Dylan

I too listened through Bob's The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album several times. It's hard for me to say which songs I like the best. I think that comes with time and repeated listening with intervals of not listening to the album for awhile in between. Initially I just like to listen the sound: the key, the pitch, the chords, the feel of the music. And then I listen to the words. So it's hard for me to judge the album as a whole so soon but for now and for our intent as a class on the Rhetoric of Vietnam, I'd say three songs stood out to me right away: tracks 1,3,and 6. For those of you who have yet to listened to this AWESOME album (You really should! There's so much wonderful insight and truth to be shared), that's Blowin' in the Wind, Masters of War, and A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall respectively.

I agree with Jeff, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall definitely sounds like a protest song. But I have to disagree with Jeff on a few other things but I'll only touch on one. I don't think "all these songs" are "light and good for easy listening". I think it can be said that all of the songs have a very folk feel to them, but Masters of War is faaaarrrr from being light. When I hear this song I hear pitch black, and I hear a dark lament of bitter resent in both spoken and instrumental feel. The song has a feeling of drear and oppression and is made up of minor chords which are used in music to create dark, evil, angry sounds. And if the feel and simply the sound of the music doesn't give you a dark impression, his words will. He sings "I hope that you die, and you're death will come soon...And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead."

I want to add that this song (Masters of War) is not protesting war by simply mentioning "big bombs", "fast bullets", and "blood", this song is an angry protest to a group with power that "hides behind walls and...behind desks" that "lie[s] and deceive[s]"- namely the government, and the wealthy, and the corruption that results from the two that bleed into one another. Dylan wants big brother to know he can see "through your brain", this governmental brain that controls it's limbs in blind sight until it's supply of limbs are exhausted and the "young people's blood flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud." He belts out his song in a powerful nasal grito that says to a deceitful government, we've had enough! The government has gone so far that "even Jesus" the very epitome of reprieve, "would never forgive what you do."

The song kind reminds me of CCR's "Fortunate Son." Masters of War speaks of a group of people (the speaker never mentions exactly WHO this group of people are) with power ("you that build the guns...bombs") that control from a far off places ("behind desks", "behind walls", "in mansions") away from the actual battle zone. The mansions suggest wealth, bombs and guns imply power, and desks imply authority, and the U.S. governemnt along with highly affluent individuals fit this description. CCR's song echo's the same awareness of an elite: a group of people ("the fortunate son", the child with "silver spoon in hand"), with power ("pointing the cannon", "the taxman") and control to "send YOU (the common man) down to war." Creedance's song says, "I ain't no senator son", "I ain't no fortunate one" and unlike the "millionaire's" son, "when the band plays 'Hail to the Cheif' Ooooooh they point the cannon at YOU."

OH OH OH... so one thing I noticed, (going back to Dylan) all of the songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album are played and sung by one person and one person only- good ol' Bob Dylan. Or at least from what I remember hearing. Did anyone notice that? The entire album was a solo. Maybe it's why he IS the freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

Blah blah blah blah.... I need to save my tongue for a rhetorical analysis or the another blog or something. AHHHHH. More later. I'm blah blah blah'ing away. PEOPLE, really, Give The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, a run through and listen to his words! If one song gave me so much to say, imagine what you could get out of the entire album. :) Super late, I'm going to bed.