DylanCelebration

Lay Down Your Weary Tune

This is one of my favorite Dylan works—a little-known song that Dylan never included on any of his studio albums and only performed in a few live appearances. He wrote it in 1963, in the home of his then-partner, Joan Baez. Many folks came to know it through the version released by the Byrds—perhaps the best and most important interpreters of Dylan’s songbook—on their 1965 album, “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

“Lay Down Your Weary Tune” deserves to be better known, because it is one of Dylan’s finest compositions—and that, of course, is a very high bar. As music critic Michael Gray notes, it offers “a vision of the world, that is, in which nature appears not as a manifestation of God but as containing God in every aspect.” It brims with lyrical images from the natural world, some of which are reminiscent of the biblical psalms. This effect is magnified by the music, which is hymn-like in its glorious simplicity. Indeed, in the verse before the final chorus, a river sings its hymn of praise, like a heavenly harp:

The last of leaves fell from the trees

And clung to a new love's breast

The branches bare like a banjo moan

To the winds that listen the best

I gazed down in the river's mirror

And watched its winding strum

The water smooth ran like a hymn

And like a harp did hum

In the liturgical song “Adon Olam” which frequently concludes our services, we exult the Holy One while at the same time recognizing that ultimately, God is beyond our human capacity to bless. Dylan expresses this same dynamic in the song’s chorus where he asks us to rest and enjoy the music of the Divine that “no voice can hope to hum.” But all the while, Dylan is singing nonetheless, because this is our calling: to praise, even if we know our words will fall short—because the effort alone is beautiful and even heroic:

Lay down your weary tune, lay down

Lay down the song you strum

And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum

As Shabbat draws near, fill your day with praise. Listen to The Byrd’s version of “Lay Down Your Weary Tune.” And don't forget to join us on Zoom tonight at 6:00 pm.