Part 4 - Shuffle Synchronicities Podscript 🎙📇 with Ray Padgett
bob & peter, paul, and mary & ADELE
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Previously…
In Part 3 🎙📇
We explored how Shuffle Synchronicities is often focused on analyzing the lyrics of songs, but Ray is not just disinterested in analyzing them for himself, he’s not interested in lyrics in general. Dave also admitted he probably gets too into lyrics ;)
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Part 3 is available here. Part 2 here. Part 1 here. Preamble here.
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Otherwise…
Part 4 of The Shuffle Synchronicities Podscript 🎙📇 with Ray Padgett
begins now!
Ray owes his career writing about cover songs to guess who???
Dave
You mentioned the Weird Al Yankovich thing. I started reading your cover book last night. And it's interesting.
Dave
Because Weird Al's also, you're right, he's a cover artist in a way, but he's another version of a cover artist. He's a parody artist. Can you talk briefly about your cover work? Because I find it fascinating the intro about the history of covers. And so did you get into it also from Weird Al then? Is that part of your origin story?
Ray
Actually no. I got into it via Bob Dylan! What happened, how I got into covers, I've been a Dylan fan forever, but only writing about Dylan pretty recently. Covers I've been writing about for 15 years. But I did get into it through Bob Dylan because when I was in my freshman year of college, in what would that have been, like, 05, Dylan had this radio show on XM radio, it was called Theme Time Radio Hour. And every week he would play a set of songs on a theme.
The cover Dylan DJed that did it was…???
Ray
And one of the early ones, the theme was Summer. And so I don't remember what the other songs were, but one of them was a version of the Gershwin song, Summertime. Which, you know, I know that song, Summertime…and the living is easy…. Everyone knows that song.
Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong
Summertime…and the living is easy…
Ray
But the version he played was by this Sixties soul artist named Billy Stewart. And it's fast, and it's got drum solos, and there’s scatting, and it's just this party song. And it's like, I've never heard any version of Summertime like this before.
Billy Stewart
H'uh! Girl! A-summertime! An the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumping Don't ya know my darlin'? I-I said, a-right now. And a-cotton is high. Laka-laka-laka! Yo old daddy is rich! So damn rich, girl-a!
Ray
Usually, it's very slow and languid.
George Gershwin
Summertime Instrumental
Ray
And I remember sitting there being like, I didn't, I literally didn't know you could do this to a song. Like, the lyrics were the same, but everything else is so different. And so that was the first cover. I don't even know if I would have known the word cover then, but that was the first cover I heard where I was like, whoa, what, what's going on here? And so that sort of sent me down the rabbit hole of looking for other versions that change the music so dramatically.
Janis Joplin
Summertime, time, time…child…the living's easy
Ray
And, actually, as I'm saying this aloud, I'm connecting it back to what we were just talking about, which is that lyrics sort of don't matter in a cover version. In the sense that they're the same, everything else is different and the lyrics are the same. So in most covers, there are exceptions, but most covers, you can kind of put the lyrics to the side. Because that's the one thing. I mean, even legally usually, you can't change 'em. That's the one thing that is not gonna change. So you can all but ignore them and focus on everything else. So maybe that's why I gravitated towards it.
Dave
And, in some of the examples, I also now, even though I asked that question, I remember reading that part, and I actually listened to Summertime on the way home from work last night, that version, that cover, but you also talk about how, like, what's kinda unique about covers is that they are the same lyrics, but then the way that people sing them will bring out different elements of the lyrics themselves and kind of change the tone of the song, in this way, like (Billy Stewart) changed it from languid to exuberant about summer in the way that summer is actually fun, you know…
Lana Del Rey
Kiss me hard before you go. Summertime sadness.
A debate…
Dave
Can you also, you know, we also in the prep of this conversation, you were like, you know, Dylan, Dylan never had a number one song, which I didn't know. Is that, is that what you said?
