Skip to main content

How can the Bob Dylan song "Blowin' in the Wind" be transformed into another genre—for example, a short story?

"Blowin' in the Wind" really inaugurates in some ways the rich vein of powerfully evocative, sometimes surrealist imagery that runs through Dylan's lyrics. Many of his songs are narrative works which detail fairly intelligible, linear stories, and they run a gamut of tones and attitudes from romantic to fatalistic, mythic to slapstick. Dylan and storytelling are a natural fit. So are Dylan and irreverent adaptation; he has always freely and habitually lifted allusions and images from sources classical, contemporary, and everywhere in between, remixing them in ironic and playful ways, so I would say that the guiding principle for adapting Dylan into a new form should be a sense of fearlessness and imaginative possibility. I once wrote a short screenplay which adapted both the Dylan song "Visions of Johanna" and the Jorge Luis Borges story "The Aleph." My advice would be not to worry about "translating" the song into another medium. The word you use, "transform," is more apt. Take the song as inspiration and mix it up with what you personally know and feel, and with what's happened in the world in the 54 years since it was written. It may help to know that "Blowin' in the Wind" itself is an adaptation; Dylan refashioned the structure and melody from a 19th century spiritual sung by freed slaves (linked to below), opening and generalizing its original theme into a much less historically or culturally specific contemplation of freedom and injustice.

I think your task, if you're adapting "Blowin' in the Wind" into a short story form, is to bring that theme back from the universal to the specific. The source song was about the tyranny of racial slavery as well as the triumph of personal liberation from that tyranny. The theme was a contemporary one. One way to adapt it, then, would be to consider, in story form, how systems of senseless inequality and violence endure today. "Blowin' in the Wind" isn't a narrative song, obviously - in fact its rhetorical device of question and non-answer is rather contrary to how stories are generally told - but it's bursting with lyrics that suggest scenes and mini-stories in the mind. As with a number of Dylan's warmest, most metaphysical, most politically aspirational songs - "The Times They Are a-Changin'", "When the Ship Comes In," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," among many others - wind and water are key images. Listen to those songs, along with "Blowin' in the Wind," for a sense of the political and moral importance that the natural forces of storm and tide hold for Dylan; they represent the elemental inevitability of social change, for better or worse. And "Blowin' in the Wind" is really the genesis of that idea in his recorded output - the belief that progress and struggle are larger, older, and more mysterious than human beings, and at the same time are the essence of the human experience.


The whole conceptual thrust of "Blowin' in the Wind" is that the ills of mankind - oppression, war - recur in every generation. The possibility of peace and equality is forever all around us and forever within us, yet remains elusive and difficult to grasp. With a theme this grand (and with evil and intolerance such sadly ever-present aspects of our political and social reality), the possible stories are really infinite - as infinite as the roads that a man might choose to walk. The song is simultaneously as intimate and immediate as any political protest or newspaper headline, and as ancient as the biblical image of a white dove flying above a flooded world. So let your mind roam freely as you adapt this song. You'll find no shortage of material in our troubled world. Best of luck.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What are some external and internal conflicts that Montag has in Fahrenheit 451?

 Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, faces both external and internal conflicts throughout the novel. Some examples of these conflicts are: External Conflicts: Conflict with the society: Montag lives in a society that prohibits books and critical thinking. He faces opposition from the government and the people who enforce this law. Montag struggles to come to terms with the fact that his society is based on censorship and control. Conflict with his wife: Montag's wife, Mildred, is completely absorbed in the shallow and meaningless entertainment provided by the government. Montag's growing dissatisfaction with his marriage adds to his external conflict. Conflict with the fire captain: Montag's superior, Captain Beatty, is the personification of the oppressive regime that Montag is fighting against. Montag's struggle against Beatty represents his external conflict with the government. Internal Conflicts: Conflict with his own beliefs: Montag, at the beginning of th...

In A People's History of the United States, why does Howard Zinn feel that Wilson made a flimsy argument for entering World War I?

"War is the health of the state," the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments flourished, patriotism bloomed, class struggle was stilled, and young men died in frightful numbers on the battlefields-often for a hundred yards of land, a line of trenches. -- Chapter 14, Page 350, A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn outlines his arguments for why World War I was fought in the opening paragraph of Chapter 14 (referenced above). The nationalism that was created by the Great War benefited the elite political and financial leadership of the various countries involved. Socialism, which was gaining momentum in Europe, as was class struggle, took a backseat to mobilizing for war. Zinn believes that World War I was fought for the gain of the industrial capitalists of Europe in a competition for capital and resources. He states that humanity itself was punished by t...

Where did Atticus take the light and extension cord in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Atticus brings the light to the courthouse jail so that he can protect Tom Robinson.  Atticus learns that Tom Robinson, his client, is in danger.  A group of white men want to prevent the trial and lynch Robinson. He is warned by a small group of men that appear at his house.  He refuses to back down.  Atticus knows that the Cunninghams will target his client, so he plans to sit up all night with... Atticus brings the light to the courthouse jail so that he can protect Tom Robinson.  Atticus learns that Tom Robinson, his client, is in danger.  A group of white men want to prevent the trial and lynch Robinson. He is warned by a small group of men that appear at his house.  He refuses to back down.  Atticus knows that the Cunninghams will target his client, so he plans to sit up all night with Jim if that’s what it takes to protect him.  Atticus tells the men that he will make sure his client gets his fair shake at the law.  “Link, that boy might go to the chair, but he’s not going till ...