The emotional song Bob Dylan wrote about his break up from Suze Rotolo

(Credits: Far Out / Columbia Records)

Wed 31 December 2025 18:00, UK

As the final dusk fell on the 1960s, Bob Dylan had clearly moved on from who he once was. But so had his essential sidekick, Suze Rotolo.

That makes the pair sound like they were part of a buddy cop film, which they obviously very much were not. But the point still stands that the woman linked arm in arm with Dylan on his most iconic album cover, impossibly sought to remove herself from the narrative once the freewheeling machine had come to a halt.

It should go without saying that she never quite prevailed on this front, try as she might have. It was simply the case that Dylan was too much of a cultural behemoth, too much of a beacon, to ever fully escape from. So, there she was, immortalised by Dylan’s side even as she tried to make her own way in the world, yet still hearing his echoes everywhere she went.

Rotolo’s failed emancipation from her former boyfriend was plainly not helped by Dylan’s attempts to still sway her, even after their relationship had ended. After all, they called the woman his most powerful muse, but in some cases, it seemed that he came across far more like a desperate ex. Just take the example of ‘All I Really Want to Do’.

It was a marked change for Dylan, given that he had spent the early years of the ‘60s largely flying the political flag of counterculture. But it also spoke to the reality of the human heart. Here was a man stripped bare on the opening track of his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan, and perhaps uncharacteristically, every ounce of his feelings were out in the open.

Some might have called it a last-ditch effort, but Dylan himself would insist that he was happy having Rotolo just as a friend. That much was at least clear in the lyrics: “I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you/ Beat or cheat or mistreat you/ Simplify you, classify you/ Deny, defy or crucify you.” But if he thought his ulterior motive was somehow disguised – well, he wasn’t fooling anyone.

These romantic – or platonic – yearnings were the symbol of change in the air for Dylan’s sonic horizons. Speaking of his new approach on Another Side of Bob Dylan more generally, he said at the time of its release: “There aren’t any finger-pointing songs in here… Me, I don’t want to write for people any more – you know, a spokesman. From now on, I want to write from inside me, and to do that I’m going to have to get back to writing like I used to when I was ten – having everything come out naturally.”

But if the folk masses thought that was enough to raise a few eyebrows, they had another thing coming when Dylan infamously unleashed his rock era onstage at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Fittingly, ‘All I Really Want to Do’ was an integral part of that whole raucous affair, as the singer performed an acoustic version of the song before giving it an electric makeover for his set the next day.

It was clear through all of this that Rotolo never strayed far from his mind and heart, even as she tried to break free from the shackles of the man she left behind in 1964. But that was, and still is, the mark of Dylan for better or worse: no matter how far you travel, that drawling voice and warbling words will always wind you back right to where you once were.