As it happens, when I’ve Got a Name was released in 1973, it had already been a full decade since the release of a very similar song. Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right was written in 1962 and released in 1963.
It’s impossible to listen to the two songs without noticing their uncanny musical similarity. Also, like Forbidden Road, both the Bob Dylan song and the Fox/Gimbel song prominently feature the imagery of roads:
I walked along a forbidden road
I had to know where does it go
Like birds that fly into the sun
I had to run, I’m not the only one— Forbidden Road (Williams 2024)
Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I got a name, I got a name
Like the singing bird and the croaking toad
I got a name, I got a name— I’ve Got a Name (Fox/Gimbel 1973)
I’m walkin’ down that long, lonesome road, babe
Where I’m bound, I can’t tell
But goodbye’s too good a word, gal
So I’ll just say fare thee well— Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Dylan 1962)
The enormously influential album that the Dylan song appears on is called The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, and Suze Rotolo appears on the cover. There’s a good reason for that.
More tomorrow.