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“Make You Feel My Love”
Adele MkeUFeelMYLVE
Single by Adele
from the album 19
B-side Painting Pictures
Released October 27, 2008
Recorded 2007
Genre Soul, pop
Length 3:32
Label XL Recordings
Writer(s) Bob Dylan
Producer(s) Eg White
Adele singles chronology
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19 track listing
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Right as Rain My Same
Audio


“Make You Feel My Love” is a song originally recorded by Bob Dylan for his 1997 album Time Out of Mind. In 2008, it was covered by Adele for her debut album, 19. It was released as the album’s fourth and final single on October 27, 2008.[1] The song was released on CD, vinyl, and digitally, peaking at #26 on the official UK Top 75 singles chart. The largest sales of her recording, however, came during 2010–11 when it peaked at number 4. Adele recorded the song on the recommendation of her manager Jonathan Dickins, who loved the song and played it to her.

Following Annastasia Baker’s audition performance of the song on The X Factor on 28 August 2010, the single re-entered the UK Singles Chart at #78 and then reached a new peak of #24 on 11 September 2010, but after a subsequent performance by various artists at boot camp shown on 26 September, it reappeared again at #4 on 3 October 2010. Following its use in Kerry Katona's first routine in the 2011 series of Dancing on Ice on ITV1, the song rocketed back up to #7 on 17 January 2011. It re-entered the chart again at #34 on 5 June following a contestant's performance in the finals of Britain's Got Talent, and has now spent a cumulative total of 54 weeks on the official UK Top 75, making it the joint 18th longest runner of all time, and 65 weeks on the Top 100. On the Irish Singles Chart, it originally charted at #26 in 2008 and after the broadcast of The X Factor, re-entered the charts at #8 on October 1, 2010, peaking at #5.[2]

In addition to Bob Dylan's initial recording of the song, it was later covered by famous artists including Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Bryan Ferry, and Billy Joel, who had also achieved success with the song prior to Adele's version.

Background and recording[]

Jonathan Dickins, Adele’s manager, had recommended that Adele include a cover of “Make You Feel My Love” for her debut album.

“My manager is the biggest Dylan fan, and for ages, he’d been bugging me to listen to the song, because I hadn’t heard it before,” she told Premiere Networks. “I was being quite defiant against it. I said, ‘I don’t want a cover on my album. It kind of implies that I’m incapable of writing enough of my own songs for my first record.’ And then I heard it in New York when he played it for me, and it just really touched me. It’s cheesy, but I think it’s just a stunning song, and it really just summed up everything that I’d been trying to write in my songs.”[3]

Adele found that, thematically, the song felt like a necessity for the album to be completed:

That song is amazing. It’s so convincing and you believe it so much, that you think it’s about you when you connect to a song. My manager played me that song in September after the album was already finished. He’d been going on about it for a year. I’m a fan, but he’s the real Dylan fan. When I first heard it, I couldn’t understand the lyrics. When I finally read them, I thought they were amazing. They’re my favorite lyrics of all time. My album’s not sad, but it’s bitter. ‘Make You Feel My Love,’ the lyrics and everything about it, just kinda sums up that sour point in my life I’ve been trying to get out of my system and write into my songs. It completes the shape of the album.[4]

Expanding on her decision to cover the song, Adele stated:

I wrote nine songs in a short space of time, all about this awful relationship I was in. I never quite got down what I was really feeling in those songs, though. Although I was trying to. It wasn’t that I was holding back or anything, but I just couldn’t get it down. I was bitterly upset and then my manager played me this Bob Dylan song ‘Make You Feel My Love.’ The lyrics are just amazing, and summed up exactly what I’d been trying to say in my songs. It’s about regretting not being with someone, and it’s beautiful. It’s weird that my favorite song on my album is a cover, but I couldn’t not put it on there.[5]

Adele played the bass guitar on the album version of “Make You Feel My Love.”

In an interview with BBC Radio 2, Adele revealed that her cover of “Make You Feel My Love” was the song that was the most difficult song for her to sing, emotionally: “I always envision someone that I love or someone that’s not here anymore or someone that I’m not friends with anymore, and I always got a bit choked up. I remember doing it in Birmingham, and I had to walk off stage. It was like full on snot coming off my face!”[6]

Music video[]

The video for Adele’s version was released on music channels and her website in late September 2008. In the video, Adele is in a city apartment. According to the clock, it is 4:02 a.m. The room is in darkness as she looks out at the city. She picks up her phone and starts singing while texting. She continues sitting in darkness looking out at the city and checking her phone regularly for a response. The song ends, and she hears the phone ring, indicating that she’s received a text message. The video ends as she sits down to read the message.[2]

