That song also happens to be a juicy roman à clef about a dramatic breakup with a movie star, spiked with a young-woman-wronged storyline that has taken on new, post–#MeToo resonance. It so happens that one of these rerecorded, culturally ubiquitous albums contains a fan-favorite song that had never lived up to its commercial potential (and was initially not even perceived as commercial) but had quietly grown in estimation over the course of a decade. Said star not only has the resources to do this but also happens to be a marketing genius, able to present this prosaic copyright gambit as a sales-juicing cultural event. This star was pissed off enough about her storied song catalog being sold out from under her to reassert control of it by rerecording her early albums.
First, it’s by one of music’s über-stars. For that one week early in the pandemic, Bob the Bard sold about 9,800 copies of his quirky, JFK-conspiracist epic at iTunes, enough to give Dylan his first No. 1 on any Billboard song chart, ever-a chart that didn’t even exist when he was flipping signs in an alleyway next to Allen Ginsberg.Ī very bespoke combination of factors aligned to make “All Too Well” (I’ll get to its full title shortly) our new No. 1 song. And it’s only downloads, not streams given how deeply the dollar-download has declined since the mid-’10s, a few thousand copies are enough to top this chart.
That chart, which is not even published in the magazine, is a niche of a niche: It ranks, among that week’s best-selling downloads, just the songs Billboard says qualify as “rock,” which can mean anything from REO Speedwagon to Coldplay. 1 song! The chart that Dylan’s “ Murder Most Foul” topped in April 2020 was not Billboard’s flagship Hot 100, but rather Rock Digital Song Sales. Zimmerman, despite all the headlines trumpeting Dylan’s first! ever! No.
I had to patiently explain to Dad that, no, I would not be writing about Mr. 1 song?” my rather giddy father asked me on the phone one day, a little over a year and a half ago.
“So, are you gonna be writing about Bob Dylan’s No.
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