These are Songs Bob Wrote

This mix has been a long time coming. A lot of people I know get all up in arms about Bob Dylan; they either love him or hate him. Regardless of the man's vocal talents or personality flaws, I've gotta say I deeply respect his songwriting skills above all. Prolific, prophetic...probably something else that begins with 'P'. Anyway, in that vein, I thought I'd compile a mix of my favorite Dylan covers. I figured this would be a great test of Bobby D's songwriting abilities...how his work fares in the hands of others. I have heard a lot of shitty Dylan covers in my lifetime (and in my iTunes), so I had to sift through and pick out my absolute favs.
DISCLAIMER: many of these songs come from the I'm Not There original soundtrack. This is not my fault. Many of those songs  flat out rock, and it's the best collection of Dylan covers ever assembled by human beings. Fact.

Running Time: Aprox. 1 hr. 34 min. (Don't bitch, it used to be longer!)
Track Pick: Ani Difranco - Most of the Time

I have a huge thing for cover songs in general (though I'm not quite as fanatical as the bloke who does Cover Lay Down), but with these songs in particular, I love to hear how different artists interpret the words and tone of Dylan's compositions. The "Highway 61" cover is definitely the most fun, while "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" adds a new mournful layer to that tune. So beautiful! The Ani cover of course stands out for me 1) for it's clutch use of the banjo and 2) for being 100x better than the original song (featured in High Fidelity). Semi-interesting tidbit: The People's Republic of Gefiltestan is the Oberlin band I credit with launching my entire college destiny.

One additional note: the onelinedrawing cover on the playlist is different than the version I have, which is unfortunately from the iTunes store and is a huge pain in the ass to convert. It still gets the point across, though.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this mix will convert any Dylan haters, but perhaps it's a good conversation starter. :-P

Cate Blanchette: Best Dylan cover incarnate.

Plastic Fantastic

Here's an unintentionally censored version of a mix I made with a very specific purpose in mind. So grab some wine (but not too much), and get in the mood for...


Standard 8track disclaimer: Due to weird copyrighty things, you can only listen to the mix in its intended order once. So basically, if you're going to listen to it, you better sit down and listen to it all the way through or you won't get the full (sexy) experience.

Running Time: Aprox. 54 minutes
Track List:
01. Lou Reed - Rock 'n' Roll*
02. The Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man
03. Cream - Sunshine of Your Love
04. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced?
05. Cream - White Room
06. The Beatles - I Want You (She's So Heavy)
07. Jimi Hendrix - Foxey Lady
08. The Velvet Underground - Foggy Notion
09. Jefferson Airplane - Plastic Fantastic Lover
10. The Beatles - Dear Prudencce
11. The Velvet Underground - Oh! Sweet Nothin'

*Indicates Track Pick

Ok I'll let you in on a little secret. This mix was supposed to be a bit longer, and include several songs more songs...but 8track has weird rules so this will  have to do.


This mix breaks pretty much all of the rules regarding artist repetition and hipster street cred, but I don't give a damn. These are some prime, vintage booty call songs and I dare you to keep your clothes on for its entire duration.

...works every time.