Ray
Right. Yeah. So under his own recording, he has never topped the main billboard chart. However, there have been a number of covers of his songs that have gone to number one. Which speaks to how much covers of his song helped to make him famous, really.
Dave
Wow.
Ray
You know, he does Blowin’ in the Wind and it's sort of this Folkie favorite or whatever. Then Peter, Paul, and Mary cover it and it's this huge national hit.
Dave
Oh, interesting.
Peter, Paul, and Mary
How many deaths will it take till he knows. That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.
Ray
Same with All Along The Watchtower, Jimmy Hendrix.
Jimmy Hendrix
All along the watchtower!
Ray
Um, even in the Eighties, or even, actually forget the Eighties, even into like something like, Make You Feel My Love. You know, he released that on an album that came out in 1997. It wasn't a single, it was just a regular album cut. But then pretty soon you get Garth Brooks and Billy Joel, and then most importantly, Adele, cover it and they make this song the standard, that, at this point, the way it's going, like in 50 years, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the best known Dylan song. And it'll be purely from the covers.
Dave
Huh?
Ray
Not from Bob's, Bob's own recording.
Dave
Wow. Uh, yeah, I mean, I would argue, no offense <laugh> that, I think, I think Adele’s version won't be the most well-known, personally.
Dave
But I, I can at least see your point that like, you know, definitely the Peter, Paul, and Mary thing, right? Where it's, like, he could have like fallen off into obscurity if it wasn't propelled then, you know, by the culture that he was in kind of elevating his work through, playing it basically, too. I mean, is that part of what you're saying that like-
Ray
Yeah, and it's more than just, I mean I, I see your point on the Adele thing, and you might be right. Because I think it's, or, and certainly Peter Paul and Mary who at this point are not, I don't think young people know-
Dave
Yeah, no.
Ray
But it's not any one individual cover. Even Make You Feel My Love. I don't know if Adele's will, you know, it'll probably be, Adele's huge, so anything she does will I think remain big. But it's almost that that song just keeps getting covered, right? Every year, there's like 10 more very famous A-list level artists doing this. And at the lower tiers, every singing competition show people are doing Make You Feel My Love. On YouTube, when I, when I wrote my, actually I can't remember what I was writing, one of the books I think, I searched Make You Feel My Love on YouTube, and I searched for just the last 24 hours and there was something like 20 new covers of Make You Feel My Love that had been posted within the past 24 hours.
Dave
Oh, whoa.
Ray
The moment I searched, and I'm sure that's true, anytime you search Make You Feel My Love. Do it right now. Make You Feel My Love. If you're listening <laugh> or curious, Make You Feel My Love cover filter 24 hours, there's gonna be a bunch of new ones. It's that sort of song. It's like an American standard now.
Adele
When the rain is blowing in your face. And the whole world is on your case. I could offer you a warm embrace. To make you feel my love.
Dave
Yeah.
Ray
Most of these covers, or at least many of them, do they even know it's Dylan? Who knows?
Dave
I honestly, you know, I didn't, and I think it's showing that, I don't, like, know how popular some of these covers can get. In that way. Where it's like I had no idea that this Adele thing was happening, [that she's so popular in the way you’re describing]. To me, like, Dylan is way more popular and influential, but, you know, maybe, maybe you're right, maybe at this point people don't, know about that artist-
Ray
He’s certainly more influential.
Dave
Yeah.
Ray
But, like, if you go, you know, I'm sure if you compared Adele's streaming numbers to Bob Dylan's streaming numbers.
Dave
Adele's are higher.
Ray
She'd blow 'em away.
Bob Dylan
When the rain is blowing in your face. And the whole world is on your case. I could offer you a warm embrace. To make you feel my love.
Ray
No question.
Thanks for reading Part 4 of the Podscript🎙📇!
And for supporting Volume 2 of Shuffle Synchronicities.
Part 5 will be emailed tomorrow. Part 3 is available here. Part 2 here. Part 1 here. Preamble here.
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