Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)

Subject: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 01:23 PM

I have just heard a really good version of Dylan's Lay Down Your Weary Tune...the version is by Bill Whaley and Dave Fletcher on a CD called Less Sprightly which is excellent.
Can anyone tell me more about the history of the songand other versions of itetc?
ifor

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: Midchuck
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 01:48 PM

I know Dylan wrote it, but I'll always think of it in terms of Ian and Sylvia.

Peter

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: Celtaddict
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 01:50 PM

I think this is possibly the best song to be sung by singers who don't sing Dylan.
Danny Quinn's version on "Solo" is simple and beautiful.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: Rasener
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:04 PM

Bill Whaley came to my club last night to see Mary Humphreys and Anahata. Both Bill & Dave are really smashing and genuine folkies.

John Blanks does a very good version of that song.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:26 PM

Beautiful song. I heard Dylan do it concert about 15 years ago and gave me chills.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: villandeleted
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 02:34 PM

A few facts

Written on a trip to California with Joan Baez, Mimi Farrina ( Joan's Sister), and Richard Farrina, this song, along with "Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carrol," was the only other reported song on this trip. It's first live performance was with Joan Baez struggling to sing harmony.
This song was recorded as a demo for "Times They Are A-Changin," Dylan's 1964 release, but was cut from the album.
The song's melody closely resembles the Folk standard "The Water is Wide."
Dylan performed this both nights at his famous Carnegie Hall concert in 1963.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: Peace
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 04:37 PM

'The sessions for The Times They Are a-Changin' produced a large surplus of songs, many of which were eventually issued on later compilations. According to Clinton Heylin, "perhaps the two best songs, "Percy's Song" and "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", would not make the final album, failing to fit within the narrow bounds Dylan had decided to impose on himself."

"'Lay Down Your Weary Tune'... along with 'Eternal Circle'... marked a new phase in Dylan's songwriting", writes Heylin. "It is the all-important link between the clipped symbolism of 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall' and the more self-conscious efforts to come the following year. A celebration of song itself, 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' was also an admission that there were certain songs 'no voice can hope to hum'."

Riley describes "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" as "a hymn to music's instrumental spectrum... it's about the heightened awareness of nature and reality available to performer and listener in the course of a highly charged musical experience". The song is also rich in natural imagery, often in surreal, musical terms ("The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang/And asked for no applause"). Steven Goldberg writes that the song depicts nature "not as a manifestation of God but as containing God within its every aspect". The Byrds released their own celebrated version of "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" in 1965 on their critically acclaimed second album, Turn! Turn! Turn!.'



Dylan's first release of the song was on "Biograph".



The above is from Wikipedia.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
From: GUEST,peregrina
Date: 16 Jun 07 - 05:35 PM

Tim O'Brien does a sort of old time string band version as the last track on his 1996 CD Red on Blonde.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 May 21 - 05:07 PM

Were lyrics posted somewhere?
What is the name of the melody?

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 17 May 21 - 05:52 PM

The melody is a variant on Waly, Waly/The Water is Wide.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 17 May 21 - 05:53 PM

Joe, hum The Water is Wide. That may be the melody you`re thinking of.

Subject: ADD: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 May 21 - 06:04 PM

I was thinking of a hymn, but of course there are many hymns that use the melody to "The Water Is Wide" (called WALY WALY in hymnals).

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/lay-down-your-weary-tune/

LAY DOWN YOUR WEARY TUNE (Bob Dylan)

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

Struck by the sounds before the sun
I knew the night had gone
The morning breeze like a bugle blew
Against the drums of dawn

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

The ocean wild like an organ played
The seaweed’s wove its strands
The crashin’ waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and sands

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws
The cryin’ rain like a trumpet sang
And asked for no applause

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum

The last of leaves fell from the trees
And clung to a new love’s breast
The branches bare like a banjo played
To the winds that listened best

I gazed down in the river’s mirror
And watched its winding strum
The water smooth ran like a hymn
And like a harp did hum

Lay down your weary tune, lay down
Lay down the song you strum
And rest yourself ’neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum



Copyright © 1964, 1965 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992, 1993 by Special Rider Music

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: Monique
Date: 17 May 21 - 06:22 PM

Ah! So I wasn't dreaming when I said at the singaround that it sounded like The Water is Wide. It did remind me of it. Dylan's song.

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 17 May 21 - 06:23 PM

Yeah, the first line melody is almost that of The Water Is Wide, but it shifts away thereafter. I'll do a little more digging... got to gotobed now tho'!

Subject: RE: Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Bob Dylan)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 May 21 - 07:04 PM

My favorite version was by the Byrds. I don't really remember a Dylan recording.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7wKOFscLMI

The Byrds harmonies send me soaring.