Since the first time I heard it, when I was maybe 17, it has been my private break-up song. My public ones, the ones i play to friends and sing raucously, voice a-scratched from booze and cigarettes, sleep-deprivation and mouth ulcers, are all angry "Fuck you - I never wanted you anyway, and if I did i definitely don't anymore and you are going to be miserable without me"-songs.
"Don't Think Twice" has always been different. It's only for me, often long before the relationship is actually over. It's the song that has always seemed to echo my subconscious, snatches of lyric crystallizing exactly what's wrong. "I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul" - a controlling ex. "Ain't no use in turning on your light babe/ Light I never knowed" - the boy I was in love with in high school who never stopped loving his ex-girlfriend. "I once loved a (wo)man, a child I'm told" - friends telling me how immature some guy is. "You're the reason I'm traveling on" - done that, got the T-shirts and a smattering of Chinese language to show for it. Droves of music writers have discussed and described it with more impressively geeky insights than I could ever muster - it's a great, canonical folk song. Thing is, when I'm not breaking up with someone, it leaves me cold - it's pretty, but it's not ME.
I was really surprised this morning when it spoke to me again. It didn't seem like the right time - I've made a lot of decisions recently, I haven't been hiding from what I don't want to see. I didn't think I needed it. I don't know what's going to happen with the relationship I was recently in, but I'm not sure it's dead. And on the first couple of playings, I cried - because of the song's history for me, where nothing has ever survived the "Don't Think Twice" stage. I enjoy the brassy-blue sound of the picking, and the fact that Dylan bothers to sing almost in tune - but it has always been a death knell, and I hate it for that. In the past, it has inevitably signalled me emotionally checking out; "I'm on the dark side of the road", "So long honey babe, where I'm bound I can't tell". A self-fulfilling emotional prophecy, brought by my subconscious and Bob.
I didn't feel like the prophecy fit. But I couldn't stop listening to it.
I sent the link to my best friend.
Then remembered us singing it in my scabby old car ten years ago.
Felt safer. Decided not to switch to other, less personal songs.
I kept it on loop, stopped crying and started singing along. Then something completely new hit me about the song.
The lyrics may be beautiful.
They may even sound just like the sort of things I say to myself and others when it's over. But they are PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT!!! How did I not see this before? "Ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe, if you don't know by now"? What the hell is that? Shouldn't he just have told her what was wrong WHEN THEY WERE TOGETHER? And even now when it's over, he's STILL playing that game? (And yes, I realise that i do this. all the time. which is what is terrifying.). And the whole song continues IN THE SAME VEIN. The final verse is the kicker though:
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
YES, YOU ARE saying she treated you "unkind", Bob - you're mad at her for not "turning on her light", for being a child, for not getting you. And then to add "BUT I DON'T MIND"?!?!?!?! Of course you mind. You wouldn't sing about it otherwise. You wouldn't address her. You wouldn't say you "loved" her, carefully parsing the verb to put in safely in the past - and to give you an emotional "get out of jail"-card if she were to say it back to you in the present. The coldness of "You just kind of wasted my precious time" is just horrifically cruel, searing - you don't do that unless you "mind". And the only thing you've let slip earlier is "Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say/To try and make me change my mind and stay", but you cover your traces with "We never did too much talking anyway", making what you want impossible for the other person to respond to. And then telling her, "But don't think twice, it's alright"? Bob, you are an ass. A passive-aggressive ass.
I just realised how the narration of the song is just so cemotionally conflicted, so addicted to taking the high road, to not having to face rejection, to not having to own up to your own personal weaknesses, celebrating running away because you can't even stand the thought of staying when you've been hurt, and then not even giving the person you were with the "satisfaction" of seeing that he or she mattered...
AND THIS SONG USED TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER?!?!?!!
I guess it does make sense then, that it spoke to me today - though for different reasons than it used to. I don't want to be someone who feels that the "Don't Think Twice" approach to relationships is OK. That it's fair. That it makes me a "good" person. That it's free, or romantic, or emotionally sustainable.
Here's to hoping that this part of my personal mythology can be re-written, or at least re-interpreted- that "Don't Think Twice" becomes the song that reminds me that, sometimes, it's better to actually ask for things before its too late, instead of a semi-mysterious augury of "The End".
In all its passive-aggressive glory:
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 any more
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
Copyright ©1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music
The problem with "Don't think Twice" is that the passive aggressive crap is then followed by bitterness and eventually "It Ain't Me Babe"
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