I'm not a fan of his voice, but Bob Dylan is a lyrical genius. Genius is a big claim, but his songs are so well written and there are a few of them that I absolutely respect and love, which I have been playing on repeat over the past few days while writing my most recent essay (that and a few Elton John songs).
When I was studying William Blake in my final year of high school (I am a massive fan, because I'm a nerd like that), my literature teacher showed us a few Bob Dylan lyrics and pointed out that he gathered a lot of inspiration through Blake's poetry. So we spent a lesson analysing Bob Dylan songs and that afternoon, I remember coming home from school and borrowing a few of his CD's from my public library because I loved my literature course and found it so motivational.
My favourite song of his is definitely the 1962 song 'Blowing in the wind'. I love it's ambiguity, of the answers blowing in the wind and not knowing which direction the wind is going. It holds rhetorical questions about freedom and love, hatred, war and peace, sparking thought, so in that sense, it's not explicit the accusation of how the world's behaviour, however, that's the strength of the song (back again to his lyrical genius). The use of rhetoric is passive aggressive, making this a protest song, with it stimulating the listener's mind.
With the acoustic guitar, as well as the ambiguous connotations associated with the phrase of "blowing in the wind", I find this song extremely comforting and soothing. It's extremely heartbreaking the content of the song, for example "how many times must the cannon balls fly/ before they're forever banned" or "how many years can some people exist/ before they're allowed to be free", but it does give you a sense of hope that maybe things will change and the world can one day be a better place.
[Note: sorry, for some reason my internet had problems uploading the video on the post, so here is the link to the song]
When I was studying William Blake in my final year of high school (I am a massive fan, because I'm a nerd like that), my literature teacher showed us a few Bob Dylan lyrics and pointed out that he gathered a lot of inspiration through Blake's poetry. So we spent a lesson analysing Bob Dylan songs and that afternoon, I remember coming home from school and borrowing a few of his CD's from my public library because I loved my literature course and found it so motivational.
My favourite song of his is definitely the 1962 song 'Blowing in the wind'. I love it's ambiguity, of the answers blowing in the wind and not knowing which direction the wind is going. It holds rhetorical questions about freedom and love, hatred, war and peace, sparking thought, so in that sense, it's not explicit the accusation of how the world's behaviour, however, that's the strength of the song (back again to his lyrical genius). The use of rhetoric is passive aggressive, making this a protest song, with it stimulating the listener's mind.
With the acoustic guitar, as well as the ambiguous connotations associated with the phrase of "blowing in the wind", I find this song extremely comforting and soothing. It's extremely heartbreaking the content of the song, for example "how many times must the cannon balls fly/ before they're forever banned" or "how many years can some people exist/ before they're allowed to be free", but it does give you a sense of hope that maybe things will change and the world can one day be a better place.
[Note: sorry, for some reason my internet had problems uploading the video on the post, so here is the link to the song]
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