Where Has Dylan Gone?

By: Emily Stepnowsky
Posted In: Opinion

“They want my treasure so they get their pleasures from my photo/You could see you, you can’t squeeze me/I ain’t easy, I ain’t sleazy/I got reasons why I tease ’em/Boys just come and go like seasons.” These words, from pop artist Fergie, are among those on the lips of today’s youth and constantly streaming through the radio; words of frivolity are reflecting a lifestyle of ease, but what about the lifestyles of those serving our country? The number of deaths that resulted from the senseless violence in Vietnam is 58,148, according to a History Channel affiliated website, and according to a liberal politics website, as of March 1 of this year 3,205 American soldiers have been killed and 24,042 have been seriously wounded in the War on Iraq. For America, the 60s was a generation flawed by a far-reaching period of civil rights bigotry and social turmoil. All people wanted was to exist in a state of love, unity, and freedom when violence was swarming around them; so the youth of America looked to music as an outlet and as a voice, but where have they gone? Where are our Bob Dylans, where is our Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young of today?

Sure, there are those na’ve drones who go along with any command that comes from Washington D.C., but like I said, they are drones. Those people are most likely the ones unaffected by the turmoil; the ones too concerned with themselves to open up a newspaper and take notice. I can understand the feeling that you might have in that you live here, so you support your leader because he must know best — maybe not though. The nationalists, who trust that our government does no wrong are more than likely the family that good old George W. has left behind in Texas. I am pretty certain they should be changing their names..

‘Change’ was what Bob Dylan’s “message” songs were all about. Bob Dylan used his songs to communicate with America’s youth. He used lyrics that did not necessarily contain political content, but still managed to convey a highly ideological message. In Dylan’s “Masters of War” he uses words such as, “You hide in your mansion/ as young people’s blood flows out of their bodies/ and is buried in the mud.But there’s one thing I know/ though I’m younger than you /even Jesus would never forgive what you do.”(Dylan circa 1963). Clearly Dylan was speaking harshly to the hierarchy of America at the time. He implies in the song that those who lead our country are more willing to allow young people to fight their battles. But this is merely because they are a safe distance away from the proverbial (and literal) line of fire.

Today it seems that the nation as a whole would shy away from the line of fire. Instead of having radio stations filter tunes of meaning into the airwaves, we have been reduced to a societal norm of nonsense. Every time I turn on my car I can pretty much be guaranteed to hear Fergie’s “Glamorous” filled with such incendiary prose like “We flying first class/Up in the sky poppin’ champagne/Livin’ my life in the fast lane and I won’t change/ For the glamorous/Oh the flossy, flossy.” I am sorry, but what again is a flossy, flossy? Oh right, it must be some new gadget you get from the dentist after your yearly cleaning. We have come to a point in time where we are lost as a culture, paying more attention to what type of champagne “Hollywood’s finest” are drinking than the turmoil going on overseas. It is pretty pathetic.

Musical figures of the past brought to light governmental ignorance. Their lyrics demonstrated how the nation’s leaders wanted to turn their heads away from the violence that surrounded the various protests that came to define the Vietnam era. Neil Young wrote the song “Ohio” in reference to the campus protest that resulted in four youths being killed by the National Guard. In the song he says “Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we’re finally on our own/this summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio” (Young circa 1970). Concerning the protest at Kent State, then President Nixon said: “.and here they are, burnin’ up the books, I mean, stormin’ around about this issue, I mean you name it – get rid of the war, there’ll be another one” (Nixon, circa a speech from 1970). How right he was. These are the types of words that impressed upon the dissidents in society that America was being run by an obstinate group who could not hear the people’s plea.

Protest music did not originate in the 1960s however. “We shall all be free some day/Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome some day/We shall live in peace some day/Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome some day.” Lyrics such as these littered the land during labor strikes in the 1940s and were later developed in civil rights movements of the ’60s. Music has always been the gateway to great movements in America, so why have things changed now?

The main change seems to be that this generation appears to be okay with the way things are. We have come to an impasse; we find ourselves either singing along to songs about broken hearts and cheating lovers or the promiscuous girl across the room.

So much for the broken hearts of families across the country having their children and loved ones sent home to them in body bags.

The flower children of the 60s found an outlet in music, producing songs that articulated their need for personal independence and societal harmony. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to put down this paper. Now go to your record collection (or if necessary the record store) and put Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” on your car radio. At this time please turn the volume up, very high and let the message songs be found again.