The random pla feature on my iPod coughed up Warren Zevon's cover of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" this morning, which got me wondering. I own at least four different versions of that song (Dylan, Clapton, Zevon, G'n'R), and iTunes offers over a hundred different versions (not counting the twenty-odd different takes by Dylan himself). There are also a hundred-ish cover versions of "All Along the Watchtower" listed. Those have to be his two most-covered songs, and they're probably up there in the race for most-covered song of all time.
I wonder what Bob Dylan thinks of that, given that they're so... slight. I mean, as Dylan songs go, they're short, fairly obvious, and not all that deep. Do you think he shakes his head in bemusement over that ("I wrote this in twenty minutes in line at the grocery store..."), or does he just laugh on his way to cash the royalty check?
(A tangentially related question, that I'm not going to spin off into its own post, though I could: What is the most-covered song of all time? Let's restrict it to songs with identifiable authors, so no "Whisky in the Jar" or other traditional tunes, otherwise it just gets silly. "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" has to be up there, but I'm sure there are other songs that everybody with a guitar has recorded at some point...)
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I thought it was Yesterday by Paul McCartney, but the entry for that song in Wikipedia suggests that Gershwin's "Summertime" might be a contender. Both have thousands of recorded cover versions.
WFMU collected 101 versions of Stairway to Heaven at http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/05/stairways_to_he.html.
According to Wikipedia, "Louie Louie" has been covered at least 1500 times. If you include non-recorded garage bands, I'm sure you could add several million more.
I always thought it was Summertime - of which I have at least a dozen of my own favourite versions - but I'd love to know if someone could figure out the exact facts on this question.
One of the reasons artists like to cover "Heaven's Door" (as well as "Blowing in the Wind", which I'm sure is Dylan's most covered song) is that is has a strong melody, which is atypical of the vast majority of Dylan's oevre. (Compare that song to "Watchtower," which barely has a melody at all.) A friend pointed this out to me years ago: he used to love Dylan's late period ballads, but when he would get on stage to perform "Sweetheart Like You" or "Most of the Time" he found himself singing a different melody each time, because Dylan was a mere sketch.
As far as "Watchtower," the only thing I can think of as to its ubiquity is Hendrix -- his arrangement of the song really rocks, and suggests all kinds of rhythmic and thematic possiblities that are not obvious in Dylan's original. In fact, the last time I heard Dylan do this song, he was using Hendrix's arrangement.
"Yesterday" and "Louie Louie" used to be the record holders for most covers, as noted in Dave Marsh's early-90s book Louie Louie. I have no idea how one would go about compiling a list these days, and don't trust any numbers that get reported as official.
A tangentially related issue to your tangentially related issue...
One of my professors back at UMD, Bill Gasarch believes that Dylan is the third most satirized artist of all time (after the Beatles and Elvis). He has a list of maybe 100.
He also conjectures that "12 days of christmas" is the most satirized song of all time... he has 143.
Interesting question. Wikipedia actually has a page with a subsection addressing this question, but it basically punts: "for various reasons it is difficult to accurately determine what song has the most cover versions". "Summertime" (Gershwin), "Yesterday" (McCartney) and "White Christmas" (Berlin) are some of the candidates for Most Covered Song EVAR mentioned in their discussion.
I would've guessed that "Blowin in the Wind" was Dylan's most covered composition, not for any good reason. ITunes lists lots of items for that title, but that includes several Dylan covers, a number of apparent repeats, and a number of covers of other Dylan songs on various albums including "blowin in the wind" in their titles. ("knockin on heaven's door" appears as part of an album title just once.) In short: who the hell knows?
I tend to doubt Dylan is especially put out that people prefer to cover this rather than that one of his songs; it's all flattering, I would think.
I'm sure Mr. Zimmerman appreciates the checks, he could probably retire off royalties from just the Byrds and Peter Paul and Mary covers!
I don't know that I would call either of those songs slight. They don't have the sort of evocative/intellectual/obscure lyrics of some of the more "classical" Dylan, but "Knocking" has both a wonderful melody and a a wonderfully plaintive theme.
If you haven't seen "Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid", the movie the song was written for, it's worth a watch. Dylan's good as a laconic cowboy.
I'd tend to suspect that the "most covered" song would probably be one of those Christmas songs that has an identifiable author. Seems like practically every singer (at least for American singers) whose career lasts long enough records a "Christmas Album" at some point. And they tend to focus on the same few songs.
"White Christmas" sounds as good a candidate as any.