Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Hacking Coughs of the Gods (An Occasional Series)

Real life concerns make blogging problematic till Friday.

But in the mean time, please enjoy -- if that's precisely the word -- Marianne Faithfull covering Dylan's "Visions of Johanna."

From Rich Kid Blues. Which may be the best covers album ever made, BTW, but that's a story for another day.


Click here to listen.

And I should add that if you've read Marianne's autobiography, you'll particularly enjoy the ironies.

4 comments:

Maude Lange said...

Love this and the entire elpee. Sometimes it sounds like she phoned in the vocals from wherever she was at the time (figuratively speaking) but there's something brilliant about the whole enterprise.

Dave said...

I dunno. This is one of Dylan's best songs, featuring one of his best vocals. So much of the melody is stripped here, so it's neither as beautiful or as tough as Dylan's version. I think I prefer Noel Harrison's "A Young Girl." :-)

jackd said...

The cover didn't do much for me, but her blasted and eradicated voice actually works well on "Why Did We Have To Part" from last year's Horses and High Heels.

Anonymous said...

Ever since Richard Gere told a morning interviewer that Visions of Johanna was his favorite Dylan song (he was promoting I'm Not There), I haven't been able to listen to it.

This may be an anecdote to that.

The way she sings it, it could almost be a Leonard Cohen song (compliment).

LR