jennings_c_b

=B. Summary of Evidence (500-600 words) Tips]=

Bob Dylan was a popular folk artist in the 1960’s and still is to this date, not only for his talent but also because his work spread his opinion about important issues at the times, and these opinions where shared by a large proportion of the United States as well as other locations around the world. The 1960’s was a troubled decade for the U.S both nationally and internationally. Troubles such as the Civil Rights Movement, the treat of nuclear holocaust due to the Cold War, and the rising tensions in Vietnam between American and the Soviet Union. Dylan’s lyrical work has a place in all of these issues, and within his work he clearly states his own opinion about them. However as historians we must deduce how relevant his work is to someone studying the conditions in America during that decade. During my study I will analysis the lyric’s of Dylan’s works and come to a logically conclusion based on sources such as websites, books and interviews as to how useful his work is to a Historian studying America in the 1960’s

Within each issue Dylan has written a number of song in which he lyrics play a vital role in conveying his own personal opinion on that particular issue. To begin with you have the Civil RIght Movement, which was clearly something close to Dylan's heart has during his career. Dylan preformed the song //Only a Pawn in their Game// during the March on Washington on August the 28th 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous //I Have A Dream//speech (1). The song itself tells the story of the assassination of Medgar Evans who was a Civil Rights Activist. Even at the start of his activism, dating back to 1955 he had been viewed as a leader for the civil rights in Mississippi as he played a vital role in organizing events such as boycotts of white owned stores that discriminated black people as well as voter-registration efforts. This resulted in him receiving numerous death threats, which eventually lead to his assassination.(2) Andy Gill the music critic for the Independent gives his opinion of Bob Dylan's motives behind the song in his book "Bob Dylan: The Stories Behind The Songs 1962-1969". "'Only a Pawn in Their Game'... was a more telling, elegant work, establishing Evers' death in the very first line and then rather condemning the killer, considering the underlying causes-institutionalized poverty, the divide-and-conquer policies of demagogic Southern politician-which had led a pathetic white man to commit such a cowardly act." pg.62. (3) This statement would seem to imply rather than to state the fact of the events that took place, Dylan's wishes to express is own personal anger towards the "Southern politician". From the point of a historian this would make this song less useful in allowing us to picture what 1960's America was like as it would seem Dylan gives us a more opinionated description of the system in which white people are taught."He's taught in his school, From the start by the rule, That the laws are with him, To protect his white skin, To keep up his hate, So he never thinks straight, 'Bout the shape that he's in, But it ain't him to blame, He's only a pawn in their game." (4)

The second song which I am studying is //Masters of War,// which tackles a completely separate issue but nether the less something that effected American society in the 1960's to great extent which is the Cold War. More pacifically however //Masters of War// focuses on the arms rase between the USSR and the USA. At the time Dylan wrote this song President John. F. Kennedy was coming into power and had just upped the arms race. "Kennedy either ignored Eisenhower's advice or found himself over a Cold War barrel rolled under him by his hawkish Chiefs Of Staff. He had been in office only a few months when he authorized a massive arms procurement program worth an $3 billion on top of the already substantial arms budget, with an additional $207 million earmarked for civil defense." pg. 33 (3). It was obvious within Dylan's lyrics that he was referring this substantial increase in the creation of arms. "Come you masters of war, You that build all the guns, You that build the death planes, You that build the big bombs" (5) And in an interview with USA today Dylan referenced his song to Eisenhower "//Masters of War,// for instance, "is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war. It's not an anti-war song. It's speaking against what Eisenhower was calling a military industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency. That spirit was in the air, and I picked it up" (6) The final song I will focus on is //A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall// which similarly to //Masters of War// is about the current situation between USSR and USA, however this time it is more of protest against the idea of nuclear war. It was written as a response to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was what people would come to call the closest the Cold War came to going nuclear. Rather than the lyrics having pacific references to Nuclear war, it is all implied. "Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters". A line from the song itself, however in 1963 in radio interview with Studs Terkel Dylan stated this "No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers." (8) Which would seem to imply that rather than the song being specifically about the threat of atomic war, it has more of a broader meaning which including the propaganda feed to the population by the government.

(1) http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=bob-dylan-protest-songs (2) http://www.biography.com/articles/Medgar-Evers-9542324 (3) Bob Dylan: The Stories Behind the Songs 1962-1969 - Andy Gill ISBN:978-1-84732-759-8 (4) http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/only-a-pawn-in-their-game (5) http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/masters-of-war (6)http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2001-09-10-bob-dylan.htm#more (7) http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-0 (8)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hard_Rain's_a-Gonna_Fall