It's All Good (Bob Dylan song)
"It's All Good'" is a song written by Bob Dylan (with Robert Hunter) that appears as the 10th and final track on Dylan's 2009 studio album Together Through Life. It is a fast-tempo, accordion-driven blues in which the title is meant ironically, as the song's lyrics catalog various social ills.[1]
| "It's All Good" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan | |
| from the album Together Through Life | |
| Released | April 28, 2009 |
| Genre | Folk rock, Blues rock |
| Label | Columbia Records |
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan, Robert Hunter |
| Producer(s) | Jack Frost (Bob Dylan) |
Like much of Dylan's more recent work, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym Jack Frost.
Reception
The catchphrase "It's all good" was in vogue in the 2000s as a means of saying, "Don't worry about it". It was often said in response to an apology and was especially common in hip-hop culture.[2] Music journalist Rob Sheffield, writing in Rolling Stone, which placed the song 21st on a list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century", discussed the song in relation to rap music, noting that Dylan was "always a hip-hop head — ever since he spat bars on old-school rap legend Kurtis Blow’s 'Street Rock' in the Eighties", and sees Dylan's song as "(flipping) the rap catchphrase into an accordion blues rant, for a tone that’s somewhere between 'Gangsta Gangsta' and 'The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar'”.[3]
In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon call it a "compelling" song that is "reminiscent of Muddy Waters", and praise Mike Campbell's "superb guitar part".[4]
Cultural references
The unusual opening line of the final verse ("I’ll pluck off your beard and blow it in your face") is a reference to William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In Act II, Scene 2, Hamlet's soliloquy includes the lines, ""Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?"[5]
In popular culture
Olivier Dahan used the song to score a car-chase sequence in his 2010 Renée Zellweger-starring film My Own Love Song.[6]
Live performances
Dylan has played the song live just three times on the Never Ending Tour. All of the performances occurred in 2009.[7]
References
- "It's All Good | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
- Mead, Rebecca. ""It's All Good"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-01-01.
- Dolan, Jon; Doyle, Patrick; Greene, Andy; Hiatt, Brian; Martoccio, Angie; Sheffield, Rob; Shteamer, Hank; Vozick-Levinson, Simon (2020-06-18). "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
- Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel. Bob Dylan: all the songs: the story behind every track (First ed.). New York. ISBN 1-57912-985-4. OCLC 869908038.
- "Hamlet Soliloquy: O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (2.2) with annotations". www.shakespeare-online.com. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
- "'My Own Love Song' Soundtrack Features 16 New Bob Dylan Songs". theplaylist.net. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
- "Bob Dylan Tour Statistics | setlist.fm". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
