Bob Dylan and Tom Petty's Golden Oldies Revue

20 covers performed on Dylan's 1986 tour with the Heartbreakers

I recently launched a new podcast called Watching the Covers Flow all about Bob Dylan covers—and, in the first season, specifically about Dylan covers of the ‘80s. It’s not for me to say what the best episode is, but the one I had the most fun preparing is the second, focusing on the covers Dylan performed in 1986 backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. There were a lot! Dylan and Petty drew largely from songs they grew up with, pulling out all sorts of old-time-rock-and-roll chestnuts. Many Dylan never played before or since.

So, as an extended companion piece to that podcast episode (which you can find here), I decided to run down all 20 covers Dylan and Petty performed on their 1986 tour. I’ve ordered them chronologically, based on when they debuted each cover during the year’s two Dylan-Petty tours (Australia/Asia and U.S.), and bulleted out the key info before adding my own thoughts.

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Across The Borderline

• Written by: Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Jim Dickinson

• Original recording artist: Ry Cooder

• First time played: February 05, Wellington, New Zealand [opening night]

• Last time played: August 6, Paso Robles, CA [closing night]

• Number of times played on this tour: 53

• Has he played it before or since: Yes! Several times in the early Never Ending Tour era, including as a guitar duet with Richard Thompson at a 1991 festival (I interviewed Thompson about it for my book), then a surprise one-off in Rochester in 1998.

At the very first show of the tour, in Wellington New Zealand (a show Heartbreakers keyboard player Benmont Tench told me was “a train wreck”), Dylan debuted four covers that would become staples of the shows. The first, and one of the best, was a take on a relatively recent—at least compared to most of the oldies he drew from—Ry Cooder song. Like the best of these covers, it makes good use not just of the Heartbreakers as a rocking, swinging backing band, but also of the singers dubbed the Queens of Rhythm.

I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know 

• Written by: Cecil A. Null

• Original recording artist: The Davis Sisters

• First time played: February 05, Wellington, New Zealand [opening night]

• Last time played: August 6, Paso Robles, CA [closing night]

• Number of times played on this tour: 56 [the most of any of these!]

• Has he played it before or since: Not in concert, but you can see him strumming it in a hotel room in Dont Look Back, then he released a version on Self Portrait.

As I’ve written about before, True Confessions for Carol was a formative bootleg for me. It was taken from a show a few weeks into the tour in Sydney—the same show as the official Hard to Handle video, but with way more songs. That boot includes most of these early covers, but the one that jumped out at me first was “I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know.” It features a duet with Petty, the two of them belting into the same mic as they strummed acoustic guitars.

At that True Confessions show, Dylan introduced the song by saying, “Tom and I are gonna do a song for you right now. We used to hear these songs all the time when we were growing up. You can't hear them anymore. Very seldom do you hear real songs anymore. Well, we were lucky to grow up when you could hear them all the time. All you had to do was switch on the radio.”

I'm Movin' On 

• Written and recorded by: Hank Snow

• First time played: February 05, Wellington, New Zealand [opening night]

• Last time played: July 7, Washington, DC

• Number of times played on this tour: 18

• Has he played it before or since: Yes, he dusted it off for a few performances in 1993.

Bob Dylan plays almost a supporting role in this one. He occasionally yelps out a two-line verse, at times sharing a mic with Petty, but is generally drowned out by the blasting backup singers on the chorus and wordless interludes, and the killer rock band (Benmont hammering the hell out of the keys a particular highlight). 

Lonesome Town

• Written by: Baker Knight

• Performed by: Ricky Nelson

• First time played: February 05, Wellington, New Zealand [opening night]

• Last time played: August 6, Paso Robles, CA [closing night]

• Number of times played on this tour: 55

• Has he played it before or since: Yes! Three times in 1989, in the early Never Ending Tour.

“Ricky Nelson, he did a lot of my songs, I’m gonna do one of his,” Dylan would say to introduce this song. It features some of his most sensitive vocals of the bunch (in a year not necessarily big on “sensitive”). The line “There’s a place of broken dreams” gave the title to another widely-circulated 1986 bootleg. 

