American Sixties https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13687872

American Sixties https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13687872

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 15, Issue-IV, August 2024 ISSN: 0976-8165
www.the-criterion.com
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10448030
Bob Dylan: A Fierce Poetic Soul of the ‘People’ in American Sixties
Dr Anil Kumar
Department of English,
Central University of Jammu.
Article History: Submitted-07/07/2024, Revised-13/08/2024, Accepted-21/08/2024, Published-31/08/2024.
Abstract:
To experience the spirit of the American Sixties, long-haired hippies dancing at
Woodstock festival, protestors marching in at anti-war rally, it is imperative to note how
songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “The Times They Are a-Changin’” changed the face of
generation. The significance of awarding 2016 Nobel Prize to Bob Dylan for literature does
not lie so much in acknowledging of an individual poetic genius, as it does in reinstating the
idea of ‘popular as political’. Bob Dylan’s songs act about the protest movements of the
American 1960s also known as Turbulent Sixties. His hard-hitting lyrical trajectory
transformed the legacy of country folk music into new socially engaged and politically
provocative music. The paper tries to explore Dylan’s politically committed songs of 1960s
which articulated a vision of society that was radically different from the existing political
realities. It highlights the cultural resonance of Dylan’s radical lyricism amidst the
countercultural era. Dylan in these folk songs appropriates and interrogates everyday
struggles of the ‘subordinate,’ the ‘people’ or what Mathew Arnold called them as
“populace”. In particular, the paper explores the relevance of Dylan’s hard-hitting folk songs
during the Civil Rights’ Movement, anti-Vietnam War campaign and the Counterculture
spirit of American Sixties.
Keywords: Poetic Soul, American, hippies, music, radical lyricism, countercultural era.
Introduction
The late 1950’s and early 1960’s saw a renewed interest in folk music, and the
development of free jazz and avant-garde rock. From the political perspective, this period
was significant because of its general instability where the tensions determined by class,
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gender, race, sexuality, age group, and political ideology became the focal points for mass
campaigns and demonstrations.
The socio-cultural understanding of the political music is undertaken through the
critical perspective of Serge Denisoff’s approach on ‘folk’ songs and John Fiske’s critical
understand of the ‘Popular’ culture. ‘Popular’ culture is always defined, implicitly or
explicitly, in contrast to other conceptual categories: folk culture, mass culture, dominant
culture and working-class culture. Theoretically, popular culture brings into play a complex
combination of the different meanings of the term ‘culture’ along with the different meanings
of the term ‘popular’. John Fiske states that “popular culture is made by the people, not
produced by the culture industry” (Understanding Popular Culture 1).
Fiske, thus, defines, “culture as a constant process of producing meanings of and from
our social experience, and such meanings necessarily produce a social identity for the people
involved . . . within the production and circulation of these meanings lies pleasure”
(Understanding Popular Culture 30). Raymond Williams defines. “culture is a living, active
process: it can be developed only from within, it cannot be imposed from without or above”
(“Culture is Ordinary” 19). In a similar tone, Fiske creates a different space for the ‘people’
whom Arnold called ‘Populace’. The ‘people’ is not a stable sociological category. He says
“the people, the popular, the popular forces are the set of allegiances that cross all social
categories; various individuals belong to different popular formation at different times”
(Understanding Popular Culture 20). The development of the idea of popular culture is
linked to arguments about meaning and interpretation, which predate but become strikingly
evident in the debates over the mass culture. It is essential to distinguish whether it comes
from above or below or imposed. It is essential to trace the influence of commercialization
and industrialization on the popular culture. Fiske relates popular culture to a “culture of
conflict,” as it always involves the “struggle to make social meanings that are always in the
interest of subordinate and that are those not preferred by the dominant ideology” (20). Stuart
Hall states, “it is a site of contestation where everyday struggtle between the dominant and
subordinate groups are played out, won and lost” (“Notes on Deconstructing the ‘Popular’”
11).
Hall unsettles the very distinction between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture. He adds
thatd “transformations are at the heart of popular culture” (14). Hall points out that “one way
or another, ‘the people’ are frequently the object of ‘reform’” (27). Hall here makes a
distinction of the ‘people’ for being used as an object. Hall defines the value of “resistance
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and struggle” rather than “reform and transformation” (27). He views “transformation is the
key to the long protracted process of “moralisation” of the labouring classes” (27). Stuart
Hall shows that “oppressed, subordinate or minority groups can have a hand in the
construction of their own vibrant cultures and are not merely dupes: the fall guys in a social
system stacked overwhelmingly against them and dominated by Capitalist media and
commercial provision” (446).
Roszak’s The Making of a Counter Culture, traces the countercultural phenomenon
beyond the American streets. He delineates it within the European consciousness stretching
from Germany, England to France. He states that the “the heirs of an institutionalized Left-
wing legacy, the young radicals of Europe still tend to see themselves as the champions of
‘the people’ (meaning the working class) against the oppression of the bourgeoisie (meaning,
in most cases, their own parents)” (2). Central to his thesis, is the apparent complicity of the
dominant categories of political thought with what he calls the ‘technocracy’ (a managerial
regime in which the whole of industrial society is subordinated to the controls of a
technocratic elite) (56). He depicts that “the technocracy grows without resistance, even
despite its most appalling failures and criminalities, primarily because its potential critics
continue trying to cope with these breakdowns in terms of antiquated categories” (8-9).
Roszak contends to the nonconformist movement that challenged the dominant structure of
political parties like the Tory in England, the Republican in America, and the Communist in
France (85). The similar spirit of enquiry manifests in Dylan’s majority of radical lyricism
that interrogated dominant federal government of America.
Roszak highlights major parties of the Left opposition in Germany allowed
themselves to be co-opted into the mainstream respectable sphere. Despite, the minimal
number of students, who risked the wrath of the police, stood against the dominant system.
They stood for protecting the rights of ‘the people’. They joined the crusade beneath banners
bearing the names of Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg was a German-Polish anti –war Marxist,
philosopher and a revolutionary socialist. Capturing the praxis in Britain, Roszak opined, “as
for the British working class, the only cause that has inspired a show of fighting spirit on its
part during the sixties is the bloody-minded cry to drive the coloured immigrants from the
land” (The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society 3).
These raging young iconoclasts composed mainly of white, well educated, middle-
class young people who despite their relative privilege, came to reject the dominant values of
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American society. The Civil Rights Movement was one of the essential offshoots of the
counterculture wave. The movement called forth demands rooted in the tangible
improvement of existing reality, including desegregation of public facilities, voting rights,
pay equalization, and employment quotas. The countercultural ethos stressed more towards
