Why did Bryan Ferry make a Bob Dylan covers album?
It seems like an unlikely mix: the smooth art-pop soul of Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry and the rough-hewn poetics of Bob Dylan. While it might seem impossible to imagine anyone else belting out Dylan’s signature tunes, Ferry became just one of the many artists to give Dylan’s catalogue a go when he recorded 2007’s Dylanesque.
During a 2007 interview with Magnet Magazine, Ferry explained why he believed it was finally time to record an album of all Dylan. “It might just be that I’m more confident now than I was in 1973 when I did the first solo record,” Ferry said. “I suppose, though, with any job or profession, you get a bit better at it with age or get more experience. I think my life itself had to become more of a story to tell—even if you do wind up singing other people’s songs. You have to bring something of a life to those tracks. So you might be able to hit higher notes when you’re younger, but when you’re older, you can hit fewer and lower notes with more conviction.”
Ferry had been sprinkling covers into his solo work since his very first album, 1973’s These Foolish Things. In fact, that album is a full-length covers LP that features a Dylan cover of its own, ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’. Ferry would continue to stick mostly with covers throughout his solo career, opting to keep his originals for Roxy Music albums. It was only once Roxy Music disbanded in 1983 that Ferry began focusing on songwriting. In that way, Dylanesque is a throwback to Ferry’s initial solo career.
“Normally, I write while I record. I don’t have these set things before I go into the studio,” Ferry added. “But doing songs from the 1930s or those written by Bob Dylan, I can just take to the studio effortlessly. Perhaps because I had just toured with [the backing band on Dylanesque]. I guess it’s because the material is so strong. How can it not work?”
Ferry was also asked which Dylan song was the hardest for him to cover. Ferry went with two of Dylan’s best-known folk songs, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ and ‘All I Really Want To Do’. “Everything else was so straightforward, then you get to that,” Ferry said. “And ‘All I Really Want To Do’ because there you’re covering two people; not only Dylan but the Byrds’ version. I wanted to nod to both ways, really.”
Check out Ferry’s take on Dylan down 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.