Bob Dylan – Old Man Review

A truly special occasion to be had with this rip of a 2002 live performance. Bob Dylan has often turned to his peers and their backlog of work during live shows. Whether it’s Grateful Dead covers or a chance to pay tribute to a close friend or colleague, Dylan is open to covering the greats. Neil Young may find himself on a similar footing as Dylan, not just as one of the world’s greatest songwriters but as a flighty, on-stage oddity. There is no rhyme or reason to a Dylan setlist, much as there is little understanding of what makes a Young setlist come together. But what is no doubt a delight is hearing one man cover the other. Dylan’s rendition of Old Man is a considerable one, not least because it breaks from his tradition of evolving and reinterpreting songs. This is as close to the core of the original as you’ll hear. Similar in premise to that delightful cover of The Beatles’ Something, Dylan is keen to adapt the song gingerly, and effectively. 

For the Harvest classic, Dylan provides an instrumental which treads lightly and a vocal range fitting for the context of the song. Backing vocals, which almost overpower the lower octaves Dylan brings to the song here, are a much clearer match-up with Young’s original. That uniquely high-pitched voice which has thankfully never left the veteran songwriter, is brought to the stage with this Old Man adaptation by Dylan’s backing band. Here, he shares that same vocal range as he offered on his Academy Award-winning track, Things Have Changed. That raspy and slightly quickened tempo to his vocal is a nice touch here. It’s that fine line between obscuring the meaning and dragging the instrumentals along. Dylan manages to do neither, even if it feels like the song is on the verge of collapse because of how straightforward a take it is. This is not Dylan toying with synth and suggestive lyrical changes. This is as close to the studio as a live Dylan set sounds this century, and it’s not even his song.  

Perhaps that lack of a massive overhaul is out of respect for Young. Dylan has meddled with instrumental stylings for other songs he has covered, though it’s namely on obscure covers which wouldn’t be out of place in his History of Modern Song book or traditional tracks. What he brings to Old Man is more than just the same reflections that Young mastered decades before. Dylan brings a weightiness to the song that came to many of the originals he chose to perform throughout 2002. Backed by Love and Theft the year prior, and still including songs from his return to form album, Time Out of Mind, there is a sense throughout this cover that Dylan is giving himself license to experiment. Not through traditional means of instrumental adaptation, but by getting to grips with songs we would consider all-time greats.  

Dylan has presented a somewhat delicate attitude to his greatest hits. When he does perform the likes of All Along the Watchtower or Love Sick in modern times, it’s usually with a sense of unpredictability. But not here. He reserves a rare, straightforward cover for Old Man. An odd choice, too, considering the context of the song. There’s more than one reason Dylan doesn’t play Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, and that’s because of the age apparant in the writing. It’s the same for Old Man if you take it at face value and title alone, but there’s a real delicacy in how Dylan delivers this best-ever Young track. He was hardly going to adapt Heart of Gold to the stage, was he? “Shit, that’s me,” is what Dylan had to say for that one. But he clearly has a lot of respect for Young – as evidenced by this delightful cover.