'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.