Bob Dylan – „Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”

Dylan once introduced „Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” as „a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better… as if you were talking to yourself.” The song, written around the time that Suze Rotolo indefinitely prolonged her stay in Italy, is based on a melody taught to Dylan by folksinger Paul Clayton.

As well as the melody, a couple of lines were taken from Clayton’s „Who’s Goin’ to Buy You Ribbons When I’m Gone?” which was recorded in 1960, two years before Dylan wrote „Don’t Think Twice.” Lines taken word-for-word or slightly altered from the Clayton song are, „T’ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, darlin’,” and, „So I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road.” On the first release of the song, instead of „So I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road babe, where I’m bound, I can’t tell” Dylan sings „So long, honey babe, where I’m bound, I can’t tell”. The lyrics were changed when Dylan performed live versions of the song and on cover versions recorded by other artists. Both Clayton’s song and Dylan’s song were based on the public domain traditional song „Who’s Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I’m Gone”

The original album version of the song is played in a fast, fingerstyle manner by, some speculate, Bruce Langhorne. However, Eyolf Østrem, the creator of the website dylanchords, argues it was Bob Dylan himself who played the guitar track. In live performances, Dylan often strummed the chords, or flatpicks, albeit in a similar, fast-paced manner. The song was used on the television series Mad Men, Friday Night Lights and Men of a Certain Age

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don’t matter, anyhow
An’ it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don’t know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I’ll be gone
You’re the reason I’m trav’lin’ on
Don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An’ it ain’t no use in turnin’ on your light, babe
I’m on the dark side of the road
Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin’ anyway
So don’t think twice, it’s all right

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
Like you never did before
It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal
I can’t hear you anymore
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wond’rin’ all the way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right

I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well
I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don’t mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don’t think twice, it’s all right