Blowin' in the Wind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G58XWF6B3AA
Lyrics to the song: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bobdylan/blowininthewind.html Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" is a form of activism. This is only one example of his many songs that are about social issues and almost act as pleas to members of society. He serves both the role of artist and activist through his lyrics, one among a plethora of reasons that he was more than deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. His artistic activism through music is yet another way — like Angelou's work — of revealing what is concealed or what we often ignore. Here, Bob Dylan "places himself in the strife" between world and earth and lives in that rift, Heidegger would say. His art and creativity exist in the rift. The difference between world and earth, particularly in Dylan's work, is this: the world is a kind of ideal, egalitarian connected utopia where we know the answers to the questions he poses in the song. The world is where human beings are disconnected, prejudice runs rampant and divisions occur. The world is reality. This song promotes activism or prods people to question norms through its short chorus: The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. This song, written in the early 60s, was relevant during a time of ever-present prejudice, drugs, war and protest movement throughout the U.S. What I hear when listening to this song: the answers to all of the difficult societal questions about slavery throughout the world, war and suffering that the song poses are blowing away in the wind. We refuse to answer them. We turn our heads. The song even suggests that we often act as bystanders and ignore what is right under our noses. Even though this art reveals many important truths rooted in the dysfunction and social sins of our world — and asks the important questions — we still try to conceal what ails our country and the world as a whole. Therefore, we grope for the answers, but they blow away from us in the breeze and we can't chase after them (or, rather, we do not want to). The instrumentals of the song are simple and repetitive, as are the lyrical structures, so the listener can focus on the theme, message and actual text of the song. While Dylan does not have particular talent as far as his singing voice goes, you hear the raw emotion in it, which makes his music far more impactful than the lyrics would alone. NPR wrote a 2000 article about the hard questions the song still asks today 50 years after its debut. Here's a quote from Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary, who sang the song shortly after Dylan wrote it: "When we sang it, it was in a field where probably I'd say, oh, 5,000 of the poorest people I'd ever seen, all of them black. And they waited in the rain for a couple of hours 'cause the sound system had gone to the wrong destination. We sang it very slowly, very, very—in a very determined way, but with a sense of the weariness of the people that surrounded us." This connects to our discussion in class on "Art of Protest" and the chapter on freedom songs: a song can evoke a certain mood. Though this was not a protest and more of a concert setting, the band was addressing a poor and marginalized population and sang the song in a way that reflected their struggles and — as Peter says — their weariness. However, the band still chose to sing the song in a determined manner, possibly in an attempt to inspire the marginalized to rise up against their oppressors and society as a whole, and evoke feelings of hope. A Dylan scholar says the song was more a product of the times than a product of Dylan himself, which is an interesting way to approach art and activism. We have discussed art as stemming from an individual's creative process and relationship to their craft (as well as their talent) in our class, but it's important to know that art of this nature stems is a "sign of the times," for lack of a better cliche phrase. As Kant would say, the art is conditioned by our culture and history, and when art takes the form of activism, it is often trying to challenge this conditioned state of being. Activist art is a product of society, the political system, the social climate and societal ailments. Someone said the song evokes hope alongside sadness and confusion, to which I would agree. It leans toward an answer to problems that most anyone could face but never reaches one entirely. Link to the NPR article: http://www.npr.org/2000/10/21/1112840/blowin-in-the-wind
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |