Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode on his favourite Bob Dylan song
From humble, babyfaced beginnings to stadium tour fame, Dave Gahan’s journey as the frontman of Depeche Mode has been wild and wonderful. With a soulful voice and heaps of charisma, Gahan brings unfaltering energy and intensity to his performances. From their early success with 1981’s ‘I Just Can’t Get Enough’, Depeche Mode evolved through the 1980s to bear the flag of dark synth music.
Depeche Mode’s oeuvre reached a peak of artistic and commercial appeal in 1990 with the arrival of Violator. The seventh studio album was home to influential hits like ‘Personal Jesus’, ‘Enjoy the Silence’ and ‘World in My Eyes’ and has been highly praised by fans and peers.
One of Depeche Mode’s biggest endorsements came in the early 2000s when Johnny Cash contacted the band asking to cover ‘Personal Jesus’ for his 67th and final album, American IV: The Man Comes Around.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 2017, Gahan reflected on Johnny Cash’s gritty acoustic cover. “I was in the studio recording a solo album, Hourglass, and Martin rang me because he’d heard news that Johnny Cash wanted to cover it, and he was kind of umming and ahhing about it, whether to give permission, and I was like ‘What are you, crazy? That’s like Elvis asking, of course, you let him do it!’ And he was like [mumbles] ‘Oh yes, well, I guess,’ in his very Martin sort of way.”
“And it’s a great version, just fantastic,” he concluded. “But it really propelled the song to another dimension, and so did [Marilyn] Manson’s version of it. Our version is our version, and it always changes a little bit live, the way it swings, what you do with it. And you can do a lot with it because it’s a great rock ‘n’ roll song.”
Depeche Mode were allegedly offered a spot on the lineup for Glastonbury 2009 but turned it down because the lineup included Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, two musicians not quite to their taste. If this were true, it would appear Depeche Mode prefer to identify with more up-to-date electronic rock groups rather than acoustic guitar-wielding singer-songwriters of yesteryear.
This supposition, however, loses credibility when one considers Imposter, Gahan’s covers album of 2021. The singer picked out some of his favourite tracks to reimagine for the release, including Neil Young’s ‘A Man Needs A Maid’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘Not Dark Yet’.
Explaining why he chose the brooding hit from Dylan’s 1997 album Not Dark Yet, Gahan told Forbes: “Dylan is one that you gotta choose really carefully. And also, he was probably the most difficult to get out of my mind the way that Dylan phrases and the way that he interprets his own songs in that very kind of snarky way.”
Listen to Dave Gahan’s cover below.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter
All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.