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... You Ain’t Going Nowhere (1967)
The Byrds were touted as Americas answer to the Beatles in 1965. It’s important to remember too that they were a pretty credible proposition in that field. If a simple justification of The Beatles greatness can be read into the statement that George Harrison (composer of ‘Something’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’) was only the third best songwriter in the band, then so too can be said of The Byrds Gene Clark. Iconic figure and writer of the sublime early single ‘I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better’, Clark was overshadowed in writing terms in his own band by the efforts of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and to some extent Chris Hillman (check out his contributions to ‘Younger Than Yesterday’ to substantiate that claim). In fact so potent was the songwriting arsenal of this band that it’s surprising that they turned to the songs of Bob Dylan as much as they did. Still they raided the Dylan catalogue so regularly that he was almost their Brian Wilson figure, the shadowy non-performing creative genius and unseen sixth band member. Despite their own creative pool they even pushed forward Dylan tunes for their flagship hit singles such as breakthrough ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, ‘My Back Pages’ and todays selection ‘You Ain’t Going Nowhere’. The Byrds alone ensured Dylan’s constant presence in the mid-sixties mainstream pop consciousness, their importance cannot be underestimated and fortunately they had enough about them to always serve the material supremely well. All evidence points to this being a mutual appreciation too; seek out Bob’s own version of this song on the 1971 hits compilation where he name-checks The Byrds leader with the altered line “pack up your money pull up your tent McGuinn, you ain’t going nowhere”.
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