Walkin' Into World War

Department of English “Walkin’ into World War III”: The Apocalyptic Death Theme in The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan Roger Ljunggren Bachelor’s degree project Literature Spring, 2020 Supervisor: Maria Zirra Abstract The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was released in 1963, during the Cold War. Nuclear apocalypse was a big fear at the time and the fright deeply influenced the album. Therefore, this essay argues that the record contains a poetic narrative, with the overarching theme of contemporary apocalyptic death. The poetic narrative reveals an allusion to Noah’s Ark and the story of Judas, which is not present if the songs are analyzed independently. The narrative consists of five parts: “Blowin’ in the Wind” deals with the uncertainty of the 1960s; “Masters of War” describes the arming of the younger generation to fight a nuclear war; the actual apocalyptic event is chronicled in “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”; “Talkin’ World War III Blues” narrates the post- apocalyptic event and the final part is “Corrina, Corrina”, which deals with the reproductive consequences. The material will be analyzed, and the conclusion supported, by recourse to historical contextualization and religious symbolism and allusions. The essay uses Beebee’s analysis of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1991) and Roos’ work on the entire Dylan canon from a thematic perspective (1982) to support the conclusions made, but compared to previous papers on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, this essay takes the original mode of music consumption into account and studies the album as a greater whole. Through an analysis of the entire record, allusions are encoded that is not evident if each song is interpreted independently. Keywords: Bob Dylan; The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan; 1960s; “Blowin’ in the Wind”; “Masters of War”; “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”; “Talkin’ World War III Blues”; “Corrina, Corrina”; Contemporary apocalyptic death theme Ljunggren 1 “And here he is… take him, you know him, he’s yours” said the presenter before Bob Dylan took the stage at a New Port Folk Festival in the 1960s. In a career spanning almost 60 years, Dylan has always seemed uncomfortable belonging to anyone or anything, with an extra disdain for the term “spokesman of a generation”, which the media kept attributing to him (Dylan 2005, 115). Spokesman or not, Dylan’s influence on popular music is incalculable. For his literary contributions, Dylan has been presented with the Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” (Svenska Akademien 2016). To begin with, it is important to describe Dylan’s political background. When Dylan’s musical journey started, the Korean war had ended, which, according to Dylan “was a cloud over everyone’s head” and “[t]he communist thing was still big and the Civil Rights movement was coming on” (Hillburn 2017, 464). All these topics would feature in Dylan’s writings during the 1960s. Dylan himself believes that the atom bomb fueled the events of the 1960s and the entire world that came after it. The fear of an imminent death made an impression on the world and the generation that grew up in it. The big mushroom cloud showed that indiscriminate mass murder was possible. War changed after the atom bomb. Previously, a direct line of sight was necessary to shoot someone (Wenner 2017, 486). The stakes were raised after the atom bomb, with a completely new level of possible destruction on a shorter timeframe. Radiation, caused by the blast, could make an area uninhabitable for a long period. The change in warfare and the fear of imminent death deeply influenced Dylan. It is therefore not odd that Dylan’s first album Bob Dylan contains a death theme. The album consists of two self-composed songs and eleven covers of old Ljunggren 2 traditional songs (Dylan 2016, 1). Three of these traditionals deal with death blatantly1 (Roos 1982, 104). After the first album, Dylan started recording his own material because “nobody else was writing what [he] wanted to sing” (Kleinman and Mogull 2017, 331). His efforts resulted in The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan in 1963, which is the subject for this essay; specifically, the contemporary, apocalyptic death theme in the album (Roos 1982, 106). For adequate clarity, it is important to define “contemporary, apocalyptic death theme”. This paper defines it as: death, which is a result of the complete destruction of the world. It is contemporary because apocalyptic fear is closely tied to the 1960s and the prospect of a nuclear war. Another key term is “poetic narrative”, which is defined as poems that chronologically follow a narrative. The poetic narrative appears in sequenced, bounded, poetic units, in this case songs. Finally, the narrative aspect is defined as a “distinct and coherent