His songs are open to interpretation
New movies remind us the difference between Dylan and the Beatles
Two new films take as their respective muses the two towering icons of popular music, and the movies are as different from each other as the musicians they celebrate. Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe" is a valentine to the Beatles. Todd Haynes's "I'm Not There" is a case study of Bob Dylan. One is ardent and colorful. The other, deep and puzzling. Both feature cover versions of songs from the most revered catalogs of the last half century, and their soundtracks bring into bold relief one of pop's great ironies. The Beatles, perhaps the most widely accessible and universally beloved band ever, are nearly impossible to cover. And Dylan, one of the most enigmatic and mercurial songwriters of his generation, has produced a body of work that blooms over and over again in other artists' hands.
Everything changed with the Beatles. The band reinvented melody and orchestration and song structure for the rock era. Miraculously, all that innovation added up to thrilling pop tunes that anyone with a beating heart fell for, and keeps falling for. But Beatles songs are stamped, forever, by the band's mythic sweep, and we, the fans, are imprinted with an emotional attachment to something that's bigger than a pleasing pattern of notes. John, Paul, George, and Ringo are an indelible piece of the music's identity, and our experience of the music. With all apologies to Beatlejuice, the Fab Faux, and Bono (who as Taymor's Dr. Robert lassoes a righteously woozy vigor for "I Am the Walrus"), even the most expert Beatles covers tend to sound like glorified karaoke.
By contrast, Dylan's songs lend themselves to extraordinary cover versions thanks to the very quality that forms the thesis of Haynes's film. Dylan keeps changing - his sound to an extent and, more critically, his image - and in so doing creates escape routes from the pedestal on which he's been placed. Even Dylan's most confessional tracks are curiously devoid of intimacy.
Partly that's because of his voice, a half- sung, half-spoken bleat that's weirdly expressive but isn't equipped to convey much nuance and emotional range. On the artist's 1966 recording of "Just Like a Woman," an exquisite relationship sketch and one of Dylan's most plainspoken lyrics, the singer mainly sounds annoyed. But the song's words and melody are rich with feeling that dozens of subsequent interpreters have plumbed with their own brand of passion. Richie Havens's recording finds the beating heart in Dylan's biting narrative, while Van Morrison's warm, gospel-inflected take considers the song's spiritual reverberations. Jeff Buckley delivered a soul-piercing live performance of the song that cuts to the quick.
Dylan considers himself a storyteller, not a sensitive singer-songwriter (although that genre wouldn't exist without him). Personal revelation was never his intention - on the contrary. Despite Dylan's vast influence on popular music, the depth of his poetry, and the reams of classics he's contributed to the folk and rock canons, his songs seem to exist outside of the artist who created them. Moreover, where the Beatles' sound was new and utterly signature, Dylan's sound is rooted in tradition. His songs - by virtue of their heritage, and perhaps also by the artist's design - belong to the world.
A good cover lets the listener hear a song differently; it cultivates a fresh understanding or unexplored vantage point. But the driving force behind Beatles covers seems to be an intense desire to convey affection for the music. Maybe that's why Beatles covers are typically faithful reproductions of the originals. Taymor (and T-Bone Burnett) took gentle liberties with arrangements, but at heart she's a super-fan and "Across the Universe," set in the '60s, often feels like the filmmaker's grand-scale effort to animate the music she adores, or, more accurately, the feelings those songs elicit.
Evan Rachel Wood, as Lucy, sings "If I Fell" as she ponders surrendering to a new romance. Jim Sturgess, a.k.a. Jude, croons "All My Loving" to his British girlfriend on the eve of an overseas adventure. But no matter how sweet Wood's voice, or charismatic Sturgess's performance, it feels more like a breach than a bridge. "Across the Universe" - like other reworkings of the Beatles catalog - didn't offer a new perspective on the music. It just made me want to listen to the Beatles.
Dylan covers are by and large more imaginative - not because Dylan's recorded performances leave room for improvement per se, but because both the music and the mythology are open to interpretation. Look no further than the "I'm Not There" soundtrack for a wealth of examples. Sonic Youth recasts the title song under a beautifully gauzy veil, Jim James and Calexico infuse "Goin' to Acapulco" with lush, horn-stoked languor, and Antony and the Johnsons scrape the bruised, tender underbelly of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Beauty, languor, and tenderness aren't qualities Dylan chose to revel in, at least publicly. But his songs contain multitudes.
Of course, Dylan has been cast as the Voice of a Generation, revered for the authenticity of his art and veracity of his vision despite his penchant for blithely shifting personas. Yet a classic like "Masters of War," written during the turmoil of Vietnam, resonates with renewed vigor in the Roots' suite-like treatment, recently performed at various live events, including a New York concert celebrating the film's soundtrack. The definitive '60s troubadour turns out to be endlessly redefinable, while the Beatles - pop's global messengers, the band whose appeal to this day transcends age, race, nationality, and every other demographic boundary - have rendered us powerless to claim their songs as our own.
Is there a message to be gleaned from this musical twist of fate? Maybe it's something along the lines of staying true to your school. The Beatles were consummate songwriters and recording artists. Nobody does it better, so let's let them do their job in perpetuity. Bob Dylan is restless, a provocateur, a mystery. It only makes sense to dive in and see what we can find.
Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com. For more on music visit boston.com/ae /music/blog. 