Do you think we live in a political world? Bob Dylan's song 'Political World' that was first sang in 1990 suggests that this is the environment he lived in! Throughout the whole song, Bob Dylan points out many situations and emotions that have been felt in that period of time.
Each stanza relates to some mistreatment situations that were faced and starts with the line, "We live in a political world", but each have a different approach. In the first stanza he sings, "Love don't have any place...And crime don't have any face." From this, we can intemperate that the loss of love and crime is everywhere. To me, this suggests that men are always pointed to as at fault and no one is ever happy anymore. In the third stanza, people's rights were said to be taken away when he states, "Wisdom is thrown in jail." I can conclude that this means people's freedom of speech was very limited. In the seventh stanza Dylan states, "In the cities of lonesome fear...But you're never sure why you're here." Just from these few lines, it is easy to tell how hard they were trying to find purpose in the world and how scary it is to live in.
People in this time felt hopeless, and even turned to suicide for a solution to get out of the constant hate and mistreatment they were feeling. Towards the end of the song, it brought up the fact that people felt as if they were in a nightmare and living as a needle in a haystack. You can really see the pathos techniques from the lyrics Bob Dylan used. In the last stanza of the song were the lines, "And shout God's name, But you're never sure what it is." I found this so interesting and really thought hard about what it meant- you never know who's actually there for you in the hardest times of your life and you never know who you can turn to for hope.
Overall, I thought this song was really interesting. It made me more conscious of how people back then used to get treated and what their emotions were like. It made me so thankful to be in a world where we get to be free from harm, and speak our emotions without fear.
I agree with you that Dylan's songs were so interesting and they really had a big impact on society and opened people's eyes to what was actually happening in the country.
ReplyDelete