intellectual and spiritual fulfilment. The urge and the search for the alternative forms of
society were chased via retreat from the conventional politics.
The political tensions in the Civil Rights Movement often drew young Black activists
into an alliance with the more idealistic counterculture elements. Its wide participatory bases
made the young activist brigades like the Students Non-violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), the white-led Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party
work together. The countercultural idealism was often the source of frustration for the young
activists. These activists were looking for concrete political change. They attempted to draw
the elements of counterculture into the orbit of the Civil Rights and anti-war protest
movements.
Dylan’s countercultural forays must be traced within the New Left, a neo-Marxist
school of thought. The New Left was a broad political movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
Unlike the orthodox Marxist, the New Left took a vanguard approach towards wide range of
reforms ranging from civil rights, gay rights, gender roles and other social injustice. Dylan’s
trajectory of youth mirrors the early signs of the troubled counterculture generation. Dylan
spent much of his youth drifting through the Southwestern states, working and exchanging
songs at travelling carnivals. His early streak of wonder is apparent when he decides to leave
home at the early age of eighteen. Dylan pursued much of his artistic pursuits in Greenwich
Village in New York City. The location served as the epicentre for bohemian artists and
singers of the age. The place, thus, became the ultimate refuge for his alternative artistic
pursuits.
Richard Carlin, an expert of country music and a critic, states that Dylan’s country
song reflected folk tradition with “unique events and attitudes of his time” (Folk 1).
Elaborating upon the definition of folk song and music, Carlin further states that “folk music
means many different things to different people” (Folk 10). Commenting upon folk songs
during war time and post-war scenario, he reflects the folk music genre as a significant voice
of the ‘people’ (10). He further adds that “folk songs not only connect the performers,
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whether professional or amateurs, and their audiences to a fascinating historic past but also to
the vibrant present” (13).
Folk songs have been set under some definitional criteria. Harold Lasswell, an
American political scientist, in his World Revolutionary Propaganda, points out that the
“author of the folk song is anonymous” (39). He traces the impact of Dylan’s songs as his
“songs are orally transmitted from one generation to the next” (39). These songs create some
meaning in the life of people. He further states that the song must experience verbal alteration
during generational transmission. Concentrating upon the depth of the folk music through
“oral transmission”, he expresses the feelings of folk communities about their concerns and
issues (39).
Dylan in his early age experimented on different styles of music. Most of his
influences were from the musical genres of country, folk, rhythm and blues. Dylan’s deep
inclination towards traditional American folk music stemmed from his folk music idol,
Woody Guthrie. Guthrie, an itinerant folk singer in the age of the Dustbowl and the Great
Depression, was one of Dylan’s early heroes. He depicts his committed allegiance towards
himself by stating, “What I was into was a traditional stuff with a capital T and it was far
away from the mondo teeno scene as you could get” (Chronicles: Volume One, 228). He
opines, “I could make things up on the spot all based on folk music structure and it came
natural . . . outside of Woody Guthrie, I didn’t see a single living soul who did it” (228).
Dylan often highlighted his heavy indebtedness towards Guthrie and wrote many early folk
songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind”. By keeping in mind his melody in particular and his
persona in general, he states, “My life had never been the same since I’d first heard Woody
on a record player in Minneapolis. . . when I first heard him it was like a million-megaton
bomb had dropped” (229). Dylan even adopted Guthrie’s “Okie accent” (a term used by
Journalist Ben Reddick for the descendents of Oklahoma, who were affected by the ‘Dust
Bowl’ in 1935 and later moved to New York) (Swiss and Sheehy 22). Rodnitzky writes,
“Whereas Woody had drifted around the country to escape small-town depression, Dylan
adopted Guthrie to escape small-town monotony” (Minstrels of the Dawn, 105). Ed Cray
depicts how “Guthrie made a stirring expression of the popular front’s claim on the nation, as
what was at stake was national self-definition” (Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody
Guthrie, 151).
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In his initial composition, Dylan was not interested in producing any other songs than
folk songs. Suggesting his deep allegiance towards folk music, he contends, “I had no song in
my repertoire for commercial radio anyway” (Chronicles: Volume One 34). He visualized the
“songs about debauched bootleggers, mothers that drowned their own children, Cadillacs that
only got five miles to the gallon . . . rivers weren’t for radiophiles” (34). He highlights the
struggle by stating, “There was nothing easy-going about the folk songs I sang” (34). To
validate the struggle through songs, R. Serge Denisoff, a cultural theorist, argues that “an
economy where the question of jobs or basic necessities of life are rarely raised produces a
wider range of protests and a culturally aware demography” (Folk Music and the American
Left 438).
In a similar tradition, Dylan’s songs voiced the uneasiness of life and protested
against the system through his lyrics. Jerome Roberts opined that “his music jumped out of
the tiny radio like pure energy” (Bob Dylan: Voice of a Generation 7). He further says that
his songs “voiced the dream” of the entire nation (7). Carrying on the folk music legacy,
Dylan began his musical carrier in the early sixties. Bob Dylan is often portrayed as the
guiding spirit of the Counterculture of sixties. His youthful years in particular were touched
by its credo of non-conformity. They identified with its generational amalgam of music, drug,
sexual freedom, anti-war, anti- racist and anti-commercial sentiments. Dylan’s compositions
dealt with civil rights, race, poverty, war and everyday hardship of working class ‘people’.
The intellectual climate in the 1950s was very stifling. The post- World War II
scenario had disturbed the whole world, particularly America. The space for alternative
perspective constantly shrank and due to that intellectuals felt suffocated. The level of
material wealth was increasing because of the post –war tension, particularly in the white
communities. The folk literature author, Robert Cantwell writes, “The 1950s was
perplexingly divided by the intermingling of an emerging mass society and a decaying
industrial culture” (When we were Good: The Folk Revival 319). Dylan emphatically raised
the growing concern of the age through his folk lyricism. Anthony Scaduto juxtaposes the
stifling conformity of Dylan’s birth place Hibbing against music where he argues, “opened
Bob Zimmerman’s head as it opened the heads of so many growing up at the end of the
repressed fifties” (Bob Dylan 5). To understand how music created the path, Lawrence
Epstein defines “Dylan found it Hibbing conformist, culturally oppressive, a place in which
he couldn’t be creative enough — music, again, provided a refuge from cultural stagnation”
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(Political Folk Music in America from its Origins 143). Music, for Dylan, became a form of
travelling.
Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” became the anthem for 1960’s Civil rights movement.
His most celebrated song, “Blowin’ in the wind” was so powerful that it became song of the
era. The ambiguous refrain of the song, “the answer, my friend, is “Blowin’ in the Wind”,
seemed to be groping for the un-nameable. The refrain, in a big way touched a mood
explored in Dylan’s work through the rupture and riptides of the sixties as it stated below:
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you can call him a man?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned?

