Days of Bob 2016--Ladies Edition

Happy Birthday, Bob
(live concert photo of Dylan by Doug Fiske) 
Here we go again...it's time for our annual Days of Bob as we count down to the Wicked Messenger's birthday. This year it's a special "I'm with Her" Edition featuring cover versions of Dylan classics by the ladies. Because I know that in my Facebook group I have certain friends who don't care for female singers as much as they do female Presidential candidates (looking at you, Murray), we're going to ease into this with a real gender-bending version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down" by Marianne Faithful..whose voice on this is all you need to know about the heavy toll of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll (anyone unfamiliar with what Marianne sounded like at the beginning of her career is invited to visit the Nobby Works for my "As Years Go By" post). In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that this tune is not a Bob original...it's from back in his early days when he was covering other peoples' works...which come to think about is how he's spending his later days as well. Nonetheless...as he says, Bob first heard this from Rick von Schmidt in the green pastures of Harvard University.
On Day 2 of our special "I’m with Her" edition of Days of Bob, we turn to She-Bob, Patti Smith, to rescue one of Dylan’s most self-mutilated gems, "Changing of the Guard." Dylan’s occasional lapse into sloppy enunciation robs his version of its full power. So here Patti Smith steps up to give it the articulation it deserves:They shaved her headShe was torn between Jupiter and ApolloA messenger arrived with a black nightingale
I seen her on the stairs and I couldn’t help but follow
Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil
On Day 3 of Days of Bob (Ladies Only Edition), Adele takes a Bob song and totally makes it an Adele song.
For those old enough to remember the original Mickey Mouse Club, Wednesday was the day that was “full of surprises.” So how appropriate in multiple ways that on this Wednesday--Day 4 in our Days of Bob--we not only feature a former Disney kid, but easily the most surprising entry in my Ladies Only covers of Dylan…Miley Cyrus. Before hearing her do this song, I didn’t even know she was a singer, and since hearing it I don’t care how outré she gets (currently appearing full frontally nude in V Magazine). With this rendition of “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” she’s earned a permanent warm spot in my heart.
Days of Bob...Day 5...and on this Throwback Thursday we throw it back to the Queen of Dylan Cover Girls, Joan Baez, to express a sentiment you don't run in to much on FacebookDrifting in and out of lifetimesUnmentionable by nameSearching for my double, looking forComplete evaporation to the core
Though I tried and failed at finding any door
I must have thought that there was nothing more
Absurd than that love is just a four-letter word
Yet another h/t to Murray Passarieu, who alerted me yesterday that the Bernstorm is headed my way (confirmed later in giddy neighborhood emails). As happens, this event coincides with HBO's broadcast of "All the Way," the story of Lyndon B. Johnson's efforts to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. I cut my political teeth on the Johnson Presidency. He was the first President I campaigned for and the first one I protested against. And when I went to vote my first year of eligibility, it was LBJ that drove me to walk into the polling booth with the names of 25 electors to write in to cast my vote for Gene McCarthy against Hubert Humphrey...resulting, alas, in the dark presidency of Richard Nixon (you're welcome, America). With time and maturity to assess LBJ out from under the shadow of Vietnam, I, like many others, have come to see him in a more charitable light. As the HBO film shows he made an enormous political sacrifice to pass the Civil Rights Bill...in retrospect I must say that no president in my lifetime gave up more for a principle than he did. And more relevant to this weekend's politics, Johnson, a man of immense pride and power, gave up the presidency...not a mere campaign, but the whole shebang...for the good of the country. Oh, to find a man of honor like that again...which reminds me. I've been a little unfair to Ol' Bernie during this "I'm with Her" edition of Days of Bob, and so I'd like to dedicate Day 6 to him. Take it away, Lucinda...
Days of Bob...Ladies Edition...Day 7. Though I owned the album it first appeared on, I hardly paid attention to this song's existence until Judy Collins came along, plucked it off and gave it her full "Send in the Clowns" treatment. On casual listening it really does sound like a Stephen Sondheim song, but then the lyrics rise up and you know it's pure Bob (still sometimes even I have to wonder how he does it):They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes,They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I’m sure it is.But I feel nothing for their game where beauty goes unrecognized,All I feel is heat and flame and all I see are dark eyes.
Days of Bob...Day 8, a Sunday. Let's all go to church. The Right Reverend Chrissie Hynde at the altar, reading from the Book of Bob, Planet Waves, Cut 6. Let us pray...

Days of Bob...Covering Bob Just Like a Woman for 9 Days...time for one more cup of coffee before we go, and who should know more about coffee than a Turk and about being a woman than Sertab Erener?

We were in Switzerland at the family farm of son-in-law to be Niels Froelicher. I was snapping pictures with every breath I took...the place defies you not to. Just mere days into the trip I had so many pictures, I dared not wait till I got home to start the monumental task of sorting through them all. So I took advantage of an ailing leg to lock myself in the farmhouse for a day and put together a slideshow to commemorate the trip to that point. But I needed some music...I can't do a slideshow without music (and I don't mean those forgettable instrumental ditties Apple provides). I knew I had loaded damn little music on my iPad, so the choices would be meager. But when I checked my library, it turned out I had the only song I needed...Natasha Bedingfield's rendition of Ring Them Bells. So today let them bells ring for Bob...