Positively 4th Street - The Inevitable Dylan Cover - May 15, 2012

Here's the inevitable Bob Dylan cover.  Going to high school in rural Alberta there may have been some people listening to Dylan, but it was no one I knew.  The soundtrack to drunken teen-age parties was comprised of Led Zeppelin 4, Nazareth's Greatest Hits, Frampton Comes Alive, Styx - The Grand Illusion......well you get the drift.  My first exposure to Dylan was when I left home and went to university.  I promptly became obsessed, borrowed a copy of the first Greatest Hits record and playing it incessantly.  I have a memory, I'm not sure I would classify as fond or not, of leaning inebriated out my dorm window screaming the chorus of Like A Rolling Stone at befuddled passers-bys.  No one can match the almost joyful exuberance of Dylan's self-righteous venom.  And one of the most venomous is Positively 4th Street.  My version has some tempo and melody variations to the original....here it is:

Positively 4th Street - Bob Dylan

You got a lotta nerve

To say you are my friend

When I was down

You just stood there grinning

You got a lotta nerve

To say you got a helping hand to lend

You just want to be on

The side that’s winning

You say I let you down

You know it’s not like that

If you’re so hurt

Why then don’t you show it

You say you lost your faith

But that’s not where it’s at

You had no faith to lose

And you know it

I know the reason

That you talk behind my back

I used to be among the crowd

You’re in with

Do you take me for such a fool

To think I’d make contact

With the one who tries to hide

What he don’t know to begin with

You see me on the street

You always act surprised

You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”

But you don’t mean it

When you know as well as me

You’d rather see me paralyzed

Why don’t you just come out once

And scream it

No, I do not feel that good

When I see the heartbreaks you embrace

If I was a master thief

Perhaps I’d rob them

And now I know you’re dissatisfied

With your position and your place

Don’t you understand

It’s not my problem

I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

And just for that one moment

I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time

You could stand inside my shoes

You’d know what a drag it is

To see you

There's a lot of not that awesome covers of this song out there.  Dylan's versions are so idiosyncratic and definitive, it can be hard to pull off.  I liked this one by Jerry Garcia with Merl Saunders.