Favourite Protest Songs – Bob Dylan – Only A Pawn In Their Game

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Protest was the media term applied to a sudden popularity in songs of political/social content that sprang up in the early sixties in the Folk Scene due to the sudden rise of Bob Dylan.

For a few glorious years Bob Dylan produced three stunning acoustic albums featuring poetic songs the like of which had never been heard. This protest – songs of civil rights, antiwar and social comment – had its roots in Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds but nobody had done it as well as Dylan.

Greenwich Village was the focus for a left-wing bohemian upsurge led by the Folk Movement. A number of young singers were weighing in with their contributions as black and native American singers sang alongside each other in the clubs. They had a vision of a better, fairer America that wasn’t belligerent and didn’t practice segregation. These included the likes of Buffy St Marie, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton and Peter Lefarge. A new optimism was in the air. The fight was on.

When the Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was shot in the back by a cowardly gunman skulking in the bushes both Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan took up the guitar and wrote songs. This was Bob’s brilliant effort. It picked out the way the gullible Southerner Whites had been cynically used by the politicians in order for them to gain power. The hatred and division they created in their wake spilled over into violence. In creating scapegoats the weaselly politicians escaped blame.

Does that sound familiar?

We’ve all been pawns in the games of the rich and powerful as they manipulate us for their wars, elections and referendums. They run the place for their own ends. Austerity is not a word they are familiar with. The hate and division they create is no concern of theirs. They care not.

Where’s the new Bob Dylan when we need him or her?

Bob Dylan – Only A Pawn In Their Game

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game.A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than blacks, don’t complain
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin” they explain
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
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.

From the powerty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ‘neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.

Songwriters: BOB DYLAN
Only A Pawn In Their Game lyrics © BOB DYLAN

Chimes of Freedom – Bruce Springsteen – with UN/Amnesty International intro.

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One of Bob Dylan’s greatest songs.

I was spellbound when I first heard this song. It was a masterpiece. I still find it hard to believe that a young man, as Dylan was at the time, could have had the sensitivities to produce a piece of poetry of this magnitude.

It tells the story of a revelation as Dylan stood in awe before a huge electric thunderstorm that lit up the sky and town with its majesty as the claps of thunder rolled around. It was a mystical spectacular sight that was like a performance put on for everybody. Bob Dylan managed not only to capture that but to relate it as a heavenly performance put on for the benefit of every underdog.

The chimes of freedom flashing.

Flashing for the refugees on their unarmed road of flight.

How pertinent it still is fifty something years later.

Flashing for the warriors for the warriors whose strength is not to fight.

It still sends shivers through me.

Bruce does a great job here and the dedication to the UN Charter of Human Rights and the great work of Amnesty International seems incredibly appropriate.

 

 

Bob Dylan – Chimes Of Freedom Lyrics

Far between sundown’s finish an’ midnight’s broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsakened
Tolling for the outcast, burnin’ constantly at stake
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
An’ the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flash

 

Blowin’ The Wind – a parody. Ha ha – I dun wrote a song!

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For a bit of a laugh I thought I’d play about.

Blowin’ the Wind

How many beers can one man drink

Before he falls on the ground?

How many shorts can one man down

Before his head goes round and round

The answer my friend is urine down the drain

The answer is messin’ up my brain.

 

Yes ‘n’ how many pies can one man eat

Before he’s as large as my Nan?

On how many couches must one man laze

Before he’s as big as a van?

The answer my friend is growing whim by whim

The answer is never getting slim.

 

Yes ‘n’ how many knees must one MP touch

Before he finally gets sacked?

‘n’ how many massages can a film producer demand

Before he gets his face slapped?

The answer my friend is bouncing in the bed

The answer is hormones in the head

 

Yes ‘n’ how many breasts can one surgeon enlarge

Before he can buy a new yacht?

‘n’ how many noses can another doctor fix

Before he’s got more than we’ve all got?

The answer my friend is bobbing in the bra

The answer is banking offshore

 

Yes ‘n’ how many teeth must a pop star possess

Before he wins X factor?

‘n’ how many squeals must be squealed every night

Before they crown him a star?

The answer my friend is wriggling on the screens

The answer is churning up the teens

 

Yes ‘n’ how many nights can strictly carry on

Before I get my TV back?

‘n’ how long do they have to bloody pause

Before they deliver the sack?

The answer my friend is ratings in the bank

The answer is nowt but hanky pank.

