Dylan's Voice Sounds Best When Others Sing It

Why others sing Dylan better than Dylan himself

When "All Along the Watchtower" plays on the radio, everyone says it's Jimi Hendrix's. Hendrix didn't write it: Bob Dylan composed it, but the original version sounds like a demo next to the guitarist's electric, furious take. It's the clearest example of a pattern that has haunted Dylan forever: his songs, sung by others, gain something.

There's no mystery. Dylan's voice is rough, nasal, halting; part of the audience finds it unpleasant. His lyrics, however, are so good that any performer with a clean voice can show them off. That's why "Make You Feel My Love" also shines in the covers that came after.

Frank Sinatra's unexpected endorsement

Frank Sinatra despised the "moderns," and Elvis Presley in particular. With Dylan, he made an exception. Sinatra said Dylan sang in the range of the cello, the hardest one. The same timbre many consider a punishment, one of the most important voices of the twentieth century saw as a technical marvel.

There are nuances. "Hurricane" holds up perfectly in Dylan's voice, and during his Christian era his voice found a strange balance with the songs.

Overrated?

Another current goes further and says Dylan is overrated. That analysis, minority but persistent, sees in his voice the excuse for not facing compositions that, in other hands, prove brilliant. It's not easy to refute: the history of pop is full of Dylan songs remembered through someone else's version.

In the end, the fact is disorienting: the man Elvis saw as an upstart was singled out by Sinatra as a singer of an extremely difficult range. And yet, decades later, we keep searching for the definitive version of his songs. Perhaps that is his true talent: writing so well that he even allows others to do it.