Lay, Lady, Lay

In the summer of 1968, the producers of the movie Midnight Cowboy reached out to Dylan to see if he had a song they could use for the film's soundtrack. Dylan had been playing around with "Lay Lady Lay," a gentle love song, and thought it would make a good submission, but he didn't get it done on time. Producer John Schlesinger settled on Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" before he got to hear Dylan's song. Clinton Heylin observes in Revolution In The Air that the song doesn't make sense for the movie, and it's possible Dylan didn't read the script as he developed the song. Midnight Cowboy, released in 1969, is not a romantic or sentimental film. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, the gritty story is about two street hustlers who live in a condemned building and spend their days looking for ways to survive. Character Joe Buck (played by Voight) becomes a gigolo to make his money, and there is a subsequent scene with him in bed with a New York socialite, but it's hardly the kind of romantic situation "Lay Lady Lay" is suited for. The song ended up on Dylan's 1969 album Nashville Skyline.

The Everly Brothers recorded "Lay Lady Lay" in 1984 on their album EB 84. Dylan offered them the song back in the late '60s, probably not too long after playing it for Schlesinger and Midnight Cowboy. Out of this meeting came a longtime myth that the Everly Brothers rejected the song because they thought Dylan sang "lay lady lay, lay across my big breasts, babe," thinking it was a lesbian love song. Don Everly cleared that story up in 1994 when he said that the lesbian breast angle wasn't true. The Everly Brothers just didn't realize Dylan was offering them the song. It was an informal meeting, and they were starstruck. They had no idea Dylan was demoing the song for their use.

This was one of many Dylan songs covered by The Byrds, who also recorded "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Just Like A Woman," and "The Times They Are A-Changin'." There are two versions of the song on their 2002 Dylan cover compilation, The Byrds Play Dylan. They Byrds version bubbled under at #132 US in 1969; other charting renditions of the song in America were by Ferrante & Teicher (#99, 1970) and the Isley Brothers (#71, 1972).