{"id":920,"date":"2016-05-03T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=920"},"modified":"2025-02-18T15:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T20:34:09","slug":"dont-think-twice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/dont-think-twice\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t Think Twice, It&#8217;s All Right (Dylan\/Paul Clayton)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Don&#039;t Think Twice, It&#039;s All Right\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jmi_JixuMSw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If this wasn&#8217;t the first Dylan song I learned, it was close. I got into Dylan late &#8212; I&#8217;m probably one of the few kids of my generation who <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-940 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Bob_Dylans_Greatest_Hits-e1462291516338.jpg?resize=203%2C203&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Bob_Dylan's_Greatest_Hits\" width=\"203\" height=\"203\" \/>was a Woody Guthrie nut before I ever heard, or even heard of, Bob Dylan, and I clearly remember the first time I heard him, at least knowingly: It was in Woods Hole, and my father brought home <em>Bob Dylan&#8217;s Greatest Hits<\/em>, and put it on, and we listened to &#8220;Rainy Day Women,&#8221; and I thought it was lousy. I said, &#8220;He&#8217;s a terrible singer!&#8221; My dad said, &#8220;But you like Woody Guthrie&#8230;&#8221; and I said, &#8220;Woody Guthrie&#8217;s a great singer! He doesn&#8217;t sound anything like Woody Guthrie.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I was probably nine or ten years old, and soon changed my tune, and over the next few years I learned a lot of Dylan&#8217;s &#8212; and yes, before some smart-aleck chimes in, he did come up with some original tunes, though he also copped quite a few from hither and yon, including much of this one. <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-941  alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Clayton-LP-e1460263661101.jpg?resize=227%2C227&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"227\" height=\"227\" \/>He adapted &#8220;Don&#8217;t Think Twice&#8221; from a song compiled and reworked by Paul Clayton, called, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=k6vxyTM3fO4\">Who&#8217;s Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I&#8217;m Gone<\/a>&#8221; &#8212; which it took me years to track down, but now is on YouTube. Dylan&#8217;s song is better, by a long shot, but the lineage is obvious, and\u00a0 Dylan eventually paid Clayton something for it.<\/p>\n<p>That story gets more complicated, because Clayton himself had <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-5673\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Eight-Negro-Songs-cover.jpg?resize=146%2C202&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"146\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Eight-Negro-Songs-cover.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Eight-Negro-Songs-cover.jpg?resize=216%2C300&amp;ssl=1 216w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 146px) 100vw, 146px\" \/>adapted the song from earlier sources, mining a song called &#8220;Who Gon Bring You Chickens,&#8221; and Dylan&#8217;s transformation was shortly transformed yet again by Johnny Cash, into one of his biggest hits of the 1960s, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e2xYNwejN6w\">Understand Your Man<\/a>&#8221; &#8212; and when that song hit the Top 40 in 1964, Dylan and Clayton were driving out to California together, apparently the best of friends.<\/p>\n<p>Dylan is quoted in the liner notes to <em>Freewheelin&#8217;<\/em> saying he approached this song differently from &#8220;most city singers&#8221; (presumably starting with Peter, Paul, and Mary): <span style=\"font-size: medium;\">&#8220;A lot of people&#8230;make it sort of a love song &#8212; slow and easy-going. But it isn&#8217;t a love song. It&#8217;s a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better.&#8221; <\/span>Indeed, it is one of his numerous bitter songs to ex- or soon-to-be-ex-girlfriends, a theme he apparently found particularly inspirational. I&#8217;ve tended to like my ex-girlfriends, and find the lyric kind of snarky if I think about it too much&#8230; but it&#8217;s so well written that mostly I just try to do it justice.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s one story I have to add out of courtesy to my old traveling partner Jasper Winn, a fine writer and musician,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/17256298183527874355\"> epic traveler<\/a>, terrific horseman, and author of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Paddle-Long-Around-Ireland-Jasper\/dp\/0956003885\">Paddle<\/a><\/em>, about making the circuit of Ireland by kayak. We were <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-939 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Bob-Dylan-songbook-e1462291555630.jpg?resize=190%2C234&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"190\" height=\"234\" \/>hitchhiking from Paris to the North Cape of Norway in 1979, and somewhere around Copenhagen we got in an argument about the chords under the second line of this song: Jasper said it went G-Em-A-D7, while I said it went G-Em-C-D7, like the first line. We made a bet, to be settled by the <em>Bob Dylan Song Book<\/em>, which was where we&#8217;d both learned to play it, and found a copy somewhere, and of course I was wrong&#8230; and should have paid up promptly, in cash, but instead eventually gave Jasper an old backpack of mine, which really was not equivalent to what I owed, and my shame is deep and eternal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If this wasn&#8217;t the first Dylan song I learned, it was close. I got into Dylan late &#8212; I&#8217;m probably one of the few kids of my generation who was a Woody Guthrie nut before I ever heard, or even heard of, Bob Dylan, and I clearly remember the first time I heard him, at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/dont-think-twice\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Don&#8217;t Think Twice, It&#8217;s All Right (Dylan\/Paul Clayton)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - 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I learned this from Dylan's first album, which only included two songs he had fully composed, but had a bunch of songs he had transmuted in various ways. The notes said he'd learned this from Roy Acuff's record,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Bob-Dylan-LP-e1729798042438.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":156,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hard-aint-hard\/","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":1},"title":"Hard, Ain&#8217;t It Hard (Woody and Cisco)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 8, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This was one of the many songs Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston recorded together, with Woody typically singing lead. My mother was good about buying me records...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Woody archive of folk","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Woody-archive-of-folk.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":112,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/talking-union\/","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":2},"title":"Talking Union (The Almanac Singers)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Talking Union\" was the title song of the Almanac Singers' most popular album (back in the days when \"album\" meant literally that: a bound album of 78 records). As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, my first records included a bunch of left-wing 78 albums, including Talking Union,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/talking-union.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6009,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/pastures-of-plenty\/","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":3},"title":"Pastures of Plenty (Woody Guthrie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another in the long list of Woody Guthrie songs I've known since my elementary school years, and stands out for me in part because Dave Van Ronk recorded it on his second Philo album, in a period when we were spending a lot of time together. I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Van-Ronk-Somebody-Else.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/worried-man-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":4},"title":"Worried Man Blues (Woody Guthrie\/Carter Family)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"An early country blues from the Carter Family via Woody Guthrie, with touches of Sam McGee...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Sara Carter","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Sara-Carter-204x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":428,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hard-travelin\/","url_meta":{"origin":920,"position":5},"title":"Hard Travelin&#8217; (Woody Guthrie)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Woody said: This is a song about the hard traveling of the working people, not the moonstruck mystic traveling of the professional vacationist. Song about a man that has rode the flat wheelers, kicked up cinders, dumped the red hot slag...","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"guthrie-bound-for-glory-cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/guthrie-bound-for-glory-cover-213x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5674,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/5674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}