Don't Think Twice, It's All Right -- Bob Dylan, the Early Years: The Stories Behind Every Song by Andy Gill

by Andy Gill

This book provides an insightful companion to Dylan's 1960s recordings, tracing the people, places, and events behind some of his greatest songs and revealing his many early influences, from rock and folk music to philosophy and symbolist poetry.

Genres: Music, Biography

Mass Market Paperback

First published October 21, 1998

Reviews

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little summation that illustrates how Dylan strangely anticipated most of the major trends in the 1960s. However, it is not an incisive book and Gill fails to see how Dylan's shift from protest to personal songs was part of the era's renunciation of politics.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book (while not the best book about Bob Dylan) was really good. It felt really satisfying to read for me and I'm sure it will for you. I liked how it didn't just focus on one part of the album track and wrote about everything (back story, music, lyrics and legacy).

While it was sometimes weird that the book would just put a big quote in the middle of a paragraph, splitting the sentence you were reading in half, but besides that I really like the way the book was formatted, showing photos of other musicians on one page to showing an art piece of Achilles on another. The stories were really interesting and well written.

A pretty nice read.

[Jessika Hoover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really really enjoyed this book :) If you're interested in Dylan's early years and what was going on in the world at the time, then this is the book for you. I especially like how this book doesn't necessarily give the meaning behind his songs, but offers speculation as to what could have influenced him to write them. I have to say, though, that in order to get everything you can out of this book, it's probably best to listen through the songs as the book goes along even if you've heard them before...for me personally, I noticed a lot of minor things that I had never noticed before, which really added to the experience :) Once again, an essential for any Dylan fan!