The Return

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The Return

 

Every now and again something special happens; an individual comes along who transcends their field and becomes something bigger and more wonderful than their field of operation. For me in film it was Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, in boxing Muhammad Ali, in soccer George Best, in Folk Music Woody Guthrie, in politics Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Mandela, and in literature Jack Kerouac. But there was one man who was more influential for me than any of them and that was Bob Dylan.

 

The story started way back in Bob’s bedroom with a bunch of school kids bashing out Little Richard numbers and dreaming of running off to be in his band and become a Rock Star. By the early sixties Robert Zimmerman had left home, dropped out, changed his name and invented a whole personal history for himself. He no longer rocked but had been moved by the songs of the mighty Woody Guthrie. Unlike most people he was not content to idolise from afar but had to get to see the man. He hitched into New York with a guitar, busked the clubs and did get to regularly meet up with Woody who was hospitalised and suffering from Huntingdon’s disease.

 

Bob, like many others, was a Woody Guthrie impersonator; he even took to looking like the man with his cap, checked shirt and dungarees. He made a bit of a splash with his Guthrie songs and fresh-faced Chaplinesque performances but nothing special. Woody impersonators were ten a penny.

 

Then something magical happened. Perhaps he visited Robert Johnson’s crossroads? More likely it was the fairy dust of Woody mixing with the sensitivities of his girlfriend Suzie Rotollo. He began to write songs. Not just ordinary songs but songs that were wondrous, that told stories; songs like nobody had ever written. Those songs were full of fire and fury at social injustice, war and civil rights. They were songs that rang in the ears and rattled the brain. They were songs that woke people up. Something new had been unleashed into the world. These songs were streaming with poetry that summoned up images, sent emotions storming and set eyes afire.

 

Over three albums Bob poured his soul into a set of poetic visions that sent dragons rampaging through people’s hearts. He wakened the slumbering feelings of a generation and put into words what people did not know they were thinking. He nudged their awareness, poked their compassion, tapped in to their outrage and roused them from their trance. His words were like bullets, his images paintings and films that played in your head.

 

They told him that he was the spokesperson for a generation. He told them he was a song and dance man.

 

Then he walked away from it. He turned his back on the civil rights, anti-war and social awareness; turned away from Woody, tossed his hat out the window and grew his hair, donned a polka-dot shirt and shades and became a Rock Star.

 

Embracing the more surreal and melding it to the stream of consciousness of the Beat Generation he spat forth his poetry like a machine gun on acid. His amphetamine fuelled diatribes ripped to the kernel of truth with barbed invective as he shone the light of his imagination into every crevice of society. There was anger and fury, savage and pointed. There was a railing and underground imagery that spoke of underdogs, eccentrics and a people who lived outside of society looking in – the poets, painters and vagabonds, the trampled, dispossessed and misfits – and he made them real, gave them characters and brought them to life.

 

Over three albums he brought his music to new heights with his wild mercury sound that, like his words, created a totally new landscape of melody.

 

And we grew with him and waited with bated breath for the next episode, for him to take us forward once more.

 

Then came the crash in 66. He, always the mad driver, mangled his triumph motorbike and broke a vertebra.

 

It gave him the perspective and got him out of the mad carnival his life had become. He was married. He got off his addictions. He had a family. There were new priorities. As Dylan said ‘it got me out of the rat race’.

But for us the story wasn’t over. We were addicted to that mind-blowing burst of genius that had pierced us to the bone and sparked our brains into overdrive, startled our sleeping ears to hear and thrilled us into action.

 

But that star had fallen, that man was gone. All we could do was wait and hope for the return.

 

This year I saw him perform in Liverpool. He performed.

 

Outside the arena a busker played those early songs with fire and fury as a large crowd gathered round and cheered at the echoes of the incandescent passion that had set us all alight. It still burned.

 

Bob Dylan – The Man of the Century

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Bob Dylan – The Man of the Century

 

Bob Dylan is my man of the century. I don’t think anybody has done more to improve the human condition.

 

Back in the early sixties Rock Music was dead. We were seeing sugary, watered down Rock. It was the stuff of teenage love. The charts were full of Bobbies. Then came Bob.

 

Bob Dylan took Woody Guthrie’s protest songs and ran with them to produce some of the angriest, most biting songs that have ever been written. He revolutionised song writing. With masterpieces like Blowing in the Wind, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall, Masters of War, To Ramona, The Ballad of Emit Till, Only a Pawn in the Game, The Ballad of Hollis Brown, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and Chimes of Freedom he brought social concern into Pop Music. He highlighted civil rights, anti-war sentiment and social issues in a way that made them accessible. He raised the consciousness of a generation and raised their sensibilities too. It was not for nothing that they called him the spokesman of a generation. He articulated the concerns young people had about the establishment and put in poetic words what we were thinking. He brought us together behind the cause of justice and freedom. He was largely responsible for focussing our minds on what was wrong. He made us think.

