(This performance by Pearl Jam.)
While The Beatles were singing: “Love, love me, do,” Peter, Paul, and Mary -along with Joan Baez – were spreading the Word according to Bob Dylan. While they paved the way with the, in retrospect, surprisingly gentle “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Dylan went on to write and sing increasingly angry and passionate songs: “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “With God on Our Side,” and “Masters of War,”
In Masters of War, accompanied only by his guitar and harmonica, Dylan sang,
You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world;
Like’s it your little toy.
Dylan hit a nerve for me, opened a door into a trove of barely distant memories when I was a grade-schooler and would be told to huddle under my desk in case of attack. I had grown up with Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove and had lived through the endless grade-B Japanese horror films where everything was mutated from some form of radiation. I had seen the photo spreads in Life showing people who built bomb shelters in their back yard. The fact is, I was frightened by it all. Now it was being put to me that there were people out there who were responsible for this. 1 started to get angry. (From AN AMERICAN STORY)
