The Belfast band Them (featuring Van Morrison) recorded this cover of \"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\" that was first released on their album, Them Again, in January 1966 in the UK and April 1966 in the U.S.
The song was subsequently issued as a single (b/w \"I'm Gonna Dress in Black\") in the Netherlands during October 1966 but failed to reach the Dutch Singles Chart.
It was later re-released in Germany in December 1973 with \"Bad or Good\" on the B-side, following its appearance in the 1972 German television movie, Die Rocker (aka Rocker).
The single became a hit in Germany, first entering the charts in February 1974 and peaking at #13, during a chart stay of 14 weeks.
This song recently featured in the BBC series, ''Inspector George Gently''. A detective drama, now in it's 5th series. It's set in the mid 1960's in NE England, and stars Martin Shaw and Lee Ingleby - Martin Shaw plays the title character, and Lee Ingleby plays his sergeant, John Bacchus. It's gritty and very faithful to the era, and always features excellent songs from the period.
Fancy watching an episode or 2?
''The Burning Man'' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGMZ7b4PiIs
''Northern Soul'' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETVTICskCVU
AND the episode featuring the song It's All Over Now (Baby Blue): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C_oTcaxtjg
All pictures from Google Images, as far as I know - apart from the very last picture - are all authentic photos from the era of the late 1960's.
Copyrights acknowledged
Facts re: Bob Dylan (wiki - link below)
\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan
and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965 byColumbia Records (see 1965 in music).
The song was originally recorded on January 15, 1965 with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation.
The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular \"Baby Blue.\"
There has been much speculation about the real life identity of \"Baby Blue\", with suspects including Joan Baez, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself.
\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\" has been covered many times by a variety of different artists, including Baez, Them, The Byrds, The Animals, The Chocolate Watch Band,Graham Bonnet, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull, Falco, The 13th Floor Elevators, the Grateful Dead, Link Wray, and Bad Religion.
Them's version, released in 1966 influenced garage bands during the mid-60's and Beck later sampled it for his 1996 single \"Jack-Ass\".
The Byrds recorded the song twice in 1965 as a possible follow up single to \"Mr. Tambourine Man\" and \"All I Really Want to Do\", but neither recording was released in that form. The Byrds did release a 1969 recording of the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album (see 1969 in music).
One interpretation of the song is that it is directed at Dylan's folk music audience.
The song was written at a time when he was moving away from the folk protest movement musically and, as such, can be seen as a farewell to his days as an acoustic guitar-playing protest singer.
Dylan's choice of performing \"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\" as his last acoustic song at the infamous Newport Folk Festival of 1965, after having had his electric set met with boos, is often used as evidence to support this theory.That particular performance of the song is included in Murray Lerner's film The Other Side of the Mirror.
Yet another interpretation is that Dylan is directing the farewell to himself, particularly his acoustic performer self. The opening line \"You must leave now\" can be a command, similar to the line \"Go away from my window\" that opens \"It Ain't Me, Babe\".
But it can also be an imperative, meaning just that it is necessary that you leave.
And the song is as much about new beginnings as it is about endings.
The song not only notes the requirement that Baby Blue leave, but also includes the hope that Baby Blue will move forward, in lines such as \"Strike another match, go start anew\".
If Dylan is singing the song to himself, then he himself would be the \"vagabond who's rapping at your door / standing in the clothes that you once wore\". That is, the new, electric, surrealist Dylan would be the vagabond, not yet having removed the \"clothes\" of the old protest singer. Alternatively, the vagabond and \"stepping stones\" referenced in the song have been interpreted as Dylan's folk audience whom he needs to leave behind.
He would also be telling himself to \"Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.\"
Others to whom he may be saying farewell in the song are any of the women he had known, the political left or to the illusions of his youth.
