The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172268   Message #4169974
Posted By: Halfmoon Charlie
15-Apr-23 - 10:03 AM
Thread Name: Your favourite Protest song.
Subject: RE: Your favourite Protest song.
This was the 1st song I ever learned to play on the guitar, somewhere back around 1964. over 50 years later, I can almost remember the words.

I should not presume to apply a definition to Dylan's lyrics; he's a better writer than I'll ever be. That said, his lyric is meant to be sort of a run through of popular images. The application of seeing what's right in front of us and the fact that we misinterpret what we see, questioning why that is so. In all of the 6 examples Dylan uses in this song, he admits that he just doesn't know the answer.

The road. The judgement of men by others no matter what one might do or accomplish, possibly alluding to black and brown men always being considered less than men.

The white dove. Why the white dove "sails" the seas is a stretch of the image, I suppose, and I haven't thought it out too much beyond the similarities of that character in Gilgamesh that kept releasing the birds after the flood. The flood obviously used in quite a few mythologies, and the dove acquired the image of the calm after the storm. How many floods (of whatever type) will have to be endured before the image can be put to rest?

There might also be a correlation in the relationship of the images from verse to verse.

Was Dylan commenting on the overuse of all the images? He was always attempting to move into new territory using the popular forms.

The "wind" itself, was popular with him; Blowin In The Wind, Idiot Wind, and I can't leave out the line: You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. But maybe I'm the one that's reaching too far for the meanings.
-Charlie