Jim & Jean - Lay Down Your Weary Tune [HD]

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Jim & Jean, singers Jim Glover and Jean Ray, sing the Bob Dylan song 'Lay Down Your Weary Tune' from their 1966 Verve Folkways album 'Changes'. Musicians on the album include Al Kooper, Harvey Brooks, Bobby Gregg, and Paul Harris. Jim & Jean were partly the inspiration for the couple in the film 'A Mighty Wind' and the likely inspiration for the couple named Jim and Jean in the film 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. Jean was also the inspiration for two Neil Young songs: 'Cinnamon Girl' and 'Cowgirl In The Sand'. The song lyrics are in the video and listed below along with some notes on the song.

[Vinyl/Lyrics/35-Images/WAV]

Lay Down Your Weary Tune

Singers - Jim & Jean

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

The ocean wild like an organ played
The seaweeds wove its strands
The crashing waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and sand

I stood unwound beneath the skies
And clouds unbound by laws
The crying 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

Songwriter: Bob Dylan

© Bob Dylan Music, OBO Special Rider Music

[Lyrics from LyricFind]

Wikipedia states:

"Lay Down Your Weary Tune" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1963. He originally recorded it for his album The Times They Are a-Changin', but it was not 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".

Dylan wrote the song at Joan Baez's house in Carmel, California, in the autumn of 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.

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." 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."

The verses do not attempt to tell a story, but provide a series of images of nature. The chorus is in the second person, and apparently is someone—possibly a deified personification of music—offering Dylan rest and freedom from his burdens. In the verses, sounds from nature are contrasted with man-made sounds, particularly in lines such as "The morning breeze like a bugle blew," "The crashin' waves like cymbals clashed," "The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang," "The branches bare like a banjo moaned" and "The water smooth ran like a hymn." But the chorus continually reminds us of the divide between natural and man-made sounds with the line "No voice can hope to hum," carrying the implicit meaning "No human voice can hope to hum."