Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm"

When I first heard the song "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan, I immediately noticed how it was upbeat and had an underlying message. A lot of the lyrics represent resistance and not wanting to work for Maggie or any of her family, which could mean that he is resisting racism and discrimination. The first lyric of the song is "I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more." This lyric is also repeated throughout the song, and he continues on to say "it's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor." While this song may sound specific to being a slave, I also think it is pretty universal and you can interpret the lyrics as a way of resisting anything. In the video of him singing this song live, he is so passionate and you can tell that he wants to get a message across, just like he does in a lot of his music. I find this song as well as Bob Dylan in general so interesting because a lot of his music was put out with reason other than to just entertain. I looked more into him online and found an article titled "70 Reasons why Bob Dylan is the most important figure in pop-culture history." Some of these reasons were mentioned in the movie we watched in class, but some of the most interesting things about him include his poetic songs, the fact that he was on stage with Martin Luther King when he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, he is in three different hall of fames, and he had done many other things that no artist had ever done before with his music. I always find people who do music differently and have their own style more intriguing, simply because they stand out. Bob Dylan is clearly a musical legend and changed many different genres of music in different ways. Before this class I knew very little about Bob Dylan so I am glad we were able to take the time to learn about him and see just how influential he was and is.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/70-reasons-why-bob-dylan-is-the-most-important-figure-in-pop-culture-history-2286368.html