Sunday Music – It Ain’t Me Babe – The Bob Dylan Series (Part 5)

Today’s music video is ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’, and this version is from the John and June Carter Cash.

This video was posted to You Tube by HotshotsKings

To the dedicated follower of Bob Dylan’s music, this series of posts is probably tantamount to sacrilege, because as always, only Dylan does Dylan the best.

However, this post highlights exactly the point I am trying to make. The vast majority of Bob Dylan fans are of a younger age and have ‘gotten into’ Dylan by listening exclusively to Bob’s music across the whole of the time that he has been making his wonderful lyrics. However, in those early formative years, the only real Dylan music being played on radio were these ‘covers’, because there were just so many of them, and from different artists and bands. What also needs to be taken into account was that not as many people went out and specifically purchased music in those earlier times in the same manner as they do these days. There is a culture now of buying CD’s and sales of these have expanded out of sight. What started with the ‘Walkman’ has now also moved to portability of those CD players, and with the further advent of MP3 players, even more music is available in that highly portable manner.

In earlier times, you needed a record player, an amp, and speakers. Then you went out and purchased the records. LP’s were discretionary purchases then, and only those with a real interest in music purchased LP’s. The main access people had to recorded music was on those smaller and cheaper 45′s, and when it came to spending your ‘hard earned’, more people purchased those 45′s which was the main market, and there was no such thing as having a portable record player with all the accessories to listen to music. People purchased the music that they liked most, and that mainly came from what was being played on radio, and here in Australia, that was mainly AM radio, because we didn’t move to FM until the mid 70′s and even then that FM radio was not available to listeners without the specialised receivers, smaller portable FM radios not coming into vogue until almost the 80′s, with expansion of FM radio stations. So, people’s access to Dylan was from listening to AM radio, which invariably played only the ‘hits’ of the time, and when it came to Dylan music, in those earlier days, his songs were covered by a plethora of artists and bands who made those songs into hits.

Even with the advent of FM radio, which started slowly, access to ‘Album’ music was still not widespread. The first I remember of FM radio was the first one to operate out of where I live now. I was in the Air Force, and was home on leave in December of 1975. We had a quality receiver that actually was FM capable, and we listened to that first FM station 4ZZZ, operating out of The University of Queensland at St. Lucia, here in Brisbane. They had a tiny transmitter, and even only 60 miles away the only reason we could listen was because of that quality Receiver run through an Amp and speakers. It was a real highlight to actually be able to listen to radio being broadcast in stereo for the first time, and then listening to Album music specifically. The station was run on a voluntary basis, and I remember distinctly one of the announcers had a regular daily topic called ‘The Daily Dose Of Dylan‘, when he would play a Bob Dylan song done by Bob himself, and years later, that same topic was still current.

So, where does all this specifically fit in with this particular song, ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’?

During the week just passed, I was talking with a friend on an unrelated matter. He follows this blog, but I suspect only for the music posts, because he’s mentioned to me that my other posts don’t ‘grab’ him enough to read them exclusively. He’s not a real Bob Dylan fan, but, because he’s my age, he’s been following this series with real interest. He understands the concept of my talking about the ‘covers’, and he asked me what song I had planned for this week. When I mentioned it was going to be ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’, he said, “Ah! The Sonny and Cher song.” I mentioned that even though Sonny and Cher had done a couple of Dylan Covers, this was not one of them. He corrected me and said that yes, they in fact did make it quite a big hit, and he even quoted the year 1965, because he related it back to a girl in school he had a ‘crush’ on at the time. I wasn’t going to argue the point with him, but it did make me think. I had looked everywhere to see if in fact Sonny and Cher did do the song as a cover, but I just could not find it.

Then, a couple of days later, my good lady wife also asked the same question. She is not a Dylan fan at all. I mentioned the name of the song, and she said, “Ah! The Sonny and Cher song.” Now, this did make me sit up and take real notice, so this time I went looking further. I sat down with her at the computer, and opened up the song featured above, and allowed it to play.

“That’s it,” she said, “but Sonny and Cher made it a big hit.”

I went looking for it again, and the closest I could find was their song ‘I Got You Babe’.

When I opened it up, and she listened for a minute, and when Sonny and Cher sang the phrase ‘I got you, Babe’, she then said, “See. Same song.”

I knew it wasn’t, but what it specifically made me do was to go and look for similarities that would make people believe it was the same song.

The word ‘Babe’ would be the main point here. Both also have four word titles, and maybe, just maybe, that one four word phrase could sound vaguely similar when sung as they both are, and people not specifically knowing the Dylan song closely might actually be mistaken.

Bob Dylan wrote the song in 1964 and it was released on his 1964 Album, his fourth studio album ‘Another Side Of Bob Dylan’. Bob and John Cash were great admirers of each others music, and when John asked, Bob allowed him to ‘cover’ this song. John recorded this song with his wife June Carter, and it became a big hit for them in 1965. The same song was also ‘covered’ by The Turtles, and in fact, their version was bigger hit than John and June’s version. The somewhat different Sonny and Cher song was released in that same year 1965, and it also became a hit, in fact a huge hit, and it became their signature song.

Here in Australia, the two different songs did well, with the Turtles version of the Dylan song charting higher than John and June’s version which in fact received little air play in favour of the Turtles version. Both songs were released at around the same time here in Australia, but the Sonny and Cher song was a monster hit here, so therein lies the possibility that both songs might have been mistaken as ‘seeming’ to be the same.

This song here is in fact the Sonny and Cher song ‘I Got You Babe’, and when both songs are shown together in the one place, then it’s quite obvious they are totally different one from the other.

This video was posted to You Tube by John1948Twelve

On this same Dylan album, ‘Another Side Of Bob Dylan’, there was one other song that did particularly well, that being ‘All I Really Want To Do’, which was covered very successfully by The Byrds, and also Cher, both songs released at the same time, and both charting at the same time. Cher won the chart battle with this song, her first as a solo artist.

For Bob’s original of this song, ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’, take the following link.

‘It Ain’t Me Babe‘.

Tagged: Bob Dylan, John Cash, June Carter, Music, Music Video, Sonny and Cher, Videos

Posted in: America (USA), Music, Videos