 

Instead of teenage love we now had songs that told stories, songs that were pure poetry and songs that dealt with real adult issues. The two and a half minute Pop song was out the window.

 

Not content to do that he turned on the Byrds and the Beatles so that Rock Music was infested with the virus of poetry and social comment – songs now had to have content and be lyrically meaningful as well as a pretty melody.

 

You can see the effect of Dylan by comparing Love Me Do and Please Please Me with Strawberry Fields Forever and Revolution. It was the influence of Dylan that sparked that revolution in song writing, that transformation to Adult Rock.

 

But Dylan didn’t stop there. He then harnessed the stream of consciousness poetry of the Beat poets to create an electric storm of riffs and words that blew the mind most elegantly. He assaulted the senses with machine gun bullets of ideas. Suddenly we were in that subterranean basement with the blues and we weren’t ever gonna work on Maggie’s Farm again. We marvelled to Like A Rolling Stone and were blasted with From A Buick Six and It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding). This cool polka dotted dude was the coolest and hottest thing on the planet. He stormed our heads with Desolation Row and a host of other dynamite songs seething with poetic imagery that tore your eyeballs out.

 

There was an endless stream of songs that made you sit up and set your neurones sparking.

 

My contention is that Bob Dylan not only affected Rock Music and changed it for ever – being the fulcrum point on which it pivoted from teenage Pop to Adult Rock – but he changed the minds of all those young adults. It was a change that led to the huge creative burst that was the sixties. It generated the anti-war movement, the fight for civil rights and social justice, feminism, gay rights, environmentalism, love, peace, equality and tolerance.

 

That movement went out all round the world and impacted everywhere.

 

While it is true that those fires have damped down and the establishment, that briefly tottered, is now firmly back in control, it still resonates.

 

Bob Dylan changed the world for the better.

 

The question remains – where is the next Dylan coming from who just might finish the job?

 

There’s never one around when you most need them!

The Ten Best Dylan tracks – a fans choice.

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  1. It’s Alright Ma I’m Only Bleeding

A biting indictment of the shallowness and hypocrisy of society.

2. Positively Fourth Street

A scathing, vitriolic put-down of the Greenwich Village folies who turned on him when he went electric.

3. Subterranean Homesick Blues

4. To Ramona

A love song to a black girl who was subjected to prejudice and abuse.

5. Chimes of Freedom

A paean to the disposed and underdogs

6. A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall

A song about nuclear war and/or the horrors of society.

7. Forever Young

A love song.

8. Masters of War

A hard hitting anti-war song.

9. Talking John Birch Society Blues

A song about the paranoid right wing conservative John Birch society’s fear of commies. Banned from being included on the album.

10. From a Buick 6

A forceful swipe while revealing the pressures put on him

And no room for Like a Rolling Stone and a hundred others.

Bob Dylan Liverpool 2017 – a few more photos.

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Bob Dylan Liverpool May 8th 2017 Concert – review and photos

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What can you say about Dylan that hasn’t been said? He’s a law unto himself. He does what he likes. He does not seem to care about what anyone thinks. He ploughs his own groove.

In terms of the many Dylan concerts I have attended over the years I rate this one as middling – an interesting night. I enjoyed it. It was a strange eclectic mix of styles. It was different to anything I’d seen before – but that is not unusual – nearly every Dylan concert is different to anything I’ve seen before. But this one was not up there with the best but neither was it down there with the worst.

You never know what to expect from a Dylan concert these days. We mainly go along to pay homage to someone who has been a master songwriter, major influence on Rock and songwriting, a great performer and someone responsible for putting poetry and social conscience into Rock Music. He is a genius. We pay our respects.

Was Bob a bit shaky? No not in the least. I thought that he looked good – at least from the distance we were away – and his voice sounded fine.

So we paid our money and took our seats. This gives you some idea of where we were. We were so far away that it took us three numbers to work out which one was Bob Dylan. He fooled us by mainly sitting behind the keyboards and occasionally straying out into the middle to grab a mic stand which he proceeded to hold at an angle and croon.

At no time did he pick up a guitar or go near a harmonica.

The band were excellent, Bob was in good voice and the sound system was brilliant. There were no screens or stage effects or paraphernalia – just Bob and his band.

