Today’s Song: “Not Dark Yet,” Silversun Pickups
There’s a four-disc Bob Dylan tribute record due out as an Amnesty International fundraiser. That stuff is usually pretty played out — someone covering Dylan songs??? Sign me up! — but one thing I really like about it is how some of his later work has been incorporated into the canon. Old-Man-Dylan’s voice sounds so different from the earlier phases of his career (though, to be fair, Nashville Skyline-Dylan sounds really different from Another Side Of Bob Dylan-Dylan, and neither of them sound like Time Out Of Mind-Dylan), and so many of the greatest hits/best-of/anthology parts of his career had already been compiled by the time he started writing interesting songs again in the late 90’s that it almost feels like a different dude.

So it’s cool that they have bands doing songs like “Not Dark Yet,” which would make Dylan a noteworthy artist even if it were the only great song he ever wrote. Mariachi El Bronx show up with “Love Sick,” as well, and Adele going all Adele on “To Make You Feel My Love.” Hearing all of these songs in very different voices — Raphael Saadiq’s “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” doesn’t sound any more traditional than Silversun Pickups doing “Not Dark Yet” here — reframes Dylan a little bit, and that is really hard to do at this point.

Nothing from the Christmas album, though.