Blowing In The Wind: Pretty Straightforward, Isn't It? Or Is It?

Proverbial wisdom: the accumulated ethical values of ordinary people in early modern England. 

Young Bob (Illus. by the author)

Bob Dylan wrote this timeless song in 1962, the year he turned 21. It appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in 1963.

I frequently like to examine what young Dylan was doing and compare it to what was happening in the popular culture. Some of the "big hits" of 1962, when he wrote this, included The Twist (Chubby Checker), Mashed Potato Time (Dee Dee Sharp), I Can't Stop Loving You (Ray Charles), The Loco-Motion (Little Eva), and Stranger on the Shore at #1 by Acker Bilk. 

Dylan first performed a two verse version of this song at Gerde's Folk City (See Peter McKenzie's book (Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day) for more details about this time in the young singer/songwriter's life. The date of that performance was in April, so he was still twenty.

The past few days a group of Airstreamers has been in town on a journey from the North Country here down into the deep roots of the blues, taking in the Crossroads, Memphis and other historic places from music history. One of them mentioned to me how she didn't know, like many others, that "Blowin' in the Wind" was not written by Peter, Paul & Mary.

The song has been recorded extensively by other artists including a German version by none other than Marlene Dietrich. 

Much has been written about this song through the decades and it's message never seems to grow stale. By means of a few simple questions it forcefully cuts to the root of a number of issues. 27 years later Dylan would use this same technique of asking questions in a lyrical format, except the questions are turned inward. "What good am I if I'm like all the rest, if I just turn away when I see how you're dressed?" ("What Good Am I?", Oh Mercy) This rhetorical style is repeated two tracks later in the song "What Was It You Wanted?" There's nothing ambiguous about the first, and plenty of fog, shadow and mist in the second.

Blowin' in the Wind

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand? *
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
And how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

© 1962 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1990 by Special Rider Music

* * * 

A lot has been written about this song. You can learn more about nearly any song on Wikipedia. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. Ten years later it held the #14 position in Rolling Stones' 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

* "And the dove came in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive-leaf plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." --Genesis 8:11

Related Links

A Visit with Peter McKenzie, Author of Bob Dylan: On A Couch & Fifty Cents A Day (Part One)

On Amazon: On a Counch & Fifty Cents a Day

This Day In History: Bob Dylan Plays His First Major Gig

Photo here is of Dylan at Newport two years later. Not an
attempt to suggest that this was Gerde's.

I once posted a short list of things I learned in college, one of which was learning to play the harmonica. Early in my first semester at Ohio U a bunch of guys were sitting or lying around talking, getting acquainted by sharing stories, interests, and whatever else guys talk about. One fellow happened to be a guitar player, and as it later turned out he had a brother in Cincinnati who played harmonica. He suggested it would be easy to pick up and encouraged me with the admonition, "Chicks really dig harmonica."

Whether this be true or not, I will never know. What I do know is that people always seem to enjoy harmonica. It's like an accent that adds flavor to any piece of music being played.

After becoming as familiar with harp as I was able on my own, the next piece of advice was this: "Go listen to John Lee Hooker and learn some riffs."

On this day in history, April 11, 1961, Bob Dylan got his first major gig in New York City, as opening act for John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City. Whether Gerde's made Dylan famous, or vice versa, I can't say. The moment seems to have been mutually beneficial.

Three Dylan tunes come to mind when I read about this period in Dylan's life and career. The first mournfully begins, "I was young when I left home // and I been out a-ramblin' round // but I never wrote letter to my home..."

The second, one of the two songs he wrote and recorded on his first album, was titled Talkin' New York, which gives a hilarious glimpse at Dylan's blending of observation and pointed humor. Notice, especially, all the ups and downs in the song.

Talkin’ New York 

Ramblin’ outa the wild West
Leavin’ the towns I love the best
Thought I’d seen some ups and downs
’Til I come into New York town
People goin’ down to the ground
Buildings goin’ up to the sky

Wintertime in New York town
The wind blowin’ snow around
Walk around with nowhere to go
Somebody could freeze right to the bone
I froze right to the bone
New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years
I didn’t feel so cold then

I swung onto my old guitar
Grabbed hold of a subway car
And after a rocking, reeling, rolling ride
I landed up on the downtown side
Greenwich Village

I walked down there and ended up
In one of them coffee-houses on the block
Got on the stage to sing and play
Man there said, “Come back some other day
You sound like a hillbilly
We want folk singers here”

Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play
Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day
I blowed inside out and upside down
The man there said he loved m’ sound
He was ravin’ about how he loved m’ sound
Dollar a day’s worth

And after weeks and weeks of hangin’ around
I finally got a job in New York town
In a bigger place, bigger money too
Even joined the union and paid m’ dues

Now, a very great man once said
That some people rob you with a fountain pen
It didn’t take too long to find out
Just what he was talkin’ about
A lot of people don’t have much food on their table
But they got a lot of forks ’n’ knives
And they gotta cut somethin’

So one mornin’ when the sun was warm
I rambled out of New York town
Pulled my cap down over my eyes
And headed out for the western skies
So long, New York
Howdy, East Orange

Copyright © 1962, 1965 by Duchess Music Corporation; renewed 1990, 1993 by MCA

* * * *
A third song about his journey to the East was called Hard Times in New York Town, which no doubt circulated in bootleg collections and was later released on Bootleg Series #9: The Witmark Demos, displaying his familiarity with the Big Apple, as well as the creativity and earnestness of a very young Dylan. There's a live version, also, on Rare & Unreleased.

What I get a kick out of, besides the storytelling, is how the rhythm of the lyrics fits so neatly into Flatt & Scruggs' Beverly Hillbillies theme song from the TV show, 1962-1971

Hard Times In New York Town

Come you ladies and you gentlemen, a-listen to my song
Sing it to you right, but you might think it’s wrong
Just a little glimpse of a story I’ll tell
’Bout an East Coast city that you all know well
It’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

Old New York City is a friendly old town
From Washington Heights to Harlem on down
There’s a-mighty many people all millin’ all around
They’ll kick you when you’re up and knock you when you’re down
It’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

It’s a mighty long ways from the Golden Gate
To Rockefeller Plaza ’n’ the Empire State.
Mister Rockefeller sets up as high as a bird
Old Mister Empire never says a word
It’s hard times from the country
Livin’ down in New York town

Well, it’s up in the mornin’ tryin’ to find a job of work
Stand in one place till your feet begin to hurt
If you got a lot o’ money you can make yourself merry
If you only got a nickel, it’s the Staten Island Ferry
And it’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

Mister Hudson come a-sailin’ down the stream
And old Mister Minuet paid for his dream
Bought your city on a one-way track
’F I had my way I’d sell it right back
And it’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

I’ll take all the smog in Cal-i-for-ne-ay
’N’ every bit of dust in the Oklahoma plains
’N’ the dirt in the caves of the Rocky Mountain mines
It’s all much cleaner than the New York kind
And it’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

So all you newsy people, spread the news around
You c’n listen to m’ story, listen to m’ song
You c’n step on my name, you c’n try ’n’ get me beat
When I leave New York, I’ll be standin’ on my feet
And it’s hard times in the city
Livin’ down in New York town

Copyright © 1962, 1965 by Duchess Music Corporation; renewed 1990, 1993 by MCA

Lyrics for the songs were absconded from BobDylan.com. I believe there's a book by that name, Steal What You Love. If not, there ought to be.

Meantime, life goes on... (which is echoed in The Beatles' Ob La Di Ob La Da, which is itself of Kurt Vonnegut's refrain, "And so it goes."

And so it does.