Many artists have covered the song this Bob Dylan Song.  For example, a 1969 recording appears on Cher’s album 3614 Jackson Highway, and George Harrison even played it with The Beatles during the Let It Be sessions .  More recently it has been covered by Elvis Costello, Chris Cornell, and others.  The specific track at the Spotify link is a cover by “That’s René” (German producer Gert René Schmidt) released as a single in 2024.

Bob Dylan himself has rarely offered explicit explanations of his songs, but in this case he did share an anecdote that sheds light on the theme. In a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, Dylan was asked about the meaning of “I Threw It All Away.”  He replied with a tongue-in-cheek personal story: “I once traded an Andy Warhol ‘Elvis Presley’ painting for a sofa, which was a stupid thing to do. … If he had another painting he would give me, I’d never do it again.” . 

In other words, he literally gave up something valuable (a Warhol painting) in exchange for something worthless (a sofa), and he considers that a foolish mistake. Although Dylan didn’t explicitly say “this is what the song is about,” his anecdote uses the same language as the song title – literally “throwing away” something precious.  It suggests that the song’s themes of regret and lost value are grounded in real regrets Dylan felt about choices he made.