Blowin' in the wind - The power of anti-war songs

As long as the threat of war still looms somewhere on the ground, in the sky, on the ocean, ... Blowin' in the wind still shows its power. More than half a century later, this is still the most soothing anti-war song known in the world.

Released in early 1963, Blowin' In The Wind immediately climbed to number 2 on the US Billboard and later became a global hit. The song brought the trio Peter, Paul & Mary to a new peak in their career and brought Bob Dylan, a young singer who was not yet known at that time, to the pinnacle of glory.

10 minutes to a masterpiece

America in 1962 was a society of many forms, racial conflicts, taxes, war, military service... The 21-year-old boy with the real name Robert Allen Zimmerman was wandering around New York and performing at clubs under the stage name Bob Dylan with a few of his own folk compositions. Columbia was "protected" by a few famous names so they decided to sign a recording contract but the debut album titled Bob Dylan only sold 5,000 copies and they were considering "firing" the guy who had not made any progress. But once again, the legends of that time such as singer Johnny Cash, John Hammond - a famous feminist and music producer, still tried to protect Bob Dylan with the argument "he will be a folk legend soon".

America was changing, movements were growing, and Bob was looking for inspiration to change himself. And then one afternoon in April 1962, while sitting in The Commons coffee shop in Greenwhich Village in New York, ideas suddenly appeared in Bob's head. At that time, the traditional melodies of black slaves (No More Auction Block) that Bob had just read in Carter Library were floating in his mind. Bob immediately took out a pen and paper to write lyrics to the melodies that were appearing. In 10 minutes, Bob Dylan finished 2 verses, each consisting of three verses written in the form of questions and ending with a meaningful sentence: The answer is in the wind blowing.

Bob Dylan during his performance in Vietnam on April 10, 2011.

The Declaration of Human Rights

The song is almost a human rights declaration with a series of rhetorical questions. Asked without waiting for an answer and all the answers rolled up in the breeze. “How many roads must one walk to be worthy of being human? How many oceans must the doves cross to sleep on the sand? How many bombs must fall before the guns stop? My friend, the answer lies in the breeze.” These lyrics are truly an important foundation in Bob Dylan’s writing career. He has changed from a composer’s perspective of observation and description to a composer standing inside, using simplicity to generalize big issues, using details to express the whole. The song still has many painful questions: “How many times must we look up before we see the sky? How many lives must we lose before we realize that too many people have died?”; or “How many ears must we have before we hear the cries of living beings?”…

After composing two verses and performing them in several places, Bob Dylan finally composed a third verse to complete the song and bring more unity. Some critics believe that composing the third verse made the song balanced in terms of structure, and more than that, in terms of meaning, these three verses symbolize three stages of life: childhood, youth and old age. The cycle of life is associated with dilemmas and questions whose answers can only be found in the wind.

Black artists really liked this song because it was very simple, very close to the style of popular songs of black Americans. At that time, Reverend Martin Luther King was stirring up the movement for civil rights for black people and Blowin' In The Wind was considered a song that spoke of the suffering of black people. More importantly, the song was written by a white person and also a strong supporter of the movement against racial discrimination.

Even though Bob Dylan declared in his first performance in 1962 that “this song is not protest or anything else,” it was immediately considered a human rights song and later, when the gunshots in Vietnam echoed, this song became the most famous anti-war song.

The song’s impact didn’t have to wait long. In May 1964, American students took to the streets for the first time against the war in New York’s Times Square. Shortly after, the first 12 young Americans burned their draft cards, an act that was considered illegal at the time.

There is a "death" that makes history

It is also worth mentioning that Bob Dylan wrote and performed the song first, but the first artists to record it were the trio Peter, Paul & Mary. The song was originally recorded by Mitch Miller but the record company decided not to release it because of the word “death” in the song. This gave Peter, Paul & Mary the opportunity to be the first to sing a historic song.

As for Bob Dylan, he recorded this song in July 1962 but it was not released until nearly a year later, in May 1963, on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Columbia, now "digging" a treasure trove because from this album onwards, any record by Bob Dylan sold like hotcakes.

The song Blowin' In The Wind later became a global song, with more than 400 cover versions and was sung by many legends such as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Chet Atkins, Sam Cooke, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, Ben Sidran... In 1994, this song was nominated for the Grammy Hall of Fame, 10 years later it was on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 500 songs of all time.

It is quite a coincidence that the first person to sing this song, Peter Yarrow (of the group Peter, Paul & Mary) came to Vietnam to perform in 2005. Six years later, it was Bob Dylan's turn. It is just a pity that, despite being requested by the audience, neither of them sang this song again, in a place where Blowin' In The Wind once had a very special meaning.

According to TT&VH