Dave's Song of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right – Peter, Paul and Mary
Thursday song of the day: Today’s song was the second Top Ten single this act had in one year covering a Bob Dylan song.
Bob Dylan was still very much the hot new thing on the folk music scene when he wrote
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right in 1962. The song was about the breakup of a romantic relationship, and it borrowed musically from an old traditional folk song. Paul Clayton had taught Dylan the song
Who’s Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I’m Gone?, which Clayton himself had reworked as
Who’s Gonna Buy Your Ribbons When I’m Gone?
Dylan wrote new lyrics for the tune, along with taking a few lines from the Clayton version as an homage, and the result was
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right. It was included on Dylan’s second album,
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in May, 1963 and was released as the B-side of the
Blowin’ in the Wind single that August. The single did not chart.
Folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary recorded the song not long after
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan , and released it as a single in October 1963. They had already had a huge hit with a cover of Dylan’s
Blowin’ in the Wind in June 1963. Their version of
Blowin’ in the Wind reached #2 on the
Billboard Hot 100, while their
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right cover made it to #9. They did pretty well off Bob Dylan that year.
Peter, Paul and Mary, 1963
Bob Dylan, 1963
Tomorrow: I’ll never know what made it so exciting
@Elrond On a hockey forum I recently joined this Swedish guy called Per has been posting some great old Swedish music, including The Spotniks and a lot of other cool stuff
