"It's All Good'" is a blues song written by American singer-songwriter

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

(with

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

lyricist Robert Hunter) that appears as the 10th and final track on Dylan's 2009 studio album ''

Together Through Life ''Together Through Life'' is the 33rd studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on April 28, 2009, by Columbia Records. The release of the album, which reached number 1 in multiple countries, was unexpected and surprised fans. Dylan ...

''. Like much of Dylan's 21st century output, he produced the song himself using the pseudonym Jack Frost.

Composition and recording

"It's All Good" is a fast-tempo, accordion-driven blues in which the title is meant ironically, as the lyrics catalog various social ills. When asked by journalist Bill Flanagan how the song got started, Dylan responded, "Probably from hearing the phrase one too many times". 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 McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer and musician who was an important figure in the post-war blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago b ...

", and praise Mike Campbell's "superb guitar part". The song is performed in the key of

G major G major (or the key of G) is a major scale based on G, with the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has one sharp. Its relative minor is E minor and its parallel minor is G minor. The G major scale is: Notable compositi ...

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. Music journalist Rob Sheffield, writing in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

'', 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 "

lipping Embouchure () or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece (woodwind), mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece (brass), mouthpie ...

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 "The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar" is a song written by Bob Dylan, recorded in Los Angeles in the spring of 1981 and released in September of that year as a B-side to the single " Heart of Mine". It was included on the compilation albums '' ...

'”. Corey DuBrowa, in an 8.1/10 ''Paste Magazine'' review of ''

'', called it a "sneering, sarcastic jump-blues...in which Dylan's ravaged voice attacks the clichéd phrase as if it represented every banker, politician and Ponzi-scheme cheat he could conjure", and sees it as emblematic of an album that is "more resolutely focused on the treacherous horizon ever before and "decries the mess we're in". Stephen Thomas Erlewine at ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'' referred to it as a "mordantly funny rocker", noting how Dylan's use of the contemporary catchphrase was proof 'there's no avoidance of the present" on an album where "the music is proudly, almost defiantly, rooted in the past". A 2021 '' WhatCulture'' article ranking all of Dylan's LPs (where ''

'' placed 19th out of 39), noted that "The album reaches its apex with the sneery 'It's All Good'...It's a great, underrated gem, in need of a re-appraisal". Singer/songwriter

Elliott Murphy Elliott James Murphy (born March 16, 1949) is an American rock singer-songwriter, novelist, record producer and journalist living in Paris. Biography Elliott Murphy was born in Rockville Centre, New York, grew up in Garden City, Long Island a ...

cited it as one of Dylan's top 10 songs of the 21st century in an article for ''Poetic Justice Magazine''.

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 William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

''. 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?"

In popular culture

Olivier Dahan Olivier Dahan (born 26 June 1967) is a French film director and screenwriter. His third directed film, ''La Vie en rose'', was one of the only French cinema films to win two Academy Awards, including the first acting Oscar in the French language. ...

used the song to score a car-chase sequence in his 2010 Renée Zellweger-starring film ''

My Own Love Song ''My Own Love Song'' is a 2010 road movie directed and written by Olivier Dahan and starring Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Zima and Nick Nolte. It premiered in Dahan's native France on April 7, 2010 and in the United States at the Tri ...

''.

Live performances

Dylan has played the song live just three times on the Never Ending Tour. All of the performances occurred on his tour of North America in the fall of 2009: The live debut occurred at the Aragon Ballroom in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

on October 31, 2009 and the last performance took place at the

United Palace Theater The United Palace (originally Loew's 175th Street Theatre) is a theater at 4140 Broadway in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The theater, occupying a full city block bounded by Broadway, Wadsworth Avenue, and W ...

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...

on November 18, 2009.

References

External links

Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site {{authority control 2009 songs Bob Dylan songs Songs written by Bob Dylan Song recordings produced by Bob Dylan Songs with lyrics by Robert Hunter (lyricist)