Warren Zevon must have left quite the impression on Bob Dylan. The Highway 61 Revisited hitmaker would cover the likes of Mutineer and Accidentally Like a Martyr at several shows following Zevon’s death. But this rendition of Mutineer comes from a time shortly before Zevon’s death. He was around to hear this one, or at least be aware that Dylan was pulling his songs apart on stage in wonderful style. Just a year after Love and Theft was released, when the goodwill Dylan was afforded following Time Out of Mind was concrete, he would start covering his favourites. Those he respected would be pulled onto the stage. Elvis Costello and Stevie Nicks would work with Dylan around this period, while covers of George Harrison, Neil Young, and Grateful Dead were thrown together. This Zevon cover is a standout though, a fantastic development of a song which had been noted for its gentle but clear revelling in the rebellion that comes in mutiny.
There’s a long-standing misrepresentation of the reason as to why Mutineer was performed by Dylan so frequently. It’s a tribute, that much is clear. But it was performed a few times when Zevon was alive. It fits in with Dylan’s live performances of the time too. It’s hard to pick another tour where the opening bar of “yo ho ho” sounds right in Dylan’s voice but the gravelly tone he picked up around this tour is the perfect spot for it. He sounds staggering here. That rougher edge to his voice is an interesting element for those wanting to hear just about everything from Dylan. A desire to leave and head elsewhere, that location unspecified, is what can be heard at the core of this cover. It’s the line that stands out most of all, that request for another person to grab their coat and leave. Mutineer ends with a haunting echo too, and it seals the performance as a classic from Dylan who got into the habit of covering his friends, alive and dead, on this 2002 tour.
What he brings to Mutineer is what Zevon did too. Instrumentally similar though a touch quieter and rock-adjacent than the studio version, but Dylan plays it fairly close to the wire of how Zevon imagined the instrumentals of this one. The major change is that electric guitar, a fantastic addition to Dylan’s live set let alone Mutineer. It’s a fitting assessment of Dylan as an artist too. He was born to rock the boat and did just that, and for a period he did it every year. Even in his absences he managed to throw caution to the wind and allowed people this constant reinterpretation of his works. Zevon is offered the same with this cover, which is adapted from the softer touches of the album version into a rocking live version that holds within it the sentiment of revolt all the same. That’s the important piece that Dylan never loses sight of on this cover.
Zevon was a great mutineer. So too is Dylan and he expresses as much throughout this gravelly cover of an all-time great artist. This habit of Dylan’s which still exists now to cover those who had deeply influenced or affected him at points in his career breaks the typical structure. This isn’t Dylan dipping into his backlog of coming-of-age favourites, no. This is Dylan presenting an at-the-time modern song to an audience there for hits by the veteran songwriter. Mutineer slips into his setlist brilliantly. It’s a wonderful accompaniment made all the more poignant by the reason for performing it. As much a tribute to Zevon as it is a chance for Dylan to take stock of himself as a mutineer too, something that some may forget about the man despite him continuing on as a musical rebel.
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