Blowin' in the Wind
A protest song posing rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom.
Bob Dylan wrote "Blowin' in the Wind" in 1962, putting it out as a single and on his 1963 album *The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan*. Often called a protest song, it asks a string of rhetorical questions about peace, war, and freedom. Its repeated line, "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind," has been called "impenetrably ambiguous"—either the answer is so plain it's right in front of you, or it's as hard to grasp as the wind itself.
The song entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2004, *Rolling Stone* ranked it number 14 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Though it didn't chart when first released as a single, it later got heavy radio play, eventually reaching number 3 on the French airplay chart.
In June 1963, three weeks after *The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan* came out, Peter, Paul and Mary released a cover. This became the most commercially successful version, hitting number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending five weeks at number 1 on the Middle-Road charts. At the 6th Grammy Awards, it won Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group. In 2003, that cover was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Dylan first wrote and performed a two-verse version, debuting it live at Gerde's Folk City on April 16, 1962; that performance was recorded and circulated among collectors. Soon after, he added a middle verse. Some published lyrics swap the order of the second and third verses, likely because Dylan just tacked the new verse onto his original manuscript instead of rewriting it cleanly. The song first appeared in print in May 1962, in the sixth issue of *Broadside*, a magazine focused on topical songs founded by Agnes 'Sis' Cunningham and Gordon Friesen.
The theme may have come from a passage in Woody Guthrie's 1943 autobiography *Bound for Glory*, where Guthrie compared his political awareness to newspapers blowing in New York City streets. Dylan, deeply familiar with Guthrie's work, had found that reading a major turning point in his own intellectual and political growth.
In June 1962, the song was published in *Sing Out!* with Dylan's own comments: "There ain't too much I can say about this song except that the answer is blowing in the wind. It ain't in no book or movie or TV show or discussion group. Man, it's in the wind – and it's blowing in the wind. Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer
- written
- 1962
- first_released
- 1963
- genre
- protest song
- writer
- Bob Dylan
- notable_cover
- Peter, Paul and Mary (1963)
- highest_chart_position
- #2 on Billboard Hot 100 (Peter, Paul and Mary version)
- inducted_into_Grammy_Hall_of_Fame
- 1994 (Dylan version); 2003 (Peter, Paul and Mary version)
Lore & Background
Bob Dylan originally wrote and performed a two-verse version of the song; its first public performance, at Gerde's Folk City on April 16, 1962, was recorded and circulated among Dylan collectors. Shortly after this performance, he added the middle verse. The song was published for the first time in May 1962, in the sixth issue of Broadside. The theme may have been taken from a passage in Woody Guthrie's 1943 autobiography, Bound for Glory. Dylan recorded the song on July 9, 1962, for inclusion on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963.
In June 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary released a cover version three weeks after The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was issued. It became the most commercially successful version, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Middle-Road charts for five weeks. At the 6th Annual Grammy Awards, this version won Best Folk Recording and Best Performance by a Vocal Group. The song has been described as an anthem of the civil rights movement, and Sam Cooke was inspired by it to write "A Change Is Gonna Come."
Reader's Guide
"Blowin' in the Wind" marked a huge jump in Dylan's songwriting, moving from the particular to the general, allowing it to be applied to just about any freedom issue. It remains the song with which Dylan's name is most inextricably linked and safeguarded his reputation as a civil libertarian. The song has been embraced by many liberal churches and was sung in Catholic "folk masses" and Protestant hymns. During protests against the Iraq War, commentators noted that protesters were resurrecting songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" rather than creating new ones. In 1997, Bob Dylan performed at a Catholic church congress where Pope John Paul II told the crowd that the answer was indeed "in the wind" – not in the wind that blew things away, but rather "in the wind of the spirit." The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 and ranked number 14 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.
Did You Know?
- Peter, Paul and Mary's version sold 300,000 copies in the first week of release and ultimately exceeded one million sales.
- The melody of "Blowin' in the Wind" was identified by Pete Seeger as an adaptation of the African-American spiritual "No More Auction Block/We Shall Overcome."
- An allegation that the song was written by high-school student Lorre Wyatt and plagiarized by Dylan was reported in Newsweek in 1963 but was eventually shown to be false.
- In 1975, the song was included as poetry in a high-school English textbook in Sri Lanka, replacing Shakespeare's work.
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