entity” (Heiden 2014, 269- 270), which contains a logical progression. Poetic narratives are scarcely examined in previous research on Bob Dylan. Beebee has analyzed Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” as an apocalyptic ballad (1991); this will be used to support some conclusions in this paper. Analysis of the larger Dylan canon has also been done. Roos argues that all persistent themes of the Dylan canon can be found on Dylan’s first album.2 These themes can be identified as the three agents of death: women, social prejudice, and the military-industrial establishment. The themes are, according to Roos, prevalent throughout Dylan’s entire career (1982, 103-104). These scholars study the songs as individual snippets when the fact that they belong to a greater whole (i.e. the albums themselves) is an important aspect. I argue that the record influences how each individual song should be interpreted and the interplay between the songs forms a greater narrative. This line of reasoning is connected to the idea of concept albums where the songs hold a larger purpose collectively than they do individually and “each succeeding track mak[es] sense in the larger whole” and provides a unified experience (Decker 2013, 100). If one analyzes The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, two allusions emerge. One tied to Noah’s Ark and the other connected to the story of Judas; these are not evident if the songs are analyzed independently. 1 The songs are “Fixin’ to Die”, “In My Time of Dying” and “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”. 2 The canon in this paper spans from Bob Dylan (1962) until the release of Slow Train Coming (1979). Ljunggren 3 Based on these two allusions that reinforce each other in several songs, I argue that The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan contains a couple of intertwining, poetic narratives. In other words, the album contains two separate story lines that intersect at times. One of the poetic narratives deals with Dylan’s relationship to women and his lifestyle, and the other one, which will be the sole focus of this paper, is apocalyptic death. I argue that several songs on the album contribute to this overarching theme of contemporary apocalyptic death. If read as a poetic narrative, allusions to Noah’s Ark and the biblical story of Judas become visible – a feat which would not be readily observable if the songs are analyzed independently of each other. The analyzed narrative consists of five songs. The first one, “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Dylan 2016, 53)3, shows the uncertainty of the 1960s. The song is a prologue. Questions are posed that the rest of the narrative aims to answer. The second part is the military arming of the younger generation, as depicted in “Masters of War” (L, 55-56). The third part is “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (L, 59-60), which shows the apocalyptic event that is caused by the previous militarization. The post-apocalypse is the fourth part. It is represented by “Talkin’ World War III Blues” (L, 64-65). The song shows how the narrator will orient himself after the apocalyptic event. The final part is “Corrina, Corrina” (L, 66), which is an epilogue. After the apocalyptic event, human reproduction is negatively affected. The Uncertain 1960s and “Blowin’ in the Wind” To begin with, the narrative’s prologue is “Blowin’ in the Wind”. The song raises questions that the rest of the narrative aims to answer. It shows the uncertainty of the 1960s, with its looming nuclear war, which, in turn, raises the question of permanence. How long will the world stay the same in a world with nuclear weapons? The 1960s was also an era of radical social transformation with the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements. In reference to this, in the song, Dylan asks how long it will take before oppressed people are free. The song also points out another specifically 1960s thematic, namely that of generational awareness and the generational conflict that is prevalent throughout the narrative. Each verse begins with three questions distributed over six lines. The last two lines provide the answer to the questions – that the “answer is blowin’ in the wind” (L, 3 From this point, to shorten the citation, “Dylan 2016” which refers specifically to The Lyrics: 1961– 2012 will be cited as “L” followed by the page number(s). Ljunggren 4 53). There is some debate on what it means. Roos argues that it urges for a move back to nature (1982, 106). He sees the song as aimed at the universal enemies of man’s vitality, such as warmongers and oppressors. These forces can be defeated by listening to the wind and living in harmony with nature. My interpretation, on the other hand is that if one studies the historical context, the threat of nuclear war was looming, which created uncertainty, and no one knew what would happen.

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