Bonus Track: Emma Swift on How "I Contain Multitudes" Unlocked Singing Dylan

"I'm very comfortable wearing the Bob Dylan cloak"

Emma Swift at the ‘Going Electric’ concert. Courtesy American Song Archives

Emma Swift’s name is well-known to many Dylan fans at this point through her wonderful 2020 covers album Blonde on the Tracks. Today, she releases the follow-up, her debut album of original material, The Resurrection Game. I haven’t heard the whole thing yet, but the advance singles have been excellent. So, in honor of the new album, I’m sharing my full conversation with her from backstage at Cain’s Ballroom this summer. She teases her eventual second album of Dylan covers, but, before that, another album of covers she’s recorded of a different cranky genius.

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All of these casual Bonus Track conversations backstage at the Bob Dylan Center’s “Going Electric” shows are archived here—and here’s the main piece I did from the shows

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You’ve sung many Dylan songs, but you've got a limited list to choose from for this. How did you pick the songs you’re doing tonight?

"Queen Jane Approximately" is very much in the Dylan-going-electric period, and that's a song that I recorded on my Blonde on the Tracks album. So that was an easy choice.

Lee Ranaldo, our fabulous band leader, wanted to get the moment just before Dylan went electric, so my job is actually part of the set that's the folk side of Bob Dylan. I'm doing "The Times They Are a-Changin'," which feels like an enormous responsibility. It's such a special song and it's so important, I think, in the current era. This fascinating and confusing and potentially destructive, but hopefully ultimately hopeful time that we're living through right now. I feel like it's a really poignant song to be singing. It makes me feel quite emotional.

When Bob Dylan performed this particular song, he sort of barrels through it in a really righteous [way.] It feels optimistic when Bob's singing it. My twist on “The Times They Are a-Changin’” for tonight's show is that it's a little bit mournful, to reflect where we're at in the culture.

That's what I like to do with Bob Dylan's songs. They're so potent and rich and open to interpretation. And it'll be nice to try this one on for size.

Emma Swift singing “The Times They Are a-Changin’” at the Going Electric concert:

How many do you have in your repertoire now?