Bob Dylan's The Sixties Counterculture

The decade of the 1960s can be said to be a subversion of the United States. From the civil rights movements, anti-Vietnam war demonstration, Kennedy’s presidency, to the assassination of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, the impact of the surging social movements and political turmoils to the American society is extremely far-reaching. There has been a lot of researches on the various social movements in this period. However, people 's attention seems to be limited to another important cultural phenomenon of this period, that is the prosperity of rock & roll. This paper is intended to analyze the

Popular folk artist gave their own opinions on war, racism civil rights, justice, and the “establishment” through their music (Holland107). The suggestion of rebellion interested the baby boom generation. Two of the top folk artists from the 1960s were Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. Joan Baez was referred to as a political singer/activist and she was known as the “Queen of Folk music” (Joan Baez). Bob Dylan created plenty of politically based songs that directly warned specific areas of politics, like congressmen and senators, who wanted to stop the civil rights and peace movements (Holland 107-108).

     Rock ‘n’ roll music came of age in the sixties which was a period in the nation’s history when a young generation expressed their anguish and sense of alienation to the country’s social establishments by searching for new answers to the age-old questions concerning the meaning of life, the value of the individual, and the nature of truth and spirituality (Harris 306). The classic rock music which was created during this period gave form and substance to this search. Songs such as “My Generation” by the Who recorded the keen sense of alienation that young people felt from the past and the “Establishment” and it also showed the keen sense of community they felt among themselves.      Classic albums such as the Beatles’ “White Album,” the Who’s “Who’s Next,” Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited, and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” capture what was essential about the time because they were both a result of that time and because they helped to produce it by reinforcing the younger generation’s feelings of alienation and separation.      Although

The 1960’s was an era of revolution and social change in the United States. Painters, dancers, actors, musicians and many more artists all wanted to portray societies immoral issues through their art. Musicians played a very prominent role in providing society with an outlet on the importance of this change. Within these musicians was a folk rock singer and songwriter by the name of Robert Allen Zimmerman, or as America knows him, Bob Dylan. He is known and honored around the world for his influence on popular music and culture, however, he is much more than that (Wood 313). The beginning of Bob Dylan’s career as a singer and songwriter was marked by his repetitive emphasis on social change throughout his protest songs which include “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War,” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”; with each song, Dylan exposes many issues that affected, not one, but many lives as he aimed to spread social and political consciousness to society.

The Sixties were an exciting revolutionary period of time with great social and technological change. Some people called it the “decade of discontent” because of the race riots in Detroit and La, and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Other people called it the decade of “peace, love, and harmony”. It was called this because of the peace movement and the emergence of the flower children. (Britannica) The sixties were about assassination, unforgettable fashion, new styles of music, civil rights, gay and women’s liberation, Vietnam, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, peace marches, sexual freedom, drug experimentation, and Woodstock. All of these components caused a revolutionary change in the world of popular Music.

One of the social changes in the 1950s was rock-n-roll music which led to teens rebelling against the social norms and being able to freely express themselves. In fact, much of the older generation looked down upon rock-n-roll because they considered it tasteless and music from the devil. While in the 1960s, music was considered a way to really express yourself and tell the world about how you really felt about the current situation. Much of the 60’s music was used to protest the Vietnam War and show the government that they did not want to go off to war to fight. The 1950s was a decade filled with change and prosperity while the 1960s were the years of rebellion and

While it is widely rumored that many of Bob Dylan’s songs were written while he was under the influence of various drugs, I’m not so sure that those rumors are accurate. Following a 1991 interview conducted by Paul Zollo with Bob Dylan, Zollo stated that “There’s an unmistakable elegance in Dylan’s words, an almost biblical beauty” and that “Dylan’s answers give you a lot to think about while not necessarily revealing much about the man”. (Zollo 2) The same can be said with regard to many of the lyrics of Dylan’s songs. The lyrics to “Mr. Tambourine Man”, for example, are wildly descriptive and sometimes confusing and can leave a listener (or a reader) open to many different interpretations, some more complex than others, with no real meaning ever being clearly stated.

“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas.” This was pronounced by Bob Dylan, a folk musician of the sixties: an era in which the music heavily influenced the culture of the time and continues to influence the music and culture today. The music and artists of the 60s influenced radio and television, the music, fashion and lifestyles of the people, particularly youth, heavily influenced the popular culture Australia, USA, Britain and other Western Countries.

The rise of counterculture in the 1960s was caused in large part by the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, military conscription, and the teenagers of affluent middle-class parents. The teenagers of those families wanted more than anything else to experience life to its fullest, before it was too late. The irony was that “ behaviors by counterculture youth were and are an easy target for criticism, especially on the part of those eager to belittle the decade’s significance ( Morgan; 170). There were two waves of the counterculture (hippie) movement; the first dealt with the shock of JFK’s assassination, government aid to Vietnam, the student sit-ins and the militant stance of the Black Panthers. All of which caused a weariness to hippie-dome

The early 1960s was a time of extreme social issues such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement; everyone was looking for their own voice in this time of adversity. A young Bob Dylan arises to the spotlight and sings songs speaking of protest and originality, expressing societal dissatisfaction felt by not only himself but by his entire generation. In the 1960s Dylan wrote many protest songs that people of his generation found themselves connecting to, leading way to a counterculture aside from popular music which also paved a way for introspective song writing.

The Nineteen Sixties were a time of grand turmoil in the United States. The nation almost came apart at the seams many times throughout the decade. The government was involved in a plethora of things at the time that the general population did not agree with. The most important was the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was the most publicly protested war in the history of the country. There were many new forms of protesting used at this time. The most mainstream and effective way of protest was through song. The lyrics of the songs of the sixties were laced with anti-government and anti-war messages that were sometimes hidden and sometimes direct. The generation responsible for the new music was the Baby Boomers. These were the

The 1960’s was one of the most controversial decades in American history because of not only the Vietnam War, but there was an outbreak of protests involving civil and social conditions all across college campuses. These protests have been taken to the extent where people either have died or have been seriously injured. However, during the 1960’s, America saw a popular form of art known as protest music, which responded to the social turmoil of that era, from the civil rights movement to the war in Vietnam. A veritable pantheon of musicians, such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan sang their songs to encourage union organizers to protest the inequities of their time, creating a diverse variety of popular

The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and

During the 1960s Music was heavily influenced by the political and social events happening at the time. At this time civil rights movements were common as many people were trying to spread the emancipation of racism and segregation. As a result the music of the time tended to reflect this counterculture of peace. This “culture” encompassed civil rights, anti-establishment and, inciting revolution. This was a vital time in history for civil rights activists as well as anti-war revolutionaries and the music industry. From folk music to rock music, everyone was affected by the war and chose to express it through the most international form of art, music. Anti-war activists and counterculture enthusiast craved the music that truly expressed

Duluth Minnesota, May 24th 1941 Robert Allen Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) was born. 69 Years and over 45 albums later Bob Dylan has completely altered the face of popular music since his debut as a fresh faced folk singer in 1962. His early career forged him into an informal chronicler and then he later developed into an apparently reluctant figurehead of social unrest [Gray, 2006] and became a voice for a generation. His songs have been covered by many artists in a wide span of genres and he has remained a prominent and highly influential figure in the history of popular music over the past five decades. [Gates, David, 1997]