“If you look closely”: the Bob Dylan song he thought everyone got wrong
Bob Dylan was never one to sit down and explain what his songs were really about. There are moments that might be as cut and dry as it gets on albums like Blood on the Tracks, but he was born and raised in the folk tradition, and that usually meant making songs that could be interpreted in many different ways depending on who was singing along to them. Although Dylan did have a streak of making songs calling out politicians, he did admit that there were times when his fans had him all wrong.
However, after going through all of his interviews from around that time, I see that Dylan doesn’t seem like a man who wants to be “understood” by the masses. He pulled off the attitude of a lowly drifter going from town to town and seeing what life had to bring, so that didn’t always lend itself to him being a reliable narrator of his own life when anyone asked him about where he had been before.
Outside of being known as more of a myth than a man, though, Dylan was looking to tell parables about the horrors that come with humanity. While he never directs any of the attention to attack someone strictly, the best parts of his albums are when he can write short stories with subtle life lessons in them, like talking about the horrors that come from assault weapons on ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ or how everyone should treat each other with respect on ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’.
But Dylan never looked to preach from a pulpit every time he sang. He never claimed to be the moral police when it comes to his material, but it’s clear that his best work has led a lot more people to think about what’s going on in the world and whether or not they want to do something about it during their lifetime or simply roll over and let the status quo be enforced even further.
On the surface, ‘Masters of War’ might be the best example of him striking back against the warmongering titans at the top of the food chain. While he doesn’t mention any names specifically, hearing him go on about the terrors of people that strike first and ask questions later paints them to be despicable people who would rather watch innocent people die than sacrifice their places of power.
Then again, Dylan said that he never saw his tune in that light, saying, “Every time I sing it, someone writes that it’s an antiwar song. But there’s no antiwar sentiment in that song. I’m not a pacifist. I don’t think I’ve ever been one. If you look closely at the song, it’s about what Eisenhower was saying about the dangers of the military-industrial complex in this country.” Given how much Dylan was attuned to the mechanics of war, though, it’s clear that there’s something very specific about what he was saying.
There are still pieces that come off as pacifistic in his lines, but looking at the creating the biggest weapon that could ever be hurled at the enemy comes from the dangers that come with building something like the atomic bomb or seeing people find new and interesting ways to reduce their enemies to ash.
However, those misconceptions might be the reason why Dylan was compelled to write something like ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’. Even though many artists and creative people claim to have him all figured out by listening to his music, Dylan pretty much ensured to everyone that they were never going to get a glimpse into the full human being underneath all of those lines of text.
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