All I Really Want to Do
(„Another Side Of Bob Dylan”, 1964 Columbia)
I …
”All I Really Want to Do” is a song written by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson-produced, 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan (see 1964 in music). It is arguably one of the most popular songs that Dylan wrote in the period immediately after he abandoned topical songwriting. Within a year of its release on Another Side of Bob Dylan, the song had also become one of Dylan's most familiar songs to pop and rock audiences, due to hit cover versions by Cher and The Byrds.
”All I Really Want to Do” was first released on Dylan's 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan, and was also included on the Dylan compilations Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II in 1971 and the 3-disc edition of Dylan in 2007. Two different live versions of the song were released on Bob Dylan at Budokan in 1979 and on The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall in 2004.
Musically simple, though playful, „All I Really Want to Do” is essentially a list of things, physical and psychological, that Dylan does not want to do or be to the listener (perhaps a woman, but just as likely his audience as a whole), claiming in the chorus that all he wants to do is to be friends.
