Leopard-Skin Pill-Beck's Hat: Hansen Does Dylan

Rarely have a song and interpreter met as perfectly as Beck in his new version of Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat."


Beck Hansen, like Dylan, is a blues loyalist, and knows the stuff inside and out. But both have a mischevious streak, and "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is the blues in quotation marks, with a smokin' hot Chicago blues bedrock over which Dylan gets all... Dylanesque. It's Muddy Waters meets Salvador Dali, and right up Beck's offbeat alley:

Well, you look so pretty in it
Honey, can I jump on it sometime?
Yes, I just wanna see
If it's really that expensive kind
You know it balances on your head
Just like a mattress balances
On a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat


Perhaps the version is so good because Dylan himself picked Beck to cover it, as part of War Child: Heroes, an album to benefit children in the world's most dangerous war zones, like Darfur.

The clever twist that separates this tribute/benefit record from others is that rock legends like Dylan, Paul McCartney and Mick Jones (The Clash, not Foreigner) hand-picked the younger artists to cover their classic tunes. The record has been getting great reviews, and for a cause so worthy, War Child: Heroes sounds like a must-buy.

To learn more, visit War Child's web site. And you can get the album on iTunes or Amazon too.

You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for: Here's Bob doing "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" when it was new, on his epic 1966 tour with the band, and 30 years later, in a fun performance in Hyde Park with Woody on guitar. Perhaps the next time Bob and Beck cross paths on the road, they could see fit to blaze through "LSPBH" together.
1966:

1996: