Hear Bob Dylan Cover Chuck Berry’s ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ For The First Time

Andy Greene
·3 min read
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Bob Dylan - Credit: Gary Miller/Getty Images
Bob Dylan - Credit: Gary Miller/Getty Images

On the opening night of Bob Dylan’s 2024 tour, a fan reportedly got under his skin by screaming out, “Play something we know.” The fact that he followed the heckle up with a brand new arrangement of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” that echoed Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz” (or possibly “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by the Four Lads) is surely coincidence since such things are worked out in advance, but later in the night he did pull out a surprise by covering the 1956 Jimmy Rogers song “Walking By Myself” for the first time in his career.

It’s unlikely the choice appeased the aggrieved fan, and his set remains almost completely devoid of anything that could be fairly called a hit, but the surprises continued Wednesday night in Clearwater, Florida, when he broke out the 1958 Johnny Cash classic “Big River” for the first time since a guest appearance with the Dead in 2003. And he continued with the theme of Fifties covers on Thursday in Fort Myers, Florida, by playing Chuck Berry’s 1956 hit “Roll Over Beethoven.”

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“Roll Over Beethoven” was famously covered by the Beatles in 1963 and again by Electric Light Orchestra a decade later. This is the first time Dylan has ever played it, but it’s not his first time covering Chuck Berry. He performed “No Money Down” in 1981, “Around and Around” in 1992 and 2003, “Nadine (Is It You?)” in 1988 and 2023, and “Johnny B. Goode” in 2003 and 2023.

In a 1987 interview with Rolling Stone‘s Kurt Loder, Dylan spoke about the impact of Chuck Berry on his songwriting. “Chuck Berry was a rock & roll songwriter,” he said. “So I never tried to write rock & roll songs, ‘cause I figured he had just done it. When I started writing songs, they had to be in a different mold. Because who wants to be a second-rate anybody? A new generation had come along, of which I was a part – the second generation of rock & roll people. To me, and to others like me, it was a way of life. It was an all-consuming way of life.”

Dylan’s setlist this year is essentially the same as it was throughout 2023. It includes every song on 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways besides “Murder Most Foul,” three Sixties songs (“Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine,” “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight,” “To Be Alone With You”), two tunes he cut with Leon Russell in 1971 for Greatest Hits Vol. II (“Watching The River Flow,” “When I Paint My Masterpiece”), a couple of gospel-era songs (“Gotta Serve Somebody,” “Every Grain of Sand”), and nothing recorded between 1981 and 2020.

The tour continues Saturday night at the Walt Disney theater in Orlando, Florida. Anyone coming with the mindset of the “play something we know” heckler is going to leave disappointed. He’s simply not going to play “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” “All Along the Watchtower,” “Lay Lady Lay,” or any of his other big hits. But if you show up hoping to hear a random cover song from the late Fifties, you might be in luck. Most anything from that era feels fair game at this point.

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