Fake Dylan?

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Not songs that merely owe something to Dylan (thousands of gravel-voiced singer-songwriters to thread), but songs that knowingly spoof his style.

There's that Junior Senior song ("Shake Me Baby"?), but I wonder what else.

It occurs to me that I might enjoy these far more than I enjoy actual Dylan.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:28 (twenty-one years ago)

that mouse song from nuggets? execution something?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Mouse and the Traps "A Public Execution" to thread
xpost baby!

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

In fairness, that's gotta be like the main one right there.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

that one is really uncanny!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Totally man, huge WTF the first time you hear it.
Even the frickin organ is a note perfect ripoff.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.stones.at/stones/vinyl/lpdiv/masked.jpg

― nickn (nickn), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"Maid of Sugar, Maid of Spice" by Mouse and the Traps as well
(is their whole catalog a Dylan rip?)

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Simon & Garfunkel - "A Simple Desultory Philippic"

Traveling Wilbury's - "Tweeter & The Monkeyman"

― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

There are points on the new Walkmen lp that are way Dylan in the "I don't buh-leeeve yooo" vein.

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Nick Cave's "Babe, I'm On Fire"!

― Douglas (Douglas), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Where did all this Dylan hate suddenly come from?

― djdee2005 (djdee2005), Thursday, 7 October 2004 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

I love Dylan.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Dave Marsh has made the argument that Levi Stubbs' delivery on "Bernadette" is directly inspired by / imitative of Dylan: "They pre-TEND / To be my FRIEND ..."

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Dear john - andree ethier

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Always worth mentioning: The Hombres' Let It All Hang Out.

― briania (briania), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

not about the music, this one ... but john cooper clarke sure as fuck *looked* like a fake dylan.

oh, and so does david keenan.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Weird Al Yankovic - "Bob"

― Al (sitcom), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

didn't INXS do a video like some Dylan video?

and then there's this
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drd100/d124/d12465uv4gx.jpg http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf300/f356/f35699ffor2.jpg

oh wait, that's backwards. dylan's was 7yrs later

― JaXoN (JasonD), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Bob Seger's "Persecution Smith" is basically a rip of "TOmbstone Blues".

― Roy Williams Highlight (diamond), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah INXS's "mediate" video was a ripoff of the "Subterranean" video. and make sure to check out Weird Al's "Bob", which is pretty good (and chock full of palindromes!)

― king korn karn, Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Boris Grebenshikov (of "Radio Silence" infamy for most of us) MUST take the cake. He worshipped Dylan so much he went to the US in 1998 to record an album of fake-Dylan folk rock (in Russian) with the Band - Danko, Hudson etc. The album was called Lilith; I believe it was the last recording Rick Danko ever appeared on.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

It's not a spoof, exactly, but John Lennon acknowledged that "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" was his attempt to do Dylan, and it sounds like it.

I heard somebody on the radio years ago doing "Mama Said Knock You Out" in pretty good Dylan style ("I been here for yEEAARRS")

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 7 October 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Wilco - Bob Dylan's 49th Beard. The song itself isn't a Dylan ripoff, but that title is brilliant

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Thursday, 7 October 2004 20:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Zappa's 'Flakes' ownz this thread

― Baaderoni (Fabfunk), Thursday, 7 October 2004 20:15 (twenty-one years ago)

"stuck in the middle with you." in fact, i'd say anyone who uses the words "jokers" or "clowns" in a song is doing a dylan pisstake.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 7 October 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

even Juice Newton?

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Kim Fowley slips into a really seedy Dylan impression from time to time.

― dlp9001, Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Cotton Mather's "Vegetable Row" is a brilliant pastiche of Dylan's vocal style and melodic style respectably.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

respectively, I mean

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

We've mentioned Tom Petty's entire career already, right?

― Loose Translation: Sexy Dancer (sexyDancer), Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Tom Petty is basically a mixture of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan rather than a ripoff of Dylan alone.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 7 October 2004 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Jackie DeShannon's demo "Too Far Out."

― mottdeterre (mottdeterre), Friday, 8 October 2004 03:13 (twenty-one years ago)

No one's mentioned early Donovan yet???

― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 8 October 2004 06:12 (twenty-one years ago)

What about the first Phil Ochs LP?

― Carl Crack, Friday, 8 October 2004 13:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Benny Hill's 'What a world' and 'It's in the Papers' are Dylan imitations

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Friday, 8 October 2004 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

i always found dire straits' romeo and juliet was very dylanny. i guess mark knopfler in general...

ive never heard that mouse and the traps song until today, but man, it takes the cake.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 8 October 2004 13:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Don McLean - "American Pie". To go with the joker/jester/clown theme. Would not have bee possible without "Desolation Row".

Dire Straits is maybe more Dylan-by-way-of-Springtseen.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 8 October 2004 13:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Traveling Wilbury's - "Tweeter & The Monkeyman"

I always thought this was Dylan parodying Springsteen aping Dylan.

