The band that gave Bob Dylan his first hit: “Started something for me”
There aren’t many songwriters as prolific or potent as Bob Dylan. His uncanny ability to create poetic pop songs meant that his tunes were always ripe for a cover or two. With hundreds to choose from, it’s difficult to settle on which one is easily definable as the finest cover. Of course, to do so, you must understand the many qualitative and quantitative measures of what truly makes a cover great.
Is a cover best because it completely changes the aspects of the track, turning into something that feels more original to the secondary artist than it does its primary songwriter, such as Jimi Hendrix’s cover of ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Or perhaps a cover can be considered the pinnacle because of the new heights it reaches, like the Byrds who turned Dylan’s tracks “into top ten hits”.
For Dylan, there are many tunes that have been covered that have pleased him, and some that he has hated, too. But perhaps the most obvious example of a cover being considered great is how it affected the recording artists behind it. Dylan, for that reason, might consider the covers provided by Peter, Paul and Mary to be among the greatest.
The trio of singers would complete a similar action to The Byrds and provide a mainstream audience with their first taste of Dylan. ‘When The Ship Comes In’, ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ were all covered by the group and delivered to radio stations across the country, which Dylan himself had struggled to assimilate with.
He may be a ubiquitous figure now, but the protest singer found it difficult to reach giant audiences with his work before acts like The Byrds and Peter, Paul and Mary jumped on the Bob Dylan bandwagon. Their impact on his career was so great that when he found himself honoured at the MusiCares event in 2015, he took a special moment to thank the harmonising trio.
“I also have to mention some of the early artists who recorded my songs very, very early, without having to be asked,” the singer told the audience, doffing his cap to the performers who gave him a leg up. In truth, they didn’t give the songwriter a favour, they covered his tunes because they loved them.
“Just something they felt about them that was right for them,” Dylan continued. “I’ve got to say thank you to Peter, Paul and Mary, who I knew all separately before they ever became a group. I didn’t even think of myself as writing songs for others to sing, but it was starting to happen, and it couldn’t have happened to, or with, a better group. They took a song of mine that had been recorded before that was buried on one of my records and turned it into a hit song.”
The song was ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, and it would not only become Dylan’s first hit as a songwriter, reaching number two in the charts, but it would open up his protest anthem to millions of listeners who might have otherwise missed the influential song. “Since then,” Dylan continued, “Hundreds of people have recorded it and I don’t think that would have happened if it wasn’t for them. They definitely started something for me.”
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