Alleged Plagiarism By Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan's friendship with Clayton dated back to 1961, Dylan's first year in New York City. Dylan traveled cross-country with Clayton and two other friends in 1963, during which they visited poet Carl Sandburg in North Carolina, attended Mardi Gras in New Orleans and rendezvoused with Joan Baez in California.
In an interview published as part of a history of Greenwich Village folk club Gerde's Folk City, folksinger Barry Kornfeld described how Clayton's "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone)" morphed into Dylan's "Don't Think Twice":
"I was with Paul one day, and Dylan wanders by and says, 'Hey, man, that's a great song. I'm going to use that song.' And he wrote a far better song, a much more interesting song - 'Don't Think Twice, It's All Right'."Dylan's and Clayton's publishing companies sued each other over the alleged plagiarism. As it turned out, Clayton's song was derived from an earlier folksong entitled "Who's Gonna Buy You Chickens When I'm Gone?", which was in the public domain. The lawsuits, which were settled out of court, had no effect on the friendship between the two songwriters.
In the notes to Biograph (album) (1985), Dylan acknowledges that "'Don't Think Twice' was a riff that Paul had." He also credits Clayton for the melody line to "Percy's Song".
Read more about this topic: Paul Clayton (folksinger)
Famous quotes containing the words bob dylan, alleged, plagiarism, bob and/or dylan:
“They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car.
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948)
“Upon entering my vein, the drug would start a warm edge that would surge along until the brain consumed it in a gentle explosion. It began in the back of the neck and rose rapidly until I felt such pleasure that the world sympathizing took on a soft, lofty appeal.”
—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon)
“When I first heard Elvis’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was gonna be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)