We were instructed not to take photos. What is that about? Is that Dylan? Can he have become that greedy that he doesn’t want people having a free memento?

At no time did Bob talk to the audience. They went from number to number without any intro.

Bob looked almost the cowboy with his white hat and white and black suit. You couldn’t help thinking that this was Bob doing Showbiz.

That was reinforced by the eclectic mix of material. I never, ever thought that I’d hear Bob crooning ballads like Autumn Leaves, That Old Black Magic and the like, but that is what he did. You had to relax into it. It was Showbiz. It actually sounded OK – in fact a lot better than I could ever have imagined. Bob’s voice sounded alright. Besides I had got used to it from hearing the last two albums of standards. This wasn’t Dylan, the snarling scourge of society; this was Dylan the Showbiz performer – the song and dance man.

In between the standards he sprinkled some of his own stuff. There were brilliant versions of Love Sick, Desolation Row, Ballad of a Thin Man and a rather strange Blowing in the Wind. This was music. It wasn’t geared to making you think or driving you to the barricades; it was simply good music. He wasn’t commentating, taking a stance or making any points. He was singing. There was a range of styles from Swing, Country to Rock and the band was up for it all.

I enjoyed the evening, despite it not being value for money, and came out thinking that it was another strange event in the Dylan lexicon of oddities. I had previously endured the Gospel period and other gigs where he did not seem to care at all but I had also seen him when he soared. All things will pass. Dylan will move on and do his own thing – be his own man, not beholden to anybody. But I still yearned for that socially aware Dylan of yore who spat out his poetry with barbed fury, the Dylan who used his guitar, harmonica and voice as weapons, who set us alight. That was the man who had woken me up to thinking about war, social injustice, freedom and hypocrisy.

In front of me was a young couple who talked through the whole gig. At the end she turned to her partner and said ‘well at least I can say that I’ve seen Bob Dylan now’. That is what it has become.

I saw him but he was missing.

This was brought home to us all on the way out (past the sold out merchandise stalls). There was a guy outside busking with a guitar and harmonica, singing those early songs with gusto, venom and feeling. He sounded like the Dylan of old. He meant it. He wasn’t doing music. He was doing something more. A huge crowd had gathered around him cheering him on and getting into those old songs. They were still new, vital and meaningful – just as relevant today as they ever were. Those songs were the rallying call of a generation. They were the ones we all craved for.

Maybe one day Dylan will want to be a leader again, to make a stand against the madness consuming us? Or maybe he’s content to keep his head down and cream off all he can take?

Bob Dylan – Subterranean Homesick Blues – Stream of consciousness poetry – driving riff.

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This is another of my all-time Dylan favourites. Following the love affair with Guthrie, leading to him developing his own plethora of songs of social comment, Dylan changed direction.

Under the thrall of the Beat Generation his developed a stream of consciousness poetry that was like spitting bullets. It was hard-edged and took that social message into a tougher more hip context. Coupled with this was a changed of image that was to lead to the polka-dot hipster in shades. With Ginsberg in the background he held up the cards in the alley that illustrated the song. The riff was like a manic Chuck Berry – Too Much Monkey Business on speed – and the song raged – a diatribe about society and the alternative culture straight out of Kerouac’s pocket. There was nowhere to hide. Society had you. You’re gonna be enslaved.

“Subterranean Homesick Blues”

Johny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don’t tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Wash the plain clothes
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.

Get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything’s gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters.

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles.

Bob Dylan – Positively Fourth Street – His best track?

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I used to love this track for its raging sarcasm and vitriol. This was Dylan at his snarling best hitting out at the Folkies who had turned on him when he went electric. It holds nothing back.

The only other put-down in the same league was John Lennon’s diatribe aimed at McCartney.

Positively Fourth Street.

You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend
When I was down you just stood there grinnin’
You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’

You say I let you down, ya know its not like that
If you’re so hurt, why then don’t you show it?
You say you’ve lost your faith, but that’s not where its at
You have no faith to lose, and ya know it

I know the reason, that you talked behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you’re in with
Do you take me for such a fool, to think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide what he don’t know to begin with?

You see me on the street, you always act surprised
You say “how are you?”, “good luck”, but ya don’t mean it
When you know as well as me, you’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once and scream it

No, I do not feel that good when I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief perhaps I’d rob them
And tho I know you’re dissatisfied with your position and your place
Don’t you understand, its not my problem?

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you

Certainly no pretty Pop song. There’s real venom in the words and performance. It sure suited my teenage angst.