30 Days of Dylan #16: Song To Woody

May 2011 sees the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan. To celebrate, we're taking you on a journey through the lesser celebrated avenues of his back catalogue. A journey down Highway 61 that won't stop off at 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'All Along The Watchtower' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' but will call by...

Song To Woody (1962)

We’ve reached the half way stage of this 30 day trip and shall mess with the format just once for today’s entry. You might need to free up about an hour to fully enjoy this bumper fun musical feast! This time we’ve got a themed playlist for you that uses Dylan’s early stand out composition ‘Song To Woody’ as an entry point. This sort of flags up the theme actually, for as the opening Woody Guthrie tune will reveal, Dylan’s ‘Song To Woody’ isn’t a straightforward Bob Dylan composition at all; more an ode to his hero that uses Guthrie’s own ‘1913 Massacre’ as a blatant musical backbone. In the same way that Hip-Hop culture will use elements of other songs already in existence to mix, match and create something new, so Bob knew how to utilise this folk tradition to his advantage. The playlist goes on to highlight some songs Dylan has covered either on record or in concert over the years. But that’s not all; it also demonstrates that the magpie instinct remains true to this day. That’s why a song like Etta James ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ appears, because the tune was acquired to such an extent for 2009’s ‘My Wife’s Home Town’ that composer Willie Dixon received a writing credit. There’s others here too, songs that Bob took for a starting point on the way to writing a new song of his own; see if you can spot them. Incidentally, as fine as the Mary Lou Lord version of ‘Shake Sugaree’ is, the song’s included here because I believe Bob knew the 1960’s Fred Neil version, but that wasn’t available for this playlist. Also there’s a couple by Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel numbers that Dylan was accused in the early 70s of sabotaging on record. Would he really feel so threatened by a couple of peers as to stoop that low? I doubt it somehow; I’d prefer to label Bob’s takes on ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ and ‘The Boxer’ as individualistic. Or quirky, or...something...

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