“Blowin ‘in the Wind” is een lied geschreven door Bob Dylan en uitgebracht op zijn album uit 1963, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”.
De song klinkt als een preek/sermoen en stelt vragen…vragen, waarop eigenlijk geen antwoord wordt verwacht.
Het refrein “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” is ondoordringbaar en tegelijk dubbelzinnig, het slaat je recht in het gelaat, klaar als een klontje en tegelijk ongrijpbaar, als de wind zelf.
Dylan schreef en speelde oorspronkelijk een song met twee strofes. De eerste publieke opname circuleert onder Dylan kenners (sorry voor de naam) en is uit Gerde’s Folk City, opgenomen op 16 april 1962.
Kort na dit optreden voegde Dylan de middelste strofe toe aan de song.
Het lied werd voor het eerst gepubliceerd in mei 1962, in de zesde editie van Broadside, het tijdschrift opgericht door Pete Seeger en gewijd aan "topical songs" (actualiteits nummers).
In juni 1962 werd het lied gepubliceerd in Sing Out, vergezeld van Dylan’s commentaar :
“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 is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some …But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know …and then it flies away I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it’s wrong. I’m only 21 years old and I know that there’s been too many …You people over 21, you’re older and smarter”
In zijn hoestekst voor “The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991”, schrijft John Bauldie dat het Pete Seeger was die voor het eerst wees op de gelijkenis tussen de melodie van “Blowin ‘in the Wind” en deze van de oude negro-spiritual “No More Auction Block ‘.
Volgens Alan Lomax in zijn “The Folk Songs of North America” is het lied ontstaan in Canada en werd het gezongen door voormalige slaven diehier naartoe gevlucht waren nadat Groot Brittannië de slavernij had afgeschaft in 1833.
In 1978 gaf Dylan zelf zijn bron toe : “‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called ‘No More Auction Block’ — that’s a spiritual and ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ follows the same feeling.”
Dylan zelf zong “No more Auction Block” in “The Gaslight Café” in oktober 1962 (The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991).
“Blowin ‘in the Wind” is waarschijnlijk de ultieme hymne van de burgerrechtenbeweging uit de jaren zestig.
De vroegste uitgebrachte cover van deze song is waarschijnlijk deze van het Chad Mitchell Trio, opgenomen juni 1962 en uitgebracht op hun Kapp LP “In action!”. Dit album werd later opnieuw uitgegeven onder de titel “Blowin’ In de wind.
Wanneer Bob “Blowin’ in the Wind” zelf zong in Gerde’s introduceerde hij de song zo : “ Here’s one that’s called “How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down”….Here’s a song that’s in sort of a set… set pattern of songsthat say… a little more than”I love you, and you love me,An’… let’s go over to the banks of Italy, And we’ll raise a half a family, You for me, and me for me…”
Joan Baez (onvermijdelijk hier) herinnert zich: “I don’t remember the exact first time, but I remember leaving Gerde’s Folk City in New York City, and I heard Bob do it, maybe not the first time, but he had just written it.And I got into a cab and I was so excited. Bob put me in the cab, actually, and I drove off and I wanted the world to know I’d been in on this phenomenal episode, this incredible new song. And I was trying [laughs] to tell the New York cab driver about it. “You wouldn’t believe this. I mean, this is amazing. This is real poetry.” [laughs] He said, “Does it rhyme?” [laughs] I said, “Yeah.” He says, “Okay.” [laughs] He wasn’t impressed. But something in me knew, probably, it was one of the songs that would last forever. “
The New World Singers (Gil Turner, Bob Cohen, Delores Dixon en Happy Traum) waren de eerste om dit nummer op te nemen, in 1962.
Volgens de Smithsonian Folkways website zou Dylan Gil Turner backstage hebben benaderd en gevraagd of hij “Blowin’ in the Wind” voor hen mocht zingen. Turner was zo onder de indruk, dat hij Dylan vroeg of hij het lied mee mocht nemen naar het podium om het met de groep te zingen.
Zegt Bob Cohen: “So one day Dylan says to us: “Hey, I got this new song” and we go down to the basement at Gerdes (filled with rats, roaches and other folkies) and he sings his new song: “Blowin’ In the Wind”which was based on the melody of “No More Auction Block”. In those days we spoke of “borrowing” tunes, something Pete Seeger called “the folk process”. Woody Guthrie and Joe Hill and even J.S.Bach had done it. We thought it was great and started to sing it. We would bring Dylan up on that postage stamp of a stage to sing it along with us. It seemed to me then as it does now that his re-working or recreation of that spiritual carried on its original message and was in itself a song of resistance to all the injustice in the world. We would go on to sing it in Mississippi in 1963-64 where it became a civil-rights anthem. During our sets at Gerdes, Dylan would sit at the bar drinking wine that we often bought for him. He listened to us night after night. After about a year when we made an album for Ahmet Ertegun, head of Atlantic records and son of a Turkish diplomat, (Ahmet loved the blues and he is wonderfully portrayed in the recent film “Ray”), Dylan would write the liner notes for our album much in the same style he uses in his new book, “Chronicles”, writing generously about each of us. Ironically, when we sang “Blowin’ In The Wind” for Ahmet Ertegun he said that if we could change the lyrics to make it a love song then he would include it on our album! But we were too far into the essence of that song to change it, singing it at college rallies to raise money for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and its voter registration work in the South. When Moe Asch (Folkways) decided to release an album of topical songs on Broadside Records (Broadside, the topical song magazine that first printed many of Dylan’s songs along with others) we were asked to sing “Blowin’ In the Wind” and we did – making it the first recording of that song, even before Bob did it on Columbia Records.”
