BIG YELLOW TAXI (Bob Dylan)
“Big Yellow Taxi” is a song written, composed, and originally recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell in 1970, and originally released on her album Ladies of the Canyon. Bob Dylan, instead of singing about the “big yellow taxi” that “took away my old man”, sings, “A big yellow bulldozer took away the house and land.” (More from Wikipedia)
Dylan is a recent rescue from Katrina, however, and I found it surprisingly easy to listen to. The album is entirely cover songs, many of them quite familiar; and if Dylan’s performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” leaves no impression at all, that is not true of the lesser known songs.
The opening track, a traditional folk song called “Lily of the West” is beautifully performed; and the album is well worth owning for that song alone. Personally I am at least as big a fan of Bob Dylan as a folksinger as I am of Bob Dylan as a rocker, and this song was a welcome return to the performances that I remember so well from his early albums.
(August 2014)
