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It seems that, in documentaries regarding the protest movements of the 1960s, it is rare the grainy footage of protestors is not accompanied by the acoustic mumbling of Bob Dylan. Yet, as Kraaijvanger (2017, p.6) notes, ‘Dylan continuously rejected his image as a protest songwriter’. Such was his distaste for the label, upon taking the stage at Newport Folk Festival in 1965, instead of walking on unaccompanied, with an acoustic guitar hanging off his shoulders, he strode on with an electric guitar and a full band. Following this, his songs rarely even touched the subject of politics. Dylan had been told who he was, pigeonholed into ‘Bob Dylan the protestor’, and so he came out that day and rebelled against it. Despite this, to almost everybody, Bob Dylan and politics are intricately tied.

The media, as well as the nostalgic history of his fans, often treat the songs of Dylan as a result of the era they were borne- the 1960s needed a Dylan, but Dylan needed a 1960s. In his beginnings, playing tiny coffee houses in Greenwich village, Dylan was more interested in emulating his idol, Woody Guthrie, than he was in societal change. His first album (Bob Dylan, 1962) was not outwardly political. His political awakening may have been when he met Suze Rotolo, a leftist activist who would soon become his partner, introducing him to many bohemian poets, writers and thinkers. As Dreier (2011) points out, she was the Secretary of the Congress for Racial Equality, and ‘each night gave (him) the scoop about the civil rights movement’. His first political song was ‘The Ballad of Emmett Till’ (1962)– which addressed the murder of a 14-year-old African American boy, brutally attacked in the American South for whistling at a white woman. Following this, the topics he touched ranged from the mocking of right-wing groups to nuclear war.

Until this point, Dylan had touched individual events or incidents, interpreting them through his personal lens, but seldom reaching beyond that to project any wider ideology. ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ (1962) was the turning point, in which he asked wide questions and gave vague answers around a variety of societal issues, from war (how many deaths will it take till he knows too many people have died) to the civil rights movement (how many years can some people exist before they can be free). The answer, that the answer itself is ‘blowin’ in the wind’, makes the listener feel as if it is right in front of their face, only for them to reach out and have a gust send it away. It was a hit, alongside his second album (The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, 1963), and so began his cementation as the protest songwriter. This was further helped by his performances at several protests, famously in the same rally as MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. He spent the rest of 1963 and 1964 writing about topics varying from the arms race to the closing of the mines. His song ‘These Times They are a-Changin’ (1964) came to summarise the angry, yet hopeful, feeling of 1960s America.

By 1964, as Dreier (2011) notes, he had told his friends he wanted his protest songs ‘buried’, to which Phil Ochs replied, as if he had seen the future, ‘they’re too good…they’re out of (your) hands’. As he became intensely anti-political, he sank into drink and drugs, and abandoned his folk sound for electric rock and blues. He began a hectic relationship with religion that would colour the rest of his life. He did compose a few political songs post-1965, such as I Pity the Poor Immigrant (1967) and Subterranean Homesick Blues (1965), however, they were far more cynical in tone and bitter in delivery. Further to this, he was part of George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 and as late as 2008, on the election night of Barack Obama, declared his hope the world may get ‘lighter’. But he never engaged the political Bob Dylan that characterised his first five years.

Can we extrapolate a general ideology for Dylan? We can see a consistent and clear left-wing theme throughout his life and career. His clear concern for the civil rights movement produced music so powerful that Mavis Staples, a crowing R&B singer, could not believe a young white man had captured the frustrations and aspirations of people of colour in America so accurately. He rallied against militarism at a time when it was popular to hate ‘the Reds’. He lamented the destruction and poverty of post-industrial mining communities. He took part in fundraisers for some of the world’s most vulnerable people. Despite this, Dylan never sat down and explained a political concept, his political concept. He never elaborated on the motives for his actions, his political justifications, or whether he even saw them as political at all. Dylan had a view of humanity, of what was right and what was wrong, that likely coloured his actions far more than any ideology. He was often confused and unsure, but this general sense of right and wrong guided him. This is likely why, when it became apparent he was the political leader of a generation, he rejected it- it wasn’t politics to him, it was right. Whilst Dylan’s concept of right may not be your right, to a greater or lesser extent we are all guided by our own understandings of this.

Further to this, as Dylan’s politics waned his religious inclinations grew. Post-1965, he started declaring himself an Orthodox Jewish person for a short time. He then rejected this, before ‘finding Christ’ in the 1970s and releasing two Christian gospel albums. By the late 1980s, Dylan was declaring once more that he did not believe in religious institutions, and that he practiced general spiritualism. However, it became apparent he was participating once more in the early 2000s in Jewish ceremonies, and it is believed he is religious once more. A person’s right to accept or reject religion as they please is fundamental, and so these facts by themselves are meaningless. However, his dithering on religion illustrate somebody who is, like many of us, unsure. It is likely similar for politics. To be hailed as the answer to a question you don’t know, to lead a generation to a place you’re not sure of the location, is daunting. It is hard to blame Dylan for the intense confusion that is his politics.

If it’s possible to separate the confusion of his political and religious beliefs and pull out something of vague coherence, it would be simply that he was important. Knowingly or unknowingly, wanted or unwanted, he was the soundtrack to an era that fundamentally altered Western society and politics. It may seem conceited that one of the people we associate with the hope and confusion of the 1960s came to reject it during that same decade. However, it really doesn’t matter what he came to think. For that moment, he said everything a big portion of America wanted to say, and when he stopped singing that, there were millions of others ready to take over and repeat his words.

Two really helpful readings I used to write this;

Dreier

Kraaijvanger