BATTLE OF THE BANDS - 'A Rather Bad Idea' RESULT

Before we get too far into this BOTB Results post, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. I did something here that I hope I never do again. What is that? You ask. Well, what I did was go for diversity and I posted two different versions of this song, neither of which I am terribly fond of. Let me explain.

The version by The Turtles was very popular and probably would have presented a lovely bit of nostalgia for a lot of you, and I figured would run away with the race no matter who they were pitted against. I thought the same might have happened if I used the original, solo version by Bob Dylan. Course maybe it would have been an interesting BATTLE between Bob and The Turtles, but we’ll never know for sure, now will we?

The two versions that I did use by June and Johnny Cash and Nancy Sinatra were very dissimilar to either the Bob Dylan or The Turtles versions and they were very, very dissimilar to each other. That’s what I was going for diversity of sound between the two combatants. It does seem as though I shot myself in the foot on this one, because I don’t particularly care for either version.

As stated by many of you Johnny’s voice (which I do kind of like on a lot of songs) seems way too gruff and gravelly for this tune. He not only swallows some of the words, but on others he seems to gnash them to smithereens. He totally drowns June out, and they seem to be having quite a difficult time harmonizing.

On the other hand (and also as stated by many of you) Nancy’s version seems kind of weak (someone even called her meek). There is no force or believability behind her singing “go away from my window” (it feels as though it should be followed by please, please, please!). I found that a bit surprising, because on some of her other stuff, she is anything but weak or meek (think - ‘These Boots are Made for Walkin’ or ‘Jackson’).

Truth be told, IMO, the best version is the original by Bob Dylan, by himself. I will admit that the version I posted here with him and Joan Baez was not too good, but ‘hideous’, I don’t think so. (Well there is just no accounting for some people’s taste.) It was, after all, a live performance and they seemed to be having a little bit too much of a good time.

Anyway…my vote really won’t matter here because the Cash’s ran off with this BATTLE. I certainly don’t think their version is the ‘best one ever recorded’ of this song, but in keeping with the general voting here (choosing the lesser of two evils), I would grudgingly give them my vote also.

The final tally is;

                

                Johnny & June              13 votes (including mine)

                Nancy Sinatra                6 votes

If you have the time here is another version that I like quite a bit. It's from an album this duo recorded (in 1965) titled 'Folk and Roll.

Here is Jan & Dean with 'It Ain't Me Babe"

Yeah, yeah, I know; this would have been a much better choice for this BATTLE.

Try not to hold this BATTLE against me and come back on the 1^st of March where I will try to give you two better selections (with at least one that I can really get behind). Until then ‘Happy Trails to You!’

ALSO, I’m trying real hard to pick up the pace on my blogging, so don’t write me off until the 1^st of March. I’m gonna try real hard to post something that I hope will be of interest in between then and now.