far and away my favourite "Bob Dylan" song



Mouse, aka Ronnie Weiss, had quite a high opinion of himself and as i recall believed that he sang Dylan songs better than Dylan himself... in fact he became convinced that Dylan was imitating him (or am I thinking of the dude in Chocolate Watchband vis-a-vis Jagger?)

but yeah this is one of those cases where the copy surpasses the original

i'm prejudiced in its favour of course, on account of my Dylan-block

i can read book after book about what a revolutionary figure he was, the mindbombs contained his lyrics, his incomparable phrasing, etc etc

but on some fundamental level to me he'll always be a guy singing a song that puts down a girl

(even the ones that are about other topics somehow have that tang-by-association, on account of the tone 'n' texture of the vocal)

at least "Public Execution" does it with a more tuneful and less encrypted sneer