This is the last of the four covers performed at the very first show of the tour, in Wellington New Zealand. More would be added within days.

That Lucky Old Sun

• Written by: Haven Gillespie, Beasley Smith

• Original recording artist: Frankie Laine

• First time played: February 7, Auckland, New Zealand

• Last time played: August 1, Vancouver, BC

• Number of times played on this tour: 24

• Has he played it before or since: Of course! “That Lucky Old Sun” continued to pop up occasionally during the Never Ending Tour, before memorably being recorded for his first standards album, Shadows in the Night. It’s my favorite of the Sinatra tunes he recorded across all three albums.

We saw this one not too long ago on the Farm Aid 1985 rehearsal tape. It, and the subsequent ’86 tour performances, are miles away from his soft and subtle standards-era versions. Dylan and the Heartbreakers didn’t do half-measures, and didn’t really do “quiet” either. So even a slow ballad gets belted to the back of the arena. I think it works, though I can see how others might disagree.

Justine

• Written and recorded by: Don & Dewey

• First time played: February 10, Sydney, Australia

• Last time played: March 10, Tokyo, Japan

• Number of times played on this tour: 12

• Has he played it before or since: No

This part-instrumental kicked off a number of shows, and featured perhaps the only time Bob Dylan played a synthesizer on stage. I say “part-instrumental” because, while he does eventually get around to singing the lyrics (what few there are), clearly the fun for him was hammering out that infectious carnival riff on the synth. He’d do it over and over for several minutes before reluctantly moving to the microphone.

House Of The Rising Sun

• Written by: Traditional

• First time played: February 11, Sydney, Australia

• Last time played: July 17, New York, NY

• Number of times played on this tour: 3

• Has he played it before or since: Other than on his debut album you mean? A few times—including once on the 1987 tour with Petty and co., which featured far fewer covers (this is the only one of all these ’86 covers to recur there). Also from live in the early Greenwich Village folk days to, most recently, a 2007 one-off.

It probably goes without saying that this version doesn’t sound much like the cherub-faced folk song on Bob’s debut album right? It is, like basically everything else on offer here, loud and boisterous. The backing singers coo melodically. Stan Lynch bashes the hell out of the drums. Mike Campbell shreds a terrific solo. It’s a shame they only played it three times; it could have been a nightly highlight.

Sukiyaki

• Written by: Rohusuke Ei, Hachidai Nakamura

• Originally recorded by: Kyu Sakomoto

• First time played: March 6, Osaka, Japan

• Last time played: March 10, Tokro, Japan

• Number of times played on this tour: 3

• Has he played it before or since: No

Bob Dylan does not speak Japanese. Obviously. He acknowledged that when performing this famous local hit in Japan, saying by way of intro at one of the shows, “I think it was back in the ‘50s, the late ‘50s, this song was played on the radio a lot. And I know it meant a lot, a lot to us then. Never did understand the words to it, but I think it did become top, top record on the charts. And I used to hear it all the time. Never did forget it. Can't remember any of the words, but we're gonna play the melody anyway.” So he just hums it. Not much of a cover really, but still, nice gesture. Kind of like what he was doing on the fall 2023 tour, performing local hits.

We Three (My Echo, My Shadow And Me)

• Written by: Dick Robertson, Nelson Cogane, Sammy Mysels)

• Originally recorded by: The Ink Spots

• First time played: March 10, Tokyo, Japan

• Last time played: July 17, New York, NY

• Number of times played on this tour: 2

• Has he played it before or since: Twice. Once during that Plugz rehearsal in 1984 (which only kinda counts, it wasn’t in an actual concert), and again as a somewhat halting solo acoustic one-off in 1988.

How did he only place this twice? The first time in Tokyo, he claims it came as a request, which I find suspect. Bob’s not known to do requests, and who, if given the chance to request a song, is picking a 1940s Ink Spots song the band has never performed? A smart person, apparently. Because Dylan sings the hell out of it, more subtle and melodic than many of these others. It seems to be a song he really loves. Sure enough, decades later, he played the original Ink Spots version on Theme Time Radio Hour.