Bob Dylan’s influence over The Beatles is no secret, and not a surprise either. From collaborations post Fab Four split with George Harrison to John Lennon at the peak of his fame chastising a hungover Dylan in the back of a cab, these moments are burned into the brains of music fans. Let It Be Covers of Bob Dylan is a neat addition to the litany of Let It Be and Abbey Road recording sessions. The line does not stop at Get Back and the spoils of the marathon documentary series but continues as archival footage and tape are discovered. Here is a fascinating compilation, a collection of Lennon, Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr covering the songs of Dylan at a time when the folk singer’s boom in fame and electric controversy bolstered his studio presence and stardom far beyond what anyone could have expected. He rivalled The Beatles with this notoriety, and they knew it.
Most of these are snippets, little bits of the Dylan influence coming from the blue. But they are full experiences in their way, a communal spirit coming through a shared love of contemporary music. I Shall Be Released, the first of four performances found throughout Let It Be Covers of Bob Dylan has the group harmonise with a heavy electric movement core, a progressively tender throwaway. It serves its purpose as communal love, a chance to break up the monotony and ease those frustrations. Barely audible covers of The Mighty Quinn may be the best shock of all, those little moments where The Beatles are heard relishing in one of the few musicians we can look to as a marker of quality of a slightly higher level than the Fab Four.
Though those forty seconds are nowhere near enough for the dedicated Dylan fan, Let It Be Covers of Bob Dylan are a magical asset for dedicated fans. These are the four most influential British musicians of the era strumming away with no intent. But their playing soon reveals the influences on them, the interest they had in I Threw It All Away and Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind are heartwarming. McCartney and Harrison benefit most of all from these session slices, the latter going on to work with Dylan should be no surprise when even in these short moments you can hear his understanding of the instrumental challenge, and the emotional depth of the lyrics. Those feelings of wanting to be the other, The Beatles’ intrigue with the mystery Dylan prevailed with and the Mr. Tambourine Man singer after the adoration of screaming fans, is a trainwreck in the making.
Such is the case for these recordings then, birthed out of a desire to pay tribute to the man who turned their heads away from the stage and towards a new sound, a psychedelic edge which would later form the basis of progressive rock and a whole musical culture in the United Kingdom. Little flickers of their love for the depths of Dylan are heard on the Like a Rolling Stone cover, where the band taps into what they had wanted for their music at the time – though Yoko Ono wailing like a small child is a bit of an odd choice. They got it with Magical Mystery Tour and beyond – the desire to be taken seriously and not as a fascination for the younger audiences. They wanted the depth of Dylan, and the intermittent covers of his work heard throughout the Let It Be recordings are a revealing, enjoyable listen.
