"Someday Baby" is a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

-winning blues song written and performed by American singer-songwriter

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

, released as the fifth track on his 2006

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

''Modern Times''. The song had considerable success, garnering more airtime on U.S. radio than any other track on the album. It spent twenty weeks on ''Billboard'''s

Adult Alternative Songs Adult Alternative Airplay (also known as Triple A or Triple A Airplay, and formerly Adult Alternative Songs and Triple A Songs) is a record chart currently published by ''Billboard'' that ranks the most popular songs on adult album alternative radi ...

chart, peaking at #3 in November 2006. It was also anthologized on the compilation album ''Dylan'' in 2007. Like much of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself under the pseudonym

Jack Frost Jack Frost is a personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold. He is a variant of Old Man Winter who is held responsible for frosty weather, nipping the fingers and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, a ...

Composition and recording

The song is based on "

Trouble No More ''Trouble No More'' is American singer-songwriter and musician John Mellencamp's 18th studio album and his final recording for Columbia Records, released in 2003. It consists of blues and folk covers. A re-working of "To Washington" featuring ...

," a folk/blues song written by

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

and popularized by the

Allman Brothers Band Allman may refer to: Music *The Allman Brothers Band, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame southern rock band, formed by Duane and Gregg Allman *The Allman Joys, an early band formed by Duane and Gregg Allman *The Gregg Allman Band People *Allman (surnam ...

, which was in turn based on "Someday Baby Blues" by

Sleepy John Estes John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an A ...

and popularized by

Big Maceo Major "Big Maceo" Merriweather (March 31, 1905 – February 23, 1953) was an American pianist and blues singer. He was mainly active in Chicago through the 1940s. Career Born in Newnan, Georgia, he was a self-taught pianist. In the 1920s, he m ...

as "

Worried Life Blues "Worried Life Blues" is a blues standard and one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. Originally recorded by Big Maceo Merriweather in 1941, "Worried Life Blues" was an early blues hit and Maceo's most recognized song. The song was insp ...

". In their book ''Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track'', authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon note that although Dylan "may have kept the structure, he changed the lyrics. The story spins around the marital problems of a poor fellow, but is punctuated with lines of the purest Dylan style". The song is performed in the key of

B-flat major B-flat major is a major scale based on B, with pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative minor is G minor and its parallel minor is B-flat minor. The B-flat major scale is: Changes needed for ...

Use in commercial

The song was featured in a prominent

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commercial that appeared around the time ''Modern Times'' was released in early September 2006. In the commercial, shots of a silhouetted Dylan performing "Someday Baby" on acoustic guitar and singing into an antique microphone are juxtaposed with shots of the silhouette of a woman dancing. Writing in ''Wired'' magazine, Andy Cush summed up the ad by stating, "Taking advantage of Mr. Zimmerman's nearly pan-cultural appeal,

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

was able to attract cool dads and their college student kids with this single statement".

Other versions

An alternate version of the song, from the same ''Modern Times'' recording sessions, featuring a slower tempo and different arrangement and lyrics, appeared on the 2008 Dylan compilation '' The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 – Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006''. This version of the song was number 37 on ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

''s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2008 and Dylan biographer Howard Sounes called it "more engaging" than the official album version. Engineer Chris Shaw, in an interview with ''Uncut'', discussed the differences between the two versions:

Notable covers

The song was covered by Canadian singer/songwriter

Leslie Feist Leslie Feist (born February 13, 1976), known mononymously as Feist, is a Canadian indie pop singer-songwriter and guitarist, performing both as a solo artist and as a member of the indie rock group Broken Social Scene. Feist launched her solo ...

live during her 2009 tour.

Chart performance

Awards

for

Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance The Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works (songs or albums) containing qua ...

(2007)

References

External links

Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site
iPod commercial
featuring "Someday Baby" on YouTube {{Authority control Songs written by Bob Dylan Bob Dylan songs 2006 songs Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance Song recordings produced by Bob Dylan Columbia Records singles