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Friday, 8 October 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Dave Marsh has made the argument that Levi Stubbs' delivery on "Bernadette" is directly inspired by / imitative of Dylan: "They pre-TEND / To be my FRIEND ..."

For sure, Joseph. I heard Phil Spector in a long-ago blindfold test saying the same thing about "Reach Out, I'll Be There": "If you feel that you can't go OHHHN, and all your hope is GOHHHN..." It's pretty evident when Stubbs/Holland-Dozier-Holland discovered Dylan and the Stones. There's this kind of back-and-forth: In "Under My Thumb" the Stones take the riff from "It's the Same Old Song," giving it a very different meaning thereby; after the Stones do "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadows," the 4 Tops follow with "Standing in the Shadows of Love." But the sensibilities are still more than an ocean apart.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Friday, 8 October 2004 17:07 (twenty-one years ago)

speaking of the stones, "jigsaw puzzle" is a fairly obvious dylan pastiche/homage/spoof, though jagger doesn't sing it in a particularly dylanesque way.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 8 October 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Dan Bern's "Jerusalem" is my favorite Dylan homage/parody/ripoff ever. The rest of that album is pretty good, too, but that's the killer track.

― Jesse Fuchs (Jesse Fuchs), Friday, 8 October 2004 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

No one's mentioned the (very great) Andre Ethier album??

There's a few Godz songs - "Walking Guitar Blues," some others on The Third Testament

I'm a sucker for Dylan ripoffs - I love Mouse & The Traps!

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Saturday, 9 October 2004 00:47 (twenty-one years ago)

half man half biscuits 'with goth on our side'

"now my overweight girlfriend,
she sits and she crimps.
her mothers convinced shes communing with imps,
her brothers alright though,
he's a good lad is Wilf,
cos he's into Placebo and Cradle of Filth"

― zappi (joni), Saturday, 9 October 2004 01:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i totally forgot the ethier album, which is indeed great.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 9 October 2004 02:58 (twenty-one years ago)

there's a track on the Lennon anthology called "satire 1" which is a dylan parody that is kind of funny.

― kyle (akmonday), Sunday, 10 October 2004 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

There were notable Dylan parodies back in the 60s, at the height of his popularity; it wasn't nec. a mtter of tearing him down, but he was a celebrity you could goof on *and* admire (or just goof on), a very Sixties (and/or Dylan-y) thing, except probly us rabble have always done this (Wotta ham that Hammurabi). Baez used to sing "Juhhst Laaak Uh Wuhhman," boffo in concert (would've had us rolling in the aisles even if we didn't know she'd been boffing him). Bobby the Poet's "White Christmas" the earliest record of such that I recall. When asked about songs like "Who's Been Sleeping Here?" Jagger claimed that it was less conscious imitation than of being in smae age group and musical influences as Dylan. Which is palusibel, to an extent. Not jusr hearing country and blues, but hearing the way 50s white hipsters and flpsters heard and sang them, like Mose Allison and Johnnie Ray, who came down on syllables like country and blues guys did, but in this really brittle way (as well as wialing, which Dyl has also always done). Also, BD early on credited Sir Douglas Quintet, especially the weird way Doug Sahm jammed*his* voice over that rinky organ beat. Which reminds me, not only his Mouse a great Dylanator, but yall might wanta check Eddie Hinton, who was like Mouse times Doug! With Tony Joe White rhythm (also does some like "the Well of Love," like DylanxDougxMousexBox TopsxBoig Star, in aMuscle Shoals groove), on the two volumes of his demos, especially (all his stuff's still on Amazon, I think, but start with those).

― Don A, Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

"Memo to Turner"

― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, "Memo to Turner" (oh, and the *worst* Dylan imitation I've heard is that demo on the Velvets' PEEL SLOWLY box, with Lou Reed trying to play harmonica! I don't think it's meant as a parody). Speaking of the Marauders, "Cow Pie" is a brilliant parody cos it's the only one I've heard that gets the mostly *instrumental (writing/arranging/performance/dinky mix) elements of his NASHVILLE SKYLINE-to-SELF-PORTRAIT decline. And "If Dogs Run Free" was a brilliant self-parody ("across the Swamp o' Time") as well as one of his ace piano trips, a la "Down Along The Cove," "Dear Landlord," the one on PLANET WAVES, and I bet a lot of LOVE & THEFT was written on the keybs. That Mose Allison thing; Tom Waits has it too, but I prefer other people singing his stuff. (Was intrigued to hear that BD played a lot of piano on one of the more recent legs of Endless Tour.)

― Don, Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

haha that's very true about "if dogs run free." that's one of my uncle's favorite dylan songs, he loves it unconditionally. he was always more about the goofier dylan stuff though, and i think he actually preferred the band. i can totally imagine dylan singing "your molecular structure"!!!!

― You've Got to Pick Up Every Stitch (tracerhand), Sunday, 10 October 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I had forgotten about those VU demos. When I first heard them all I could think was "what the fuck is he doing, some kind of hillbilly cred thing (but in the mid-60s?)" Then I realized he was aping Dylan.

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 11 October 2004 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

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