30 Days of Covers: Wagon Wheel (Rock Me Mama)

17 Yesterday, my dear friend frenemy Barlow sent me a link to a YouTube video of The Menzingers doing the song “Wagon Wheel” for this series. Neither of us can find the original source, by the way, so if any of you know, please tell me!

Some extensive googling on the location of the above mentioned compilation led to me learning quite a bit about the track as well as finding some other great versions. Most importantly, there was this post from our friends at Nine Bullets which traced back the origins of the track:

“It’d be my pleasure to dispel the myth and rumor about the song Wagon Wheel, or “Rock Me Mama” as Bob Dylan himself called the song when he recorded it down in Mexico in 1972 for the soundtrack of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. This song was not released, and it was not finished either, this is a demo of a practice session of him, Rob Stoner, and a couple of gals doing the chorus over and over again while the bass player learns the bass line. That’s what I heard on a German bootleg about nine years ago in high school. And I wrote the lyrics to the song because I loved the chorus so much and I sung it in my head for maybe a year straight, and then just penned what I penned, which is something of an autobiographical story about just wanting to get outta town, gettin outta school, and just wanting to go play music. It’s sort of autobiographical like that. But yeah, it’s sort of a Bob Dylan co-write with about 25 years inbetween.”

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel

and another punx version from Against Me!:

Against Me! – Wagon Wheel

Jason Webley and Reverend Peyton do something a little closer to Dylan here:

Jason Webley and Revered Peyton – Wagon Wheel

Original Bob Dylan demo: