The Weatherman Underground was the new revolutionary radical group of the New Left in the 1960s in the United States of America. They created a manifesto, “titled after lyrics from the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” by Bob Dylan, which became the founding document for a new organization” (Cerer 25-26). Bob Dylan influenced the Weathermen’s activity: he is an American singer who popularized folk-rock, which gave life to rock n’ roll that became highly politicized during the mid-to-late 1960s in the USA (Cerer 4). Thus, Bob Dylan was the symbol of the Weather Underground, which inspired them and other political activists through his lyrics.
Many people inspired Bob Dylan, so he wrote his songs mentioning them and was influenced by them. For instance, in the interview, he claims that he decided to include the story of Anne Frank and Indiana Jones. According to interviewer Brinkley, Dylan says that Anne Frank’s “story means a lot. It’s profound. And hard to articulate or paraphrase, especially in modern culture” (3). Although affected by bright people, the singer had an effect on the American Counterculture of the 1960s (Jarniewicz 82). Therefore, Dylan always separated himself from political groups, emphasizing his independence as an artist.
However, many historical events, including the creation of such groups as the Weathermen Underground, were affected by Bob Dylan’s lyrics. According to Tudor, “the 1960s were clearly among Dylan’s most concentrated periods of powerful creativity, including the most powerful of all, between 1964 and 1966” (4). For instance, “the three Counterculture movements, political activists of the New Left, hippies and anarchists (diggers, yippies), were all indebted to Dylan” (Jarniewicz 82). Therefore, Dylan’s effect on the global community of musicians (rock n’ roll singers) and the American counterculture of the 1960s, including a radical group of the Weathermen Underground, was profound.
Works Cited
Brinkley, Douglas. “Bob Dylan Has a Lot on His Mind.” The New York Times, 2020. Web.
Cerer, Jennifer. Radicalism and Violence: Conceptualizing the Weather Underground Organization’s Actions in the 1960s and 1970s. Diss. Lake Forest College, 2018.
Jarniewicz, Jerzy. “Bob Dylan–The Unwilling Icon of the Counterculture.” All Along Bob Dylan, Routledge, 2020, pp. 82-96.
Tudor, Jones. Bob Dylan and the British Sixties: A Cultural History. Routledge, 2018.