Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Imagine: Everyday thousands of people get killed in a war no-one asked for. Friends and family are send to a horrible place with little chance you’ll ever see them again. This war, a useless and disgusting war started without any reasons and only goes on because the leaders of your country are too proud to make it end.

For millions of American citizens this nightmare became truth. In 1964 the American president Johnson started sending soldiers to Vietnam. At the end of the war in 1972, it is estimated that, in total, over 2,5 million people on both sides were killed.

As the war continued, the American people got more and more unsatisfied and angry at their government. They wanted the war to stop, it had been going on long enough and too many people had been killed, president Johnson, however, was too proud to give in.

During the war, protest songs became a real hit. Bob Dylan was one of those protest singers, he was a fervent fighter for civil rights and used his songs to convey his message, his cry for freedom. One of the songs he wrote, was “Blowin’ in the Wind”. This song was written in 1962, when the war had not yet started, but was used, a couple years later, as a protest song against the war.

“Blowin’ in the Wind” starts with a couple of questions:

How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?

Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail

Before she sleeps in the sand?

Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly

Before they're forever banned?

He asks the first couple of questions so he can put the last question, the one that has to do with war, in the same row, as if there is no difference between them. The answer