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.
(“Blowin’ in the wind.” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963).
Dylan strongly blasted with his chilling Civil Rights songs, “Oxford Town” with the
theme of racial violence. Dylan here posed his lyrical effrontery to the incident happened in
University of Mississippi, when a student, James Meredith sought enrolment as first black
student which followed strong white opposition across the South; “All because his face was
brown” (Ricks 46).
Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev’rybody’s got their heads bowed down
He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and Clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown

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Better get away from Oxford Town
(“Oxford Town.” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963).
Just when the students in large numbers were taking up action against the Pentagon and
weapon industry, “Masters of War”, unmasked the military-industrial nexus:
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
(“Masters of War.” The Freewheelin’, Columbia, 1963).
Conclusion
For years, the reviewers of popular culture have referred to Dylan as the voice and the
generation’s conscience. His popularity reached its pinnacle when he received the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan is uncontested poets laureate of the rock ‘n’ roll era, pre-
eminent singer and song writer of modern times. He is an abiding presence in the American
cultural history. He not only influenced American public but also has inspired other rising
singers of the era. He served his life as inspiration for socially conscious artists like Joan
Baez, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen and many others. Dylan’s use of
prophecy, parable, accusation, doggerel, metaphor and confession make him a poet of a
unique kind. His songs are legitimate means for making space in the academic world. His
songs interrogate the structured fret notion of socio–cultural issues like class, race, and
slavery. The Topical musical streak of his songs has long lasting impact on the ‘people’ and
that’s why he is labelled as a “Spokesman of the Generation”.

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