‘Tomorrow Is a Long Time’: how Elvis Presley made Bob Dylan “treasure” his own song
When Graham Nash talked about The Beatles‘ song ‘A Day In The Life’, he made the excellent point that the band did a lot with a little. “Their incredible simplicity and their incredibly melodic structure is stunning to this day,” he said, “With all due respect, within this western scale of music, there’s what? 12 notes? Are you kidding me? The Beatles were unbelievable, and I think we all knew it.”
His assessment of The Beatles is fair, but it’s not just them who were able to make extraordinary music with limited resources. Bob Dylan was one of the best songwriters who has ever hummed a tune. His songs were made up of simple chord progressions but touched the hearts of millions as the way he wrote about the world, love, hate and everything in between was truly mesmerising.
When you have relatively simple songs that move so many, it’s a given that people are going to end up covering your music. Some people did this well; meanwhile, others weren’t so good. An artist who was exceptional when it came to covering the work of Bob Dylan was Jimi Hendrix, whose versions of ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘All Along The Watchtower’ are still celebrated today.
“All those people who don’t like Bob Dylan’s songs should read his lyrics. They are filled with the joys and sadness of life,” said Hendrix, “I am as Dylan. None of us can sing normally. Sometimes, I play Dylan’s songs and they are so much like me that it seems to me that I wrote them. I have the feeling that ‘Watchtower’ is a song I could have come up with, but I’m sure I would never have finished it.”
Dylan was a big fan of Hendrix’s versions of his songs, so much so that he changed the way his tracks were put together so that he could play Hendrix’s variations. They might not have had the same guitar solos, but the song’s structure mimicked Hendrix’s versions.
“I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this, and ever since he died, I’ve been doing it that way,” said Dylan, “Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
While Dylan was a huge fan of the recording of Hendrix playing his music, it wasn’t the best recording he had ever heard. He wrote a great deal, and songs were frequently sent to other artists to cover or release on their own. However, there was one recording that Dylan found so beautiful that he refused to then release or play the song himself, as he knew he would not be able to match the strength of the cover. The song was called ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’, and Dylan never released his own version because he was so blown away by Elvis Presley’s rendition.
“Elvis Presley recorded a song of mine. That’s the one recording I treasure the most… It was called ‘Tomorrow Is A Long Time’. I wrote it but never recorded it,” said Dylan. “When I first heard Elvis Presley’s voice, I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. The highlight of my career… that’s easy, Elvis recording one of my songs.”
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