Covering Dylan: 5 Memorable Takes on “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” was one of Bob Dylan‘s songs about relationships, and it still stands as one of his best. His initial performance on The Freehweelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963 is remarkable for how grizzled and world-weary he sounds at such a young age.

That version is iconic, but it didn’t stop a slew of artists over the years from offering cover versions. Here are five that do justice to the original and then some.

The Crooner’s Take: Bobby Darin from Golden Folk Hits (1963)

We think of Darin as one of the top crooners of the early rock era, a guy who managed to take some of the swagger of Frank Sinatra and his ilk and make it work with a younger audience. But Darin was a seeker of an artist who wanted to branch out from his early successes. That’s how you end up with an album like Golden Folk Hits, which found him sliding into the then-hot folk genre without trying to force his own stylings on it. His version of “Don’t Think Twice” doesn’t try to do anything fancy, but the honesty of it is quite moving.

The Quirky Take: The Wonder Who? (Single, 1965)

This is a fun one. The Wonder Who? were actually Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons under an alias. The group was dealing with different contractual snafus that wouldn’t allow them to release this song (and a few others) under their own name. Valli apparently couldn’t get a vocal tone he liked, so out of frustration, he went with a kind of pipsqueak falsetto. Combining that with the call-and-response backing vocals created something quite catchy, if a little odd on first listen. And it worked, as it went all the way to the Top 15 upon its release.

The Blues-Drenched Take: Susan Tedeschi from Wait for Me (2002)

Other genres come and go, but the blues is a constant force, because, well, there always seems to be a reason for them. But it certainly helps when, every now and again, a fresh, incendiary talent comes into the blues and breathes a little new life into it. Tedeschi was just such an artist when she hit the scene in the late ’90s. Wait for Me, her third album, is one of her best efforts, and it shows off her fine songwriting. But she also does a great job interpreting. Dylan might have underplayed the hurt when he sang the song, but Tedeschi manages to wring all the emotion she can out of it with her vocal.

The Veteran’s Take: Glen Campbell from Adios (2017)

Among his many other skills, Campbell always stood out as one of the finest interpreters of the material of other songwriters. There’s a reason so much of Jimmy Webb’s work was discovered through Campbell’s versions. For his final album, recorded while he was dealing with Alzheimer’s disease, he proved some skills never abandon you. The arrangement skews to the bluegrass side, and Campbell plays fast and loose with the lyrics. He delivers a performance that’s warm and fun, suggesting the narrator is going to be just fine without this girl so she really doesn’t have to think twice.

The Hushed Take: Wildes from Let You Go EP (2020)

A song like “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” never quite loses its relevance, in part because Bob Dylan wrote it with such nuance and insight. That means artists of all stripes can mold it in any number of ways. Wildes is the recording nom de plume of Ella Walker, a UK artist who crafts delicate dream pop as a producer, instrumentalist, and singer. Her version of this classic slows the pace down to a crawl, as a lonely piano plinks away and some subtle atmospherics enter the picture. By doing this, she highlights the beauty of the melody, which is one of the underrated parts of the song.

Photo by Stacie McChesney/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank