Protest songs and the power of music :

Music was always used as a form of power and it still is. In the 20th century, there was a period when music was particularly used as a form of power, it was in the 60's with the hippie rock movement. This movement started in the U.S when its younger population started to take a critical look at their country; the Vietnam war, segregation, mass consumption. Young people didn't want their country to be like that. Art and mainly music immediately started to be part of the movement with emblematic figures like the Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix and many more who sang what we call protest songs.

We are going to pick one of the most emblematic protest songs ever written, "Blowin' in the wind" by Bob Dylan.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
How many years must some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
And how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see - the answer
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

How many times can a man look up
Before he sees the sky?
How many ears must one person have
Before he can hear people cry?
And how many deaths will it take 'till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friends, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Oh, the answer, my friends, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

 Bob Dylan was one of the most engaged singers from the 60's, he was not only a singer but also a poet, he indeed received the Nobel price for literature in 2016. "Blowin' in the wind" is a song from 1963 and grasps many subjects of the time but mostly the one of war.

Bob Dylan asks questions about war and other atrocities committed at the time, for example "how many ears must one person have before he can hear people cry", he wants to say that people don't see the atrocities lived and committed by the americans since two years in Vietnam, they don't hear "the cries". The first verse is about segregation "How many roads must a man walk down

Before you call him a man?", he surely talks about the civil rights marches that were done by the African-Americans to obtain their rights, to be called "man". In the chorus he says "the answer is blowing in the wind", he wants to say that the answers are just right in front of us, waiting for someone to grab them. 

 We can totally say this song is a form of power, we saw the power of death and the power of guns, well this song is a weapon itself. Bob Dylan uses his song lyrics to fight against guns and war. I don't think all these protest song didn't play a role at the time, young americans in Vietnam listened to this kind of music and it may have had an effect on their motivation to fight, and the consequence is that they lost war. Black people obtained their rights at that time and artists like Bob Dylan played a great role in that fight.

 I wanted to mention Joan Baez too, she was Bob Dylan's girlfriend for years and wrote many of his songs, I think myself that she was even more engaged then him, she participated to many humanitarian projects and she still acts for humanity today.