About ten days ago I was listening to the Judy Collins station on Pandora when her version of this song played and it made me wish to share it. It's almost incomprehensible how many songs Dylan wrote as an emerging artist those first years in New York, songs so timeless and evocative that they are still being sung today. According to The Story Behind Every Song, Dylan played the song for Artie Mogull, an A&R record exec involved in Dylan's signing, and Mogull's first thought was that it would make a great number for a young Judy Collins whose star was also on the rise. Mogull called Collins to come hear it, and when she did she cried. She was first to record it as a result, and would not be the last.
Though Dylan recorded the song himself, it was part of a series of sessions never released called The Witmark Demos, which emerged in 2010 as Bootleg Series Volume 9, one of my favorite sets in the Bootleg Series. Though tapes of these sessions circulated amongst hard core Dylan circles as bootlegs, the first version of the song to arrive on vinyl appeared on his 1971 Greatest Hits, Volume II, a live recording from his 1963 concert in New York's Town Hall. Throughout the Sixties numerous other artists performed and recorded the song, however, including Harry Belafonte, We Five, Joan Baez, and the Kingston Trio. It's been recorded by countless others, and was even used in the wind-up episode of The Walking Dead. Elvis Presley also recorded it in 1966, which led Dylan to remark that this was his all-time favorite cover recording of one of his songs.
I recommend Dylan's Witmark Demo version, but have included versions by Odetta and Ms. Collins at the end of this post.
Tomorrow Is A Long Time
If today was not an endless highway
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love’s eyes
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
If tonight was not a crooked trail
If tomorrow wasn’t such a long time
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
I can’t see my reflection in the waters
I can’t speak the sounds that show no pain
I can’t hear the echo of my footsteps
Or can’t remember the sound of my own name
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
That I remember in my true love’s eyes
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin’
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin’
Only if she was lyin’ by me
Then I’d lie in my bed once again
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music
Meantime.... life goes on.
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