Abstract
Bob Dylan has spent much of the past fifty years trying to escape the label of "protest singer.” Over the past decade, there have been plenty of serious topics for the topically minded song writer to address: the Iraq War, threats to civil liberties, rising economic inequality, the financial collapse of 2008 and "Great Recession" that followed. Unlike his musical peers Neil Young (Living with War [2006]) and Bruce Springsteen (Wrecking Ball [2012]), Dylan to date has not addressed those events in any direct way, through new topical songs, in the last stage of his career.
Document Type
Book Chapter
ISBN
9781496820143
Publication Date
2017
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2017 University Press of Mississippi. This book chapter first appeared in Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the Twenty-First Century.
Please note that downloads of the chapter are for private/personal use only.
Purchase online at University Press of Mississippi.
Recommended Citation
Williamson, Thad. "'Everybody's Got to Wonder What's the Matter With This Cruel World Today': Social Consciousness and Political Commentary in 'Love and Theft' and Modern Times." In Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the Twenty-First Century, edited by Nina Goss and Eric Hoffman, 158-175. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2017.