Bob Dylan - Lay Down Your Weary Tune (Lyrics on Screen)

Details

Description

"Lay Down Your Weary Tune" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. Dylan originally recorded it for his album The Times They Are a-Changin', but his version of the song was not officially released until 1985 on the Biograph box set. In the album liner notes, Dylan claims that in the song he was trying to capture the feeling of a Scottish ballad he had just heard on a 78 rpm record. The specific ballad Dylan was referring to has not been identified, but speculation includes "The Water Is Wide", "O Waly, Waly" and "I Wish, I Wish".

Los Angeles folk-rock group the Byrds recorded "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" for their 1965 album Turn! Turn! Turn! The song was subsequently recorded by several artists.

Writing and performance
Dylan wrote the song at Joan Baez's house in Carmel, California, in late 1963. During the same visit, he also wrote the song "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". Dylan had originally wanted to sing "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" with Baez at her October 12, 1963, concert at the Hollywood Bowl, but Baez was not yet comfortable with the song. Dylan recorded the song in a single take on October 24, 1963, during the sessions for The Times They Are a-Changin. However, he decided to replace it on the album with the song "Restless Farewell", a song he wrote as an angry response to a Newsweek reporter who in late October 1963 published a story about Dylan of which Dylan did not approve. In the interim, Dylan played "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" at a concert at Carnegie Hall on October 26, which was eventually released on the album Live at Carnegie Hall 1963. The song also appears on the Dylan compilation Side Tracks.

Critical reception
Music critic Robert Shelton has described "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" as Dylan's "first withdrawal song", while journalist Paul Williams interpreted it as Dylan describing an auditory "vision" of a message from the universe or deity personified in music. Williams has also noted that throughout the song we hear Dylan struggling to put into words the melody that haunts him. Like Williams, author Seth Rogovoy similarly interpreted it as a song devoted to Dylan's musical muse, like the later "Mr. Tambourine Man". In his controversial 1970 article "Bob Dylan and the Poetry of Salvation", sociologist Steven Goldberg identified it as a song with which Dylan's focus changed from politics to mysticism. Music critic Michael Gray interprets the song as, "a vision of the world, that is, in which nature appears not as a manifestation of God but as containing God in every aspect". Gray also described the song as, "one of the very greatest and most haunting creations in our language". Christian theologian Stephen H. Webb has linked many of the images of the song to the Bible and calls it "one of the greatest theological songs since King David composed his psalms."