By Tony Attwood
Previously in this series…
- Dink’s Song
- Eternal Circle
- Fever
- Let it Be Me
- Precious Memories
- Rocks and Gravel
- Walls of Red Wing
- When the Ship Comes In
- Will the circle be unbroken
“It’s all good” appeared on “Together Through Life” and was performed three times in concert starting on 31 October 2009 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and ending just under three weeks later on 18 November 2009 at the United Palace Theatre in New York. We have a recording of just one of these – the Chaciago 2009 performance.
And immediately it is possible to see why Bob didn’t take this any further, for the song is based on one chord throughout and the message if extremely clear from the start. And this really isn’t Bob in terms of music, for more often than not we note the way Bob uses the chord sequence as a key part of the song. With that removed, there’s just the bounce.
To be more precise, without those changing chords (even if there are just there of them as in a traditional blues format song) what we have is rhythm, melody and lyrics. In “It’s all good” the rhythm is bouncy but unwavering, once we have heard the first couple of lines we’ve got it.
And unfortunately the melody itself doesn’t vary itself too much either, and the lyrics are OK but not the greatest.
Big politician telling liesRestaurant kitchen all full of fliesDon't make a bit of difference, don't see why it shouldBut it's all right, 'cause it's all goodIt's all goodIt's all good
This is not to say it is not an enjoyable song – it’s bouncy and the lead guitar does some interesting things along the way, but after the opening verse above, we have the mesage.
Now there’s nothing wrong with that message – saying how awful the country is, is indeed a powerful and important message, but it is one that we know. And so travelling through the song’s eight verses with endless highly generalised examples of how awful the world is, without any change of chord or melody means listening to the song is ok the once, but after, maybe not the best thing to be doing on a cold January morning, with Christmas and the New Year now all gone and done. Although to be fair, the sky is a most beautiful blue, without a cloud to be seen.
Would I feel any better about the song if this were a warm day in June? Actually no probably not. It was, I think, and remains, I am sure, just a filler. Three performances was enough.
I'm gonna pluck off your beard and blow it in your faceThis time tomorrow I'll be rollin' in your placeI wouldn't change a thing even if I couldYou know what they say?They say it's all goodIt's all good