Maggie's Farm By Bob Dylan

“Maggie's Farm” by Bob Dylan

        This week in class, we focused on the musical stylings of the one and only, Bob Dylan. One of his songs from his fifth album Brining it All Back Home, was particularly interesting to me. This song was called “Maggie's Farm.” When I first listened to this track, I was startled by how different it sounded from most of his other music. It felt much more like a rock and roll song than the folk style songs he usually produces. However, upon reading the lyrics to this tune more closely, its clear as to why he choose a more “hard-core” like tune for this song.

        Beggining with the first verse of the song, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more” instantly explains the main idea behind the lyrics. And although the documentary we watched in class explained to us that Bob Dylan was not nessicarily the most political person, he did use recent political events as fuel for his writing. For example, in the lyrics “It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor” he talks about how the man in the song has to scrub the floor of Maggie's Farm. You can infer from the circumstances of this song that this man is an African American working for a family of whites. That line is only one of the many examples of this treatment throughout the song.

        More examples come in the next verse when Dylan sings “Then he fines you every time you slam the door.” This is an example of the many consequences African Americans would face during the civil rights movement, including fines, and arrests. Furthermore, lines like “Well, he puts his cigar Out in your face just for kicks” and “The National Guard stands around his door.” are examples of the violence that African Americans faced from whites, and how organizations such as the national guard were protective over the rights of the whites. And then again in the next verse, when the man in the song is referred to as a servant in the line “Well, she talks to all the servants.”

        The final verse of the song really brings the main idea of the entire song to the table.

“I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
No, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They sing while you slave and I just get bored
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more”

It is now even more clear that it speaks of a time where African Americans fought to no long slave away on the farms of Maggie, or her brother, pa, or ma.

        This was actually one of Bob Dylans most controversial songs. The reason it was so controversial is because fans were not happy that he decided on using an electric guitar for this song, rather than his normal sound of an acoustic guitar. In fact, fans at the Newport Folk Festival actually booed Dylan after his choice of performing “Maggie's Farm” there. However, his use of an electric guitar was actually quite clever. I think that even though it was folk music, the stinging sound of the electric guitar gave the message a more serious note. Rather than the airy sound of most folk songs, “Maggie's Farm” by Bob Dylan had a more direct sound for the message it was sending.