The one song Bob Dylan refused to lend his voice to: “I really like it”
Bob Dylan has practically turned his voice into another instrument whenever he plays a show. Not everything that came out of his mouth had to be the most tuneful thing in the world, but every time he started one of his verses, people were tuned in to whatever he had to say, whether it was the political upheaval going on or the internal problems with society that everyone ignores. His songs could have easily been considered rock and roll Scripture at this point, but he knew he had limits on where his voice could go.
It’s no secret that he wouldn’t look like the most competent vocalist next to Freddie Mercury, but there was a certain magic, even if some of his notes were a little out of tune. And looking through some of his greatest albums, the whole point was for him to capture that guttural feeling of hearing him. He could have worked on getting a better take, but it was better to keep a take that told the truth than one that was technically perfect.
But by the time Dylan started the third or fourth phase of his career, some of the biggest names in music had reached the top, drawing from his playbook. Tom Petty channelled his wordplay into heartland rock, but judging by the fact that he played with Petty on multiple occasions, it’s not like Dylan was complaining. He could admire when someone was singing his material for the right reasons, but if Stevie Nicks drew from him, it was bound to be something special.
Nicks already had a wealth of songs to fall back on by the 1990s, but hearing her on Street Angel feels a little bit invasive. There are plenty of great tunes on here, and yet since she was dealing with her addictions around this time, the record feels a bit distant compared to her other records. She did have one piece of musical honesty on ‘Just Like A Woman’, and even had Dylan’s blessing for the tune.
The ‘Gold Dust Woman’ always wanted to do justice to her heroes whenever she had the chance, but Dylan drew the line at appearing as a cameo on the song, saying, “I called him when the song was pretty much done and he came down to the studio to listen to it. I said, ‘You hate it, right?’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t. I really like it.’ I said, ‘Well, would you consider singing on it?’ And he said, ‘No, I won’t sing on it, but I’ll play some guitar and maybe some harmonica if you want me to.’ And I thought, ‘Well, praise God.’”
However, Dylan may have been looking at the bigger picture when refusing to lend his voice to the tune. There had already been claims that the song had some misogynistic overtones to it when a man sang it, and since this was Nicks flipping the script in a way, it would have been more than a little bit awkward if a male voice interrupted her trying to recontextualise the song for a new audience.
Given where Dylan’s voice was, there’s also a good chance that he was to be outclassed on the tune. He could play harmonica like no one else, but if people had to decide between his voice and the pure power of the same woman who sang ‘Landslide’ and ‘Rhiannon’, there was absolutely no contest.
So while Dylan can come off as callous and cold sometimes when making his decisions, he always knows that it’s for the right reasons when he turns something down. He knew his limits, and if he made sure not to wreck another artist’s performance, that gave his collaborator more room to knock it out of the park.
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