trying to prove your conclusions should be more drastic…

So if you were going to historically make a great Dylan covers album there is in my opinion a formula.

It goes this way:

1 part jingly jangly guitars

1 part laid back swinging band

Refuse to be to reverent with the material and choose the hard tracks.

Plus a girl singer.

In this way you normally get early Fairport Convention.

However in the 21st Century you get Emma Swift and her amazingly glorious album Blonde on the Tracks.

So the new formula may be:

1 part 80’s quirky power pop punk psychedelic maestro.

1 part Nashville session players

Plus 1 Australian girl singer not afraid to do the hard songs.

There’s really only one way to figure out how great this album is and that is to take a listen. Produced by Wilco’s Patrick Sansone and featuring Robyn Hitchcock on guitar, the album covers everything from Byrds influenced jangle to folky strumming and Emma Swift has the temerity to cover Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

I have always enjoyed female singers covering Dylan much more than male singers. Women seem to feel more assured in interpreting the lyrics than men do, they also have it seems enough disdain for the arrogance inherent in the lyrics, women seem comfortable with Dylan’s musicality rather than his lyrical extravagances.

I’m done, pretentious sentence moment completed there. Go listen to the damn song.