Inexhaustible Moments of 1963, Part 3

1963 Blogging, Part 3 of 5
Wandering Down the Roads of 1963

In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I’m experimenting with a new feature focused on possibilities for future series.  I’ll spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on some potential essay topics.  This time the wheel spins, gradually slows, then clicks to a stop, pointing at:  1963. 

So here’s my third 1963 series possibility:  21 essays on Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

Dylan turned 22 in May 1963 when his second album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released.  That’s Dylan’s then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo clinging to his arm in the seemingly unposed photo on the album’s cover.  “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” is their break-up song, written after Suze opted out of the relationship.  In reality, she’s traveling on, not him.  There’s a degree of bluster in the song but that’s okay when it leads to a brilliant toss-off dismissal like “You just kinda wasted my precious time.”  Dylan even manages to find ten additional layers of ironic nuance in that pause between “my” and “precious time.”  That’s genius. 

Over the next two days, I’ll be proposing some more 1963 ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…)  But I’m wide open to other suggestions.  Any ideas for 1963 movies, books, short stories, poems, songs, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?

Next blog series:  6 essays on Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929)
as part of the  “For the Love of Film”
Film Preservation Blogathon
May 13-18, 2012

© 2012 Lee Price