Who released it first
Make You Feel My Love
Not an Adele original — the first release was Billy Joel’s, in August 1997
Adele’s 2008 recording is so completely identified with her that the song is routinely assumed to be hers from the start. It is not: the song was written by Bob Dylan, and the first version the public could buy was Billy Joel’s “To Make You Feel My Love,” issued as a single on 13 August 1997 and included on Greatest Hits Volume III (Columbia Records, 19 August 1997). Dylan’s own recording followed on Time Out of Mind, released 30 September 1997. Joel’s single was a modest chart entry — No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 9 Adult Contemporary — and has been almost entirely eclipsed.
The record
Who released it first
Released Issued as a single on 13 August 1997 under the title “To Make You Feel My Love,” and included days later on the compilation Greatest Hits Volume III (Columbia Records, 19 August 1997) as one of its few newly recorded tracks.
Charted No. 50 on the US Billboard Hot 100; No. 9 on the US Adult Contemporary chart. A real but minor showing — nowhere near enough to fix the song to Joel’s name.
Hear Billy Joel — “To Make You Feel My Love” (audio), the 1997 Greatest Hits Volume III recording www.youtube.com · Posted by the official billyjoelVEVO channel. Runtime about 3:52, within a couple of seconds of the 3:54 (233,666 ms) MusicBrainz gives for the recording first issued on the 19 August 1997 Columbia release — so this is the 1997 track, not a later re-cut.Following the trail
Wikipedia’s article on the song states plainly that Bob Dylan wrote it and that Billy Joel released his recording before Dylan’s own appeared — Make You Feel My Love ↗.
The album page dates the single to 13 August 1997 and Greatest Hits Volume III to 19 August 1997 on Columbia — Greatest Hits Volume III ↗.
Dylan’s side of the timeline: official sessions beginning January 1997, album released 30 September 1997 — Time Out of Mind ↗.
MusicBrainz catalogues the Joel recording at 3:54, first issued on the 19 August 1997 US release — recording entry ↗.
MusicBrainz: every catalogued recording of the Dylan compositionKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
The record, straightened out
Adele’s 2008 recording is the one almost everyone means when they name this song, and it is routinely assumed to be where the song began. Here is the actual order of events.
Adele
Recorded for her debut album 19 and released as a single on 27 October 2008. It reached No. 26 in the UK, then re-entered and climbed to No. 4 in 2010 after The X Factor. A cover from the first take — and the album’s track listing says so.
Billy Joel
Issued as a single on 13 August 1997 and included on Greatest Hits Volume III (Columbia Records, 19 August 1997) as “To Make You Feel My Love.” It reached No. 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 9 on Adult Contemporary. This is the first version the public could hear.
Bob Dylan
Dylan wrote the song and cut his own version during the Time Out of Mind sessions, which began at Criteria Studios in January 1997 — before Joel’s single appeared. But that album was not released until 30 September 1997. So the earliest recording made is almost certainly Dylan’s; the earliest recording released is Joel’s.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood
Both recorded it for the 1998 Hope Floats soundtrack. Brooks’ version reached No. 1 on the US country chart — a substantial hit that has itself been largely forgotten behind Adele’s.
Bob Dylan wrote it. Billy Joel released it first, in August 1997. Adele’s 2008 version is the famous one — and it is a cover.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
The interesting thing here is not that Adele covered a song — it is that she covered a song nobody had claimed. Joel’s single was a chart footnote on a compilation album; Dylan’s version sat as track nine on a late-career record admired more than it was played. Neither had planted a flag. When Adele recorded it for 19 at her manager’s suggestion, she was not competing with a famous original — she was filling a vacancy.
There was also a large country detour in between: Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood both cut the song for the 1998 Hope Floats soundtrack, and Brooks’ version went to No. 1 on the US country chart. That the song could pass through a No. 1 country hit and still arrive at Adele looking like a blank slate says something about how completely a performance can overwrite a copyright.
The chronology, step by step
- January 1997 — the official Time Out of Mind sessions begin at Criteria Studios in Miami, with Daniel Lanois producing. Dylan’s own recording of the song dates from these sessions.
- 13 August 1997 — Billy Joel’s “To Make You Feel My Love” is issued as a single. This is the first time the public hears the song.
- 19 August 1997 — Greatest Hits Volume III is released on Columbia Records with the track included.
- 30 September 1997 — Dylan’s Time Out of Mind is released, containing his own version.
- 1998 — Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood both record it for the Hope Floats soundtrack; Brooks’ version tops the US country chart.
- 28 January 2008 — Adele’s debut album 19 is released on XL Recordings with the song as track nine.
- 27 October 2008 — Adele’s version is released as a single. It first peaks at No. 26 in the UK.
- 2010 — after performances on The X Factor, the single re-enters the UK chart and reaches No. 4, becoming the version the song is now known by.
Adele did not displace an original. She filled a vacancy.