Lay Lady Lay performer Bob Dylan
"Lay Lady Lay", sometimes rendered "Lay, Lady, Lay", is a song written by Bob Dylan and originally released in 1969 on his Nashville Skyline album. Like many of the tracks on the album, Dylan sings the song in a low croon, rather than in the high nasal singing style associated with his earlier (and eventually later) recordings. The song has become a standard and has been covered by numerous bands and artists over the years.Bob Dylan version
"Lay Lady Lay" was originally written for the soundtrack of the movie Midnight Cowboy but wasn't submitted in time to be included in the finished film.  Joel Whitburn said instead that the song was "written for his wife Sarah Lowndes". In a 1971 interview for which transcripts were auctioned in 2020, Dylan said the song was written for Barbra Streisand.Dylan's recording was released as a single in July 1969 and quickly became his fourth and last top 10 U.S. hit, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single did even better in the United Kingdom where it reached #5 on the UK Singles Chart. Like many of the tracks on Nashville Skyline, the song is sung by Dylan in a warm, relatively low sounding voice, rather than the more abrasive nasal singing style with which he had become famous. Dylan attributed his "new" voice to having quit smoking before recording the album, but some unreleased bootleg recordings from the early 1960s reveal that, in fact, Dylan had used a similar singing style before.Don Everly of the Everly Brothers recounted in a 1986 Rolling Stone interview that Dylan performed parts of the song for them after a late 1960s appearance by the duo in New York, as they were "looking for songs, and he was writing 'Lay Lady Lay' at the time." Despite a popular story that the Everly Brothers rejected the song due to misunderstanding the lyrics as sexual in nature, Everly continued "He sang parts of it, and we weren't quite sure whether he was offering it to us or not. It was one of those awestruck moments." In a 1994 interview Don Everly further explained the encounter, stating that "It really wasn't a business meeting ... It wasn't that kind of atmosphere." The Everly Brothers later covered the song on their EB 84 album, 15 years after Dylan's release.
According to country musician Johnny Cash, Dylan played the song first in a circle of singer-songwriters at Cash's house outside of Nashville. Cash claimed that several other musicians also played their own new, unheard songs. (Dylan himself speaks of this happening on page 101 of his book Chronicles Volume 1)
Drummer Kenny Buttrey has said that he had a difficult time coming up with a drum part for the song. Dylan had suggested bongos, while producer Bob Johnston said cowbells. In order to "show them how bad their ideas were", Buttrey used both instruments together. Kris Kristofferson, who was working as a janitor in the studio at the time, was enlisted to hold the bongos in one hand and the cowbell in the other. Buttrey moved the sole overhead drum mic over to these new instruments. When he switches back to the drums for the choruses the drumset sounds distant due to not being directly miked. The take heard on the album is the first take and is one of Buttrey's own favorite performances.The song was also a favourite of popular singer Madonna, "I used to listen to that one record, 'Lay Lady Lay', in my brother's bedroom in the basement of our house," she recalled. "I'd lie on the bed and play that song and cry all the time. I was going through adolescence; I had hormones raging through my body. Don't ask me why I was crying – it's not a sad song. But that's the only record of his that I really listened to."Live performances and other releases
Dylan played the song live for the first time at the Isle of Wight on August 31, 1969; a recording is included on Isle of Wight Live, part of the 4-CD deluxe edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971). Performances of the song from 1974 and 1976 are included on the Before the Flood and Hard Rain live albums. The song has been performed frequently by Dylan since the late 1980s during his Never Ending Tour.
"Lay Lady Lay" appears on Dylan's Greatest Hits, Volume II album, as well as on the Masterpieces, Biograph, The Best of Bob Dylan, Vol. 1, and The Essential Bob Dylan compilation albums.
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