Blowin' in The Wind - Cover Versions

Cover Versions

"Blowin' in the Wind" has been covered by hundreds of artists. The most commercially successful version is by folk music trio Peter, Paul and Mary, who released the song in June 1963, three weeks after The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was issued. The trio's version, which was used as the title track of their third album, peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts. The group's version also went to number one on the Middle-Road charts for five weeks.

• Other covers have been by The Hollies, country guitar virtuoso Chet Atkins, Odetta, Dolly Parton, folk chanteuse Judy Collins, The Kingston Trio, Marianne Faithfull (1964 single), Jackie DeShannon, The Seekers, soul singer Sam Cooke, blues belter Etta James, Duke Ellington, Neil Young (with air raid sound effects), the Doodletown Pipers, Marlene Dietrich, Bobby Darin, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley, Sielun Veljet, on their single "Blowin' in the Wind", Stevie Wonder (whose version became a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966), John Fogerty, The Hooters on their 1994 album The Hooters Live, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and was performed by Jenny in the award-winning film Forrest Gump (sung by Joan Baez), and was lampooned in Me, Myself & Irene. The Me First and the Gimme Gimmes' version appears on their album Blow in the Wind, a play on the title of the song.

• An instrumental arrangement by Stan Getz served as the B-side for Astrud Gilberto's 1964 hit single "The Girl From Ipanema" and Stanley Turrentine recorded an instrumental version on his album Common Touch (1968).

• A traveling exhibition called Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956–1966, which was featured at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, contains an audio display with samples of dozens of different cover versions of the song, sung in numerous languages and from a variety of musical genres.

• The song has also been sung and recorded in German by Marlene Dietrich as "Die Antwort weiss ganz allein der Wind".

• Bender briefly sang this song when a magnet gets attached to his head on the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed".

• In Bengali there has been a translation of the song recorded by popular Bengali blues singer Suman Chatterjee. It goes "Kotota Path" ("How Many Roads") in Bengali.

• The song was translated to Romanian by poet Adrian Păunescu and was sung by folk band Pasărea Colibri under the name "Vânare de vânt" ("Windhunting").

• The Italian version was written by Giulio Rapetti (better known as Mogol) and sung by Luigi Tenco with the title "La risposta (è caduta nel vento)" ("The answer (has fallen down the wind)").

• Tore Lagergren wrote lyrics in Swedish, "Och vinden ger svar" ("and the wind gives answer"), which chartered at Svensktoppen for two weeks during 1963, first as recorded by Otto, Berndt och Beppo, peaking at #8 on October 12, and by Lars Lönndahl during November 9–15 with sixth and seventh position. Both were released on single A-sides during 1963. This lyrics version was also recorded by Sven-Ingvars, as B-side for the single "Du ska tro på mej", released in March 1967. With these lyrics, the song also chartered at Svensktoppen in 1970, with Michael med Salt och peppar.

• Hugues Aufray sang a French version, entitled "Dans le souffle du vent" ("In the blow of the wind"). Aufray has been known to adapt various international artists' songs to French, including several from Dylan's repertoire.

• Another French singer Richard Anthony recorded an adaptation of the song in French as "Ecoute dans le vent" (1964).

• The song was covered on American singer-songwriter Jay Brannan's 2009 album In Living Cover.

• Gerard Quintana (former lead singer of the Catalan rock band Sopa de Cabra) recorded a cover of this song in Catalan under the title "Escolta-ho en el vent" (Hear it in the wind) for his album Els Miralls de Dylan (Mirrors of Dylan).

• Josh Sigurdson covered the song to critical acclaim in 2010.

• Brazilian singer Zé Ramalho recorded a Portuguese language cover of this song called "O Vento vai Responder" (The Wind will Answer) on his 2008 album Zé Ramalho Canta Bob Dylan – Tá Tudo Mudando.

In addition, "Blowin' in the Wind" is one of seven Dylan songs whose lyrics were reset for soprano and piano (or orchestra) by John Corigliano for his song cycle Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan.