An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 17 | THE URBAN FOLK REVIVAL 437

K The fi nal concert in the

1963 Newport Folk Festival

ended with the singing

of the spiritual “We Shall

Overcome” by many of the

participants, including (left

to right) Peter, Paul, and

Mary (Paul Stookey, Mary

Travers, Peter Yarrow),

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan,

Rutha Mae Harris, Charles

Neblett, Cordell Reagon,

Bernice Johnson, and Pete

Seeger. Standing at Seeger’s

left but not visible in this

picture was actor and folk

singer Theodore Bikel.

Dylan’s years as a protest singer reached their peak with his third album,

The Times They Are a-Changing (recorded in 1963 and released early in 1964). The

title song is an anthem to the generation gap that throws down the gauntlet to

older Americans, declaring that parents cannot really know daughters and sons

who have already joined other young comrades in rejecting older values. Dylan’s

voice—nasal, a bit thin, uncultivated in sound but with clear declamation of the

words—evokes Guthrie’s spirit, as do his acoustic guitar playing and the song’s

loping triple meter. Another “us and them” song, “With God on Our Side,” sneers

at those who would use religion to justify militaristic violence. Like the previous

album’s “Masters of War,” it paints a picture of military leaders as thoroughly evil.

By comparison, “Only a Pawn in Their Game” (LG 17.6) is quite subtle. Its subject

is the 1963 murder of Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Although the

s on g ’s op en i n g l i ne s sl a m home t he mu r der ’s br ut a l it y, it do e s not g o on to denou nce

the Klansman who pulled the trigger. Rather, it portrays the murderer as himself a

victim of manipulation by corrupt politicians and racist ideologues who exploit the

poor and ignorant whites who do their dirty work. Dylan fi rst sang the song pub-

licly at a voter registration rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, where he appeared with

Pete Seeger. The mostly black audience joined in heartily with Seeger’s “If I Had a

Hammer,” but what they made of Dylan and his song, which replaces the topical

song’s anticipated call to action with a mood of angry fatalism, remains unkown.

Although Dylan uses the strophic form of the folk ballad in “Only a Pawn in

Their Game,” he treats it as a fl exible container for his lyrics. That is, the music

can contract or expand to encompass varying numbers of poetic lines in each

stanza. As in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” the device used here is a short musical

phrase that can be repeated an indefi nite number of times to accommodate the

varying stanza lengths. Musically, those varying repetitions build tension that is

then released in the next phrase, which ends each stanza with the same words,

forming a short refrain.

Even as Bob Dylan emerged as the urban folk revival’s most successful musi-

cian, his songs reveal an artistic personality at odds with that movement. His

transition away from the folk revival’s ethos may be seen in his appearances

at the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963, 1964, and 1965. In the 1963 festival’s fi rst

LG 17.6

Dylan at Newport

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