mouse & The Traps

― roger adultery, Thursday, 24 July 2003 02:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I think that Wyatt tune is more "the worst Bob Dylan song that Bob Dylan never wrote." (NB: I adore Robert Wyatt.)

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 24 July 2003 04:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Public Execution by Mouse. Of course, this goes along with Lester Bangs' theory about bands that rip off other bands being better than the originals, a la Count Five's Psychotic Reaction vs Yardbirds I'm a Man. Oh shit, does that mean Elastica was better than Wire?

― nonthings (nonthings), Thursday, 24 July 2003 06:24 (twenty-three years ago)

"Here's Where You Belong" - P.F. Sloan

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:28 (twenty-three years ago)

"Shake Your Body" or whatever it's called by Junior Senior.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 24 July 2003 08:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Is Matos putting down "Stuck in the Middle With You" or "I Am the Resurrection"? Or both?

The Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe" always sounded pretty Dylan-like to me.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 24 July 2003 09:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Simon Finn's Pass The Distance LP and Jim Mccarthy's (Godz) Alien LP both do a pretty great Dylan.

― roger adultery, Thursday, 24 July 2003 11:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Beatles' "Old Brown Shoe" always sounded pretty Dylan-like to me.

Not to mention "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away", f'course...

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 24 July 2003 11:33 (twenty-three years ago)

The Byrds - 5D
AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (Came out 2 years before Neighborhood Bully)

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 24 July 2003 11:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Beck - Loser

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 24 July 2003 13:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Denim - I Saw The Glitter On Your Face

― retort pouch (retort pouch), Thursday, 24 July 2003 14:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Famous Blue Raincoat-Leonard Cohen
Land of Hope & Dream, This Hard Land, The Ghost of Tom Joad-Bruce Springsteen
numerous Townes van Zandt & Steve Earle numbers

― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Friday, 25 July 2003 14:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Pretty much anything by bright eyes could've come from Dylan's adolescent pen, too bad Jacob didn't become Conor Oberst.

― John Baer, Thursday, 31 July 2003 14:29 (twenty-three years ago)

four weeks pass...

"Vegetable Row" by Cotton Mather

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 29 August 2003 00:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, "Stuck in the Middle" works for me, too.

― Chris O'Connor (Chris O'Connor), Friday, 29 August 2003 06:03 (twenty-three years ago)

'eve of destruction', surely?
"my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin'"

― adam b (adam b), Friday, 29 August 2003 13:44 (twenty-three years ago)

"Money for Nothing"

― dave q, Friday, 29 August 2003 13:49 (twenty-three years ago)

laugh at me by sonny bono

― duane, Friday, 29 August 2003 14:26 (twenty-three years ago)

"Jerusalem"

Honestly. If you've not heard the Fat Les version, seek it out.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:32 (twenty-three years ago)

"Frankenstein" the New York Dolls.
"1969" the Stooges.
"Not Right" the Stooges.
"Liar" the Sex Pistols.
"Various Times" the Fall.
"My Name Is" Eminem.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Saturday, 30 August 2003 03:36 (twenty-three years ago)

"Thunder Road" springsteen
"American Pie" mclean
"Ashes of American Flags" wilco (sorry)
"From a Distance" Bette Midler-seriously

― Emilymv (Emilymv), Saturday, 30 August 2003 03:43 (twenty-three years ago)

"I Dream a Highway" - Gillian Welch

― Jeremy, Saturday, 30 August 2003 04:26 (twenty-three years ago)

twenty years pass...

Benny Hill, "What a World"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2HC2X7EOp0

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 00:33 (two years ago)

He actually did a later one which isn't anywhere near as good but was performed on one of his shows, regrettably not on Youtube.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/benny-hill/images/d/d1/00benny_bob_dylan.jpg https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/benny-hill/images/2/27/Dylan02.JPG9

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 00:37 (two years ago)

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/benny-hill/images/2/27/Dylan02.JPG

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 00:38 (two years ago)

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8a/a4/5e/8aa45ef89187aee9867b0b64941ef4e6.jpg

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 00:41 (two years ago)

Many Steve Harley lyrics seem quite Dylanesque to me, like this from “Nothing is Sacred.”

We heard Phaedre speak of the Philistines of Paris
But she talked to herself like a parasite so we both struggled free
I said: 'Zizi Jeanmaire wouldn't take this and neither will we'
'If they call me Napoleon again, I'll be forced to let the lion free'

― Requiem for a Dream: The Musical! (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 2 March 2024 14:31 (two years ago)

Dylan mixed with Peter Sarstedt

― glumdalclitch, Saturday, 2 March 2024 15:03 (two years ago)

You get a nice Dylan impression from Steve Harley on Psychomodo too. A wild crazed Dylan.
Could've been fun to hear more of that from the man himself? Like a whole EP of unhinged Dylan or something.

