In this ongoing Monday Series we will be exploring various artists versions of Bob Dylan song's. Today's tune is a cover by Esteban Paez playing "Jokerman" in Spanish
Thoughts on Original:From the first time we tackled a cover of this tune:
The kick-start to his "back to rock and roll" album Infidels, "Jokerman" is a monster. A torrent of images, symbols, thoughts, proclamations, fears and fables; it feels like a dam was broken in Dylan's brain and all of these things just poured out. Musically it moves along but doesn't add much to the towering wordplay as the tune is dominated by the lyrics which seem almost never ending; Dylan has penned wordier tunes, but few feel as heavy as this. Flawed, but reaching for something, it is a not a great Dylan song but it is one that lets us peak into his brain a bit. For more on this tune, check out this post.
Cover:
Thoughts on Cover Artist:
We actually used a different Paez cover early on in this series as we showcased his take on "Maybe Someday", but we love when Dylan crosses borders and this is pretty clear way he made it down to Argentina.
Thoughts on Cover:
We confess we can't judge the translation as we don' speak Spanish, but from what we can tell it seems to stick pretty close to the original in terms of presentation and playing. The music is a touch cheese-ball 80's as is the original, so we would have liked to update that a bit, but otherwise let it roll...
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