1962-Talkin John Birch Paranoid blues
- John birch was a military intelligence
- He was shot and killed by a Chinese communist
- After WW2
- John Birch Society=heavily conservative, anti-communist group
- He was trying to say that people are so focused on being anti-communist they are forgetting about the bigger picture
1962-A hard rain’s gonna fall- response to the Cuban missile crisis
1963- Masters of war
- protest against the Cold War and Vietnam war
- Anti-war in general
- The “masters”= those who start wars
- “You hide in your mansion” The “masters” are safe in their own homes
- “You play with my world Like it’s your toy” Misuse of power and authority.
- Reference to the bible: Judas, Jesus would never Forgive what you do
- “Is your money that good? Will it buy your forgiveness?” Is it worth the money?
- Very negative song
1964-The times they are changing
In the liner notes for his album Biograph, written by Cameron Crowe, Bob Dylan said the following about this song:
This was definitely a song with a purpose. It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads …‘Come All Ye Bold Highway Men’, ‘Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens’. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time. Almost everyone knew everyone else. I had to play this song on the same night that President Kennedy died. Somehow it became a constant opening song and remained that for a long time”.
- “Come gather round people”- bardic, folk music theme. he is telling a story
- “And admit that the waters Around you have grown”- admit=give in, suggests that wasn’t initially accepted. You were in denial before. Accept the truth. Waters around have grown. Grown= a positive word. But maybe the imagery of drowning.
- “Water drenches you to the bone” sense of volume and quantity. To the bone=idiomatic phrase. Hyperbole/exageration. Quite negative.
- “If your time to you is worth saving, you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone” Sink or swim. Better go with the flow. Bandwagon effect. You can’t swim against the tide.
- Basically saying either join us or drown
- “Come writers and critics”-more precise compared to the first line.
- “who prophesize with your pen” suggesting it’s holy. Sense of respect.
- “Keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again”- be aware. False Dilemma-advertising technique saying now or never.
- “And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin'”- don’t point fingers
- “For the losers now will be later to win”-challenging the sense of hierarchy created in society.
- Rebalancing of equality—-civil rights movement. Writers and critics need to be on board with that.
- “Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call”-
- “Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall”-don’t try and stop us. Let it happen. Anti-racism and Anti-discrimination laws.
- “He who gets hurt will be he who has stalled” those who don’t help will be the ones who get hurt
- “There’s a battle outside ragin'”-ragin=power, chaos- gives it a sense of importance. Both literal protests (protests and marches) and metaphorical.
- “Will soon shake your windows And rattle your walls” represents the protection around gov.
- “Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land” -parents shape children’s ideologies. Parents are very influential politically on their children.
- “And don’t criticize what you can’t understand” -be supportive
- “Your sons and daughters are beyond your command” let it happen.
- Youth can have its own movement
- “Your old road is rapidly aging”-the path society has created no longer works. It is outdated and changing quickly. Rapidly=gives it a sense of urgency. It is inevitable, unstoppable. Either get in or get run over.
- “The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast.” Anaphora (repetition of structure) It is already been done, there is no going back.
- “The slow one now will later be fast” goes back to “loser now will later win.” Things are changing. Reversal of power.
- “The present now will later be past”-that hasn’t been the case. Many issues that were present then are still very much relevant now. We still have sexism, racism etc.
- “The order is rapidly fading” the hierarchy is fading. The system is changing.
- “And the first one now will later be last”
- The times they are changing= a progressive movement
1964-Only a pawn in their game
- The song refers to the murder of Medgar Evers, who was the Mississippi leader of the NAACP.
- Oppression of lower-class southern whites
- Civil rights movement
- Racial oppression
- Uses the N-word
- Chorus: It’s not the poor white guy’s fault that he is taking advantage of black people. It is the fault of the system.
- The use of rhyme makes the different examples he uses in the chorus sound like the same story just a different name.
- The whole song is blaming the system “the game”
- A big metaphor for a chess game
- Perhaps it’s run by a higher authority ad he’s blaming the higher authroirty.
1964-With god on our side
The lyrics address the tendency of Americans to believe that God will invariably side with them and oppose those with whom they disagree, thus leaving unquestioned the morality of wars fought and atrocities committed by their country. Dylan mentions several historical events, including the slaughter of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, the Spanish–American War, the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, The Holocaust, the Cold War and the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot; the song made no explicit reference to the Vietnam War until live renditions in the 1980s, when an additional verse ran thus:
In the nineteen-sixties came the Vietnam War
Can somebody tell me what we’re fighting’ for?
So many young men died
So many mothers cried
Now I ask the question
Was God on our side?
1965-like a rolling stone (
- about the loss of innocence and the harshness of experience
- A rolling stone gathers no moss” refers to people who are always on the move, never putting down roots or accumulating responsibilities and cares.
1976-the Hurricane- Dylan narrates the story of the false imprisonment of the black boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter; brings up acts of racism; Dylan claims it to be a false trial and conviction of a murder he did not commit
https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/bob-dylan
Notes
24th of May Duluth Minnesota
Jewish family
Several bands
Moved to miniappela
Dropped out of college to go into folk music
Owns a whiskey company
Folk:
Acoustic simple chords
Generalised storytelling quite personal
Generational “custom”
No written rules
Repetition
Traditional vs contemporary uses more acoustic and modern lyrics compared traditional which is to express
Context of the time:
Cold war 1947 – 1991
Civil war 1954 – 1968
Hurricane song
Vietnam war 1965 – 1975
With god on our side song
SURREALISM
- A movement in the art world where people are trying to make sense of their reality
- A lot of reality is surreal, seems distorted
A HARD RAIN’S GONNA FALL
- Dylan gives us little bits or surrealism
- “the water drenches you to the bone”
- “heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world”
- Cacophony-lots of noise, many sounds at once
- Gatherring stories
- Non of the ideas are connected other than by I heard…..I heard….
- Sense of isolation, cruelty, bullying
- Have + have notes
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nsoQ08jkxPNe1OXaw2fPbJNn_hfUt7ZkcLxVRZeNlu8/edit#heading=h.aas1aj7qv879
FOLDER W/ CLASS NOTES (IN VIDEO FORM)
MASTERS OF WAR:
- Shrill and eerie words
- background music creates a grim atmosphere
- Use of hypophora and anaphora
- Reference to biblical values
- More of a business transaction, more to do w/ money