― mr.raffles, Saturday, 2 March 2024 15:33 (two years ago)

I had never heard of Peter Sarstedt. Good call! xp

― Requiem for a Dream: The Musical! (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 2 March 2024 15:51 (two years ago)

Noticed that, a la the Bee Gees, the oldest Sarstedt brother (aka Eden Kane) is the only one still alive.

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 15:54 (two years ago)

.. and married to Stefanie Powers' sister!

― The British Boy of Film Classification (Tom D.), Saturday, 2 March 2024 15:56 (two years ago)

https://www.gq.com/story/walk-hard-dewey-cox-bob-dylan-song

― Siegbran, Saturday, 2 March 2024 18:21 (two years ago)

Felt, "Sunlight Bathed the Golden Glow"

― blagobu, Saturday, 2 March 2024 21:55 (two years ago)

Rolling Stones, "Jigsaw Puzzle"

― Lily Dale, Sunday, 3 March 2024 04:02 (two years ago)

The Waterboys, “The Whole of the Moon.”

― paisley got boring (Eazy), Sunday, 3 March 2024 04:07 (two years ago)

Johnny Cash, "Understand Your Man"

― bulb after bulb, Sunday, 3 March 2024 05:44 (two years ago)

two weeks pass...

this is fun. leon russell and j.j. cale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpgfJf5ZT_I

― scott seward, Monday, 18 March 2024 12:50 (two years ago)

The first post in this thread is a Lloyd Cole song but I think this one is way more Dylanesque:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_wsgIbfosY

― lord of the rongs (anagram), Monday, 18 March 2024 13:15 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYxSWQ5R_g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqb2WltbZQs

― scott seward, Monday, 18 March 2024 23:32 (two years ago)

gary usher dylanisms

― scott seward, Monday, 18 March 2024 23:32 (two years ago)

gary couldn't help himself...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZcbodW2s5Y

― scott seward, Monday, 18 March 2024 23:36 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGBIXI5X794

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Or-H8sHVg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 19 March 2024 00:06 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oY3BaQWWA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2SFHSDVHCQ

― scott seward, Tuesday, 19 March 2024 00:09 (two years ago)

this is cool. al kooper girl group.

"From the cellars of poverty
And a truckdriving family
Using comic book intelligence
And a farmer's touch of elegance
In the space of life's short day
With a meaningful guitar on a road that seemed so far
Bobby's Come A Long Long Way"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE1A4yP_2o0

― scott seward, Thursday, 21 March 2024 04:35 (two years ago)

Erstwhile Dylan collaborator goes in hard here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdR0SAnRqXw

― Dan Worsley, Thursday, 21 March 2024 08:50 (two years ago)

rocks! fox on the run vibes

― corrs unplugged, Thursday, 21 March 2024 12:58 (two years ago)

Or even I'll Supply The Love. But sorry, not really hearing Dylan in the ELO track

― sawdust lagoon, Thursday, 21 March 2024 15:44 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x49sFyOZFG4

― scott seward, Monday, 25 March 2024 15:18 (two years ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSfhYXzbVno

― paisley got boring (Eazy), Monday, 25 March 2024 16:34 (two years ago)

1st part of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTi712v5af0

― brimstead, Monday, 25 March 2024 17:16 (two years ago)

winner!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dayGb18WDEE

― scott seward, Friday, 29 March 2024 14:11 (two years ago)

five months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWYYWzhyleQ

― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 15:17 (two years ago)

this whole album is a pretty good dylan album.

https://i.discogs.com/Vp2m9iQL9o4dnSBSpF0S9TRC3FTsu-ODQnlq3GhDAZE/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE0NDgw/NTY4LTE1NzUzOTEw/ODAtNzIzMi5qcGVn.jpeg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 15:19 (two years ago)

kinda have a basis for a lawsuit here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaqUN8RUjHg

― scott seward, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 15:20 (two years ago)

was grateful to see him at Ponderosa Stomp, a little over a month before he died, and he played Halloween Mary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fq-uVBpHbI

― bulb after bulb, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 15:28 (two years ago)

Picked up a cheap copy of Ronnie Jane's "island years" compilation, there's loads there that Bob would have been pleased to have written

― Mark G, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 18:13 (two years ago)

Ronnie Lane, damnit

― Mark G, Tuesday, 10 September 2024 18:13 (two years ago)

How about Gene Clark's "Spanish Guitar"? Zimmy reportedly said himself that he wish he'd written it...

It's a great song but it doesn't sound like Dylan, there are other songs on that album though where Gene Clark wastes his time trying to sound like Bob Dylan instead of sounding like Gene Clark.

― pisspoor bung probe prog (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 September 2024 18:20 (two years ago)

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