The video’s director, Mat Kirkby, accidentally included his actual phone number in the video, prompting numerous phone calls as a result. He told The Sun: “The song featured on her first album, 19, but because everybody sang it on X Factor people have started downloading it and watching the video on YouTube. I’ve had more than 5,000 calls. Some people sing the song down the phone, others shout abuse. It’s making my life a misery.”[7]

Live performances[]

“Make You Feel My Love” has been included in all of Adele’s tours so far — An Evening With Adele, Adele Live and Adele Live 2016. Live versions of the song appeared on her 2008 EP iTunes Live from SoHo and her 2011 Live at the Royal Albert Hall CD/DVD.

Following Amy Winehouse’s death in 2011, Adele began dedicating the song to her on tour. During her September 2011 performance at the Royal Albert Hall, she again dedicated the song to Winehouse.[8] Since then, the song has become a staple in her live setlists, with Adele asking her audiences to turn the lights on their phones on in order to create “a sky full of stars.” During her show at London’s O2 Arena on March 22, 2016, she dedicated the song to the victims of the Brussels bombings, which had occurred earlier that day.[9] When she sang the song at her June 13, 2016 show in Antwerp, Belgium, she dedicated her performance to members of the LGBTQIA+ community while clutching a rainbow flag in support of the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting.[10]

At the Black Ball in 2008, an annual event held to support the children and families served by Keep a Child Alive, Alicia Keys and Adele performed a duet of “Make You Feel My Love” and “Hometown Glory.”[11]

The 2015 BBC special Adele at the BBC featured a segment where Adele performed “Make You Feel My Love” as part of a prank on a group of Adele impersonators. The eight women had been invited to audition at the Wimbledon Theatre for a nonexistent show, while Adele had disguised herself as a ninth impersonator named “Jenny.” When she started to sing “Make You Feel My Love,” the other performers recognized her and realized they had been pranked.[12]

Usage in media[]

Adele’s version of “Make You Feel My Love” was used in the media several times, especially in TV shows, including: Lipstick Jungle, Brothers & Sisters, Ghost Whisperer, One Tree Hill, Parenthood, HellcatsBones, General Hospital, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Glee. It was also used in the movie When in Rome.[13]

“Make You Feel My Love” was included in two compilation albums: Songs for Japan and Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International. The original studio recording was used for Songs for Japan; the album was criticized for using pre-recorded and previously released songs with the exception of a remix of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” A live version of “Make You Feel My Love,” from WXPN, was released on Chimes of Freedom.

Single artwork[]

CD single[]

List of recordings[]

Digital download (version 1)
No. Title                                        Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love”       Bob Dylan 3:32
Digital download (version 2)
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love” Bob Dylan 3:32
2. Make You Feel My Love(video) 3:32
CD single
No. Title         Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love”         Bob Dylan 3:32
2. Painting Pictures         Adele Adkins 3:33
Album version
No. Title          Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love”          Bob Dylan 3:32
19 deluxe edition
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love” (Live at the Hotel Café) Bob Dylan 3:52
Chimes of Freedom live version
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love” (Live at WXPN) Bob Dylan 4:04
Live at the Royal Albert Hall live version
No. Title     Writer(s) Length
1. “Make You Feel My Love” (Live)     Bob Dylan 3:48

Charts[]

Weekly charts[]

Chart (2008–12) Peak

Position

Belgium (Ultratip Flanders) 17
European Hot 100 Singles 17
Ireland (IRMA) 5
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40) 3
Scotland (Official Charts Company) 4
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan) 44
UK Singles (Official Charts Company) 4
UK Official Streaming Chart Top 100 96
UK Indie Chart (Singles) 1

Year-end charts[]

Chart (2009) Position
Dutch Singles Chart 7
Chart (2010) Position
UK Singles Chart 48

Certifications[]

Country Certification
United Kingdom Platinum
United States Gold

Credits[]

Personnel[14]

  • Adele – vocals, bass
  • Bob Dylan – songwriting
  • Neil Cowley – piano
  • Wired Strings – strings
  • Rosie Danvers – arrangement (strings)
  • Jim Abbiss – producer, mixer
  • Richard Wilkinson – mixer, recording
  • Alex Mackenzie – mixing assistant

Lyrics[]

Download the ringtone and see more at Lyrics wiki!

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you haven’t made your mind up yet
But I will never do you wrong
I’ve known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong

I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
And I’d go crawling down the avenue
No there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
You ain’t seen nothing like me, yet

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
To make you feel my love

To make you feel my love

References[]

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