First, thanks to Hawk for the general Dylan explanations, no one does it better. Then to my old friend Barry for moving this into the real realm of understanding. Finally, if at this point you don't "get it"......that's okay of course. You didn't have to be here in the US at the time or involved in The Movement or an SDS member or a Vet Against the War or a SNCC worker to "get it".........but that helps. So as a favor to an aging and angry radical, try this.

Forget the song as often done, lyrically and sweetly. Covered by an incredibly broad range of artists, the universality of it became apparent, but let's skip all of those often silly versions and talk about what hooked the generation of radicals running amok as it were in the US at the time. We heard something different and it may have been what Dylan meant.....or not.

Get out the words and read them with a headful of anger. Read every line with the inflection of "How long is this shit going to go on?" Get pissed and read on! Now ask "Why the fuck can't the gawdamn government quit lying to us and end this fuckin' war?" Beat your hands on the table and chant "HEY-HEY...LBJ......How Many Kids Did You KILL Today?" Can you see the marine lying face down in the jungle mud?   See the little girl on the road with her clothes and most of her skin burned off? Now sing, "How many deaths will it take til he knows that too many people have died?" Can you see the fresh faces of four little girls in Birmingham now blown to bits? See the Blacks knocked to the ground and rolled along by Bull Connor's fire hoses? Now see if there is any sweetness left to sing the first line. "How many roads must a man walk down befrore you call him a man?"

PPM probably got the sweetness ball rolling because their harmonies and blends were so soaring and beautiful. But watch an early performance and see the looks on their faces, the hardness of Mary Travers' eyes and mouth, and tell me they did not see the anger. Hopefully now you can see the anger and feel it too and somewhere in there perhaps you can "get it" like many of us did then. The answer was blowin' in the wind and we mostly couldn't grab it and perhaps it was futile to try.........but we did.

For me, that's what it meant.

Spaw.......Aging Radical