If the film I’m Not There says anything at all, it’s that Bob Dylan is a man who is constantly wrestling with his identity. Freewheelin’ showed a Dylan who, despite his numerous social concerns and accusations, wasn’t jaded by them, and faced the terrors of life with a wry smirk and a girl on his arm. But three of the thirteen songs in particular were lifted from the lucid post-apocalyptic improvisations and ballads to badge Dylan as the spokesman of the anti-war/civil rights/anti-establishment movement. And as reluctantly as history tells Bob Dylan accepting that role, it’s often neglected that he wrote an entire album that fully embraced the role of Protest Singer Laureate.
bob dylan
Record #51: Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963)
There’s very, very little I can say about this record that hasn’t already been said. As a twenty-five year old, I can speak very little to the importance of when Bob Dylan emerged from the New York’s Greenwich Village and hit the national (worldwide?) stage, bringing folk music into the popular music sphere. This album in particular is iconic in every sense, from the oft-imitated album cover to the legends that occupy the tracklist–A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, Masters of War, Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, and Blowin’ In The Wind, arguably Dylan’s most famous song (but you don’t need me to tell you that). It was a landmark both musically and politically, rocketing Dylan into his reluctant role of Spokesman of a Generation.