About The Song
Bob Dylan wrote “Blowin’ in the Wind” in April 1962, reportedly in just 10 minutes at a Greenwich Village café called The Commons, inspired by a political discussion with friends that faded into silence. The song was first performed publicly on April 16, 1962, at Gerde’s Folk City, initially with two verses, before Dylan added a middle verse later that month. Its lyrics, published in May 1962 by Broadside magazine, draw from the African-American spiritual “No More Auction Block,” which Dylan acknowledged as the melody’s source, a folk tradition he described as “using what’s been handed down.” The song was recorded on July 9, 1962, and released on May 27, 1963, as the opening track of Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, by Columbia Records.
The album, with 11 of 13 tracks as Dylan’s originals, marked his shift from folk covers to songwriting, establishing him as a voice of the 1960s counterculture. While Dylan’s version didn’t chart, Peter, Paul and Mary’s cover, released in June 1963, hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, topped the Middle-Road chart for five weeks, and earned two Grammy Awards in 1964 for Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group. Their performance at the 1963 March on Washington, attended by 250,000 people, cemented the song’s status as an anthem of the civil rights movement.
The song’s rhetorical questions about peace, freedom, and societal ignorance resonated widely, though Dylan rejected the “protest song” label, insisting it was “just another song.” Its universal appeal led to covers by artists like Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Joan Baez, and Dolly Parton, with Cooke’s 1964 “A Change Is Gonna Come” inspired by its resonance with racial justice. In 1994, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it No. 14 on its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
A 1963 Newsweek article sparked a rumor that Dylan bought the song from Lorre Wyatt, a New Jersey high school student who falsely claimed authorship after performing it from Broadside’s lyrics. Wyatt later admitted the deception in 1974, and Dylan dismissed the rumor in 2012. In 2021, Dylan re-recorded the song with producer T Bone Burnett, using new Ionic Original technology, and the unique disc sold for £1.5 million at Christie’s in 2022. The song’s legacy endures, performed by Dylan at a 1997 Catholic church congress and referenced by Pope John Paul II, who linked its “wind” to spiritual truth.
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Lyric
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?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they’re forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the windHow many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
How many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the windHow many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind