Cover versions
| "Too Much of Nothing" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single by Peter, Paul and Mary | |
| from the album Late Again | |
| B-side | "The House Song" |
| Released | November 1967 |
| Label | Warner Bros. |
| Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan |
| Producer(s) | Albert Grossman, Milton Okun |
By November 1967, this song was a Top 40 hit for Peter, Paul and Mary.[1] According to Billboard, this version's "clever driving blues arrangement compliments the trio to the fullest."[5] Cash Box said that it is "blues in a folk manner with plenty of funk."[6] Record World described it as "philosophy with a gritty beat."[7] In Dylan's original, the chorus addresses two ladies—"Say hello to Valerie/Say hello to Vivien/Send them all my salary/On the waters of oblivion"—but Peter, Paul and Mary changed the second name to "Marion," displeasing Dylan. The trio's Paul Stookey speculated that this mistake may have caused Dylan to consequently become disenchanted with the group: "We just became other hacks that were doing his tunes."[8] Patrick Humphries notes that, whether by accident or design, the chorus's two women originally named share the names of the two wives of the major 20th-century poet T. S. Eliot.[9][a 1] Lachlan MacKinnon [10] writes that the lines do refer to Eliot's wives and are "remarkably shrewd", suggesting the poet's "strange combination of self-distancing and financial propriety". Peter, Paul and Mary's recording of the song was also included on their 1968 album Late Again.
This song also appeared on Spooky Tooth's debut album It's All About, and on Fotheringay's debut album, as well as Albert Lee's Black Claw & Country Fever sessions. All three versions substituted "Marion" for "Vivien".
