The song Emilia Clarke could listen to forever: “This is the one that wins every time”
There’s a very pivotal moment for many music fans on their journey to enjoying different bands and artists at varying stages of life, and that is the sudden, game-changing realisation that you now understand all the fuss about Bob Dylan.
As the ‘Queen of Dragons’ herself, Emilia Clarke, will attest, there is life pre-liking Bob Dylan and post-liking Bob Dylan.
For many, this revelation comes early. For some, it happens late. And unfortunately, for some, it never happens, and that’s a sad thing, truth be told.
For the people who haven’t yet had that moment, Dylan can be a challenging listen. The intonation of his voice, the lengthy, involved lyrics, or the occasionally very loud and jarring blast of the harmonica. Some people, this author included, can take decades attempting to enjoy him before the penny suddenly drops. But once it drops, there is a world of joy to be had, in addition to a good deal of marvelling at how one man barely into adulthood could so majestically sum the human condition and the world around him, in addition to writing such generational music.
Clarke, who grew up in a family of Dylan lovers but never quite understood it either, compares it to the fairly common experience of initially hating olives but then at some point in adult life deciding that they’re actually pretty tasty, saying: “It took me a while to get there”.
She told the BBC, “The beauty of Bob Dylan is that when you do discover him, you don’t want to listen to anyone else. I’ve learnt in my later years that if you have any questions, if there’s anything you’re worried about, if you’re unsure as to where you’re going in life, you just need to ask Bob and he will come up with a very good answer.”
One of Dylan’s tunes, in particular, resonates with Clarke, who became a global star thanks to her searing portrayal of Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, the epic fantasy series that had the entire world enraptured between 2011 and 2019. That song is ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ from the 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
“This is the one that wins every time,” she adds.
Penned in 1962, it was originally the B-side to Dylan’s deathless ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, an anti-war song that failed to chart on release. While ‘Don’t Think Twice’ wasn’t a cover, it was heavily influenced by Dylan’s love of another folk singer, Paul Clayton, who had released a song named ‘Who’s Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I’m Gone?’ and taught Dylan the chords and melody.
The musician took a basic melody and a couple of lines from the Clayton song and tweaked them to make his own. The lyrics, meanwhile, tell the story of someone trying to find acceptance at the end of a relationship but in a far more pointed fashion than in traditional break-up songs.
“This is an incredibly important song for me. It’s my past, my present, my future—the whole shebang,” adds Clarke.
The actor has been relatively quiet since the end of Game of Thrones, appearing in fairly few films due to health battles and a lot of charity work. However, it all is set to change in the next year or so as she has five projects in various stages of readiness, including a starring role in the new series Criminal alongside Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam. An adaptation of a Marvel Comic book that tells the tale of several generations of criminal families linked by murders, it will be released on Amazon Prime later this year.
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