Bryan Ferry took a break from Roxy Music to pay tribute to the pre-Beatles era of pop with his solo album These Foolish Things. This was the first single.

Ferry released his album of covers at the same time as David Bowie’s Pinups in September 1973. The two actual pin-ups of Glam went head to head with Bowie’s cover of Sorrow and Ferry’s audacious take on that most sacred of cows, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

Covering a revered Dylan favourite was surely tempting fate. Messing around with it and giving it a whole new sound really shouldn’t have worked. But somehow it did: it’s kind of “so wrong it’s right.”

And somehow Dylan’s ominous message, about the future of humanity teetering on the brink of destruction – written and recorded when he was only 21 – remained intact amid the Glam trappings of a decade later.

Its futuristic arrangement featuring multiple musicians – among them Roxy stalwardts Phil Manzanera, Paul Thompson and John Porter, plus Eno’s 18-year-old replacement Eddie Jobson, who played the violin and piano (but not in this video) and arranged the swirling strings – was such a contrast to Dylan’s plaintive protest song that it gave the song a new identity altogether.

Having never heard the Dylan version, I was hooked the moment Ferry sang that second line, stretching his voice deep down to sing: “Where have you been, my darling young OOONE…” And the call-and-response backing vocals are a stroke of genius.

As is most of the album, which came out sandwiched between Roxy’s second album For Your Pleasure at the beginning of 1973, and Stranded at the end of a very busy year. It’s a tribute to the classic songs of the pre-rock’n’roll era, with Ferry telling Melody Maker at the time: “The people who did the best songs were pre-Beatles.”

It’s also one of those very few times in pop history that a cover version has matched, if not surpassed, the original – a short list that would include Patti Smith’s adaptation of Gloria and several other Dylan songs including Hendrix’s take on All Along The Watchtower and The Byrds’ interpretation of Mr Tambourine Man (and a dozen others).