Bob Dylan: With God On Our Side
- Ron Counte
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Ron Counte
In post-war America the folk scene was in full flow led by pioneers such as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez. But during the early 60s the emergence of an extraordinary talent would eclipse them all in terms of popularity and influence.
At a time of enormous social and political upheaval Bob Dylan arrived at precisely the right moment to become the voice of a generation who believed that they had so much to protest about. Chief among their concerns was the seemingly ever present threat of global warfare.
Dylan had made his thoughts on the matter very clear on his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, released in 1963. Never one to mince words, on the track Masters of War he expressed the hope that the warmongers would ‘die and die soon’. For good measure he added that he would stand on their graves to make sure they were dead.
He was to return to the theme on his next album, The Times They Are a-Changin’, with the magnificent With God On Our Side. This time he took a broader swipe at the mentality of those who seek to justify their brutal and criminal acts of warfare by invoking divine guidance. It is a remarkable composition, its nine verses taking us on a journey through a couple of centuries of US history.
It begins on an autobiographical note, explaining how the education system attempted to indoctrinate him with the notion that America has God on its side. But it is evident from the succeeding stanzas that this effort was in vain. In verse two he reflects on the treatment of native Americans.
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side
Briefly referencing the Spanish American War and the American Civil War in verse three, he moves on to the First World War telling us ‘you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side’.
In verse five we find some highly potent language:
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too have
God on their side
We shouldn’t forget that this was penned by a Jewish man less than 20 years after the end of the war and so some degree of anger and outrage is understandable. It’s also a comment on the way that Germany, and by implication certain less than morally virtuous individuals within it, were rehabilitated for political expediency as a new threat to world order emerged.
The notion of converting enemies to allies and vice versa was brilliantly illustrated in Orwell’s 1984. But during the Cold War this fiction became a reality. In verse six the narrator tells us that he’s ‘learned to hate the Russians’. With the 1962 Cuban missile crisis still fresh in everyone’s mind the threat of nuclear war hung over society like the Sword of Damocles. Regarding nuclear weapons the narrator tells us:
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side
In verse eight Dylan addresses his audience directly with the question that powerfully encapsulates the issue central to the song.
Through many dark hours
I’ve been thinking about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
I can’t think for you
You will have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side
The final verse delivers a plea that if God really is on our side he might step in to stop the next war, though from the foregoing analysis this is something of a forlorn hope.
Joan Baez recounted hearing the song for the first time: ‘I was bowled over. I never thought anything so powerful could come out of that little toad. It was devastating. It’s a beautiful song. When I heard that it changed the way I thought of Bob. I realised he was more mature than I thought.’
The ‘toad’ dig is most probably motivated by the fact that Dylan was pursuing her sister at the time. Eventually, of course, Joan was to fall under his spell. She recorded the song herself.
Not everyone was pleased to hear Dylan’s work. As soon as it was released Irish folk singer Dominic Behan accused him of plagiarism. The melody is virtually identical to that of Behan’s The Patriot Game. There are thematic similarities in the text too. The Patriot Game echoes Samuel Johnson’s view that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Dylan’s song develops this notion further to attack the use of religion to rationalise war in a similarly cynical manner.
Dylan became aware of The Patriot Game after hearing Liam Clancy sing it in London. Eventually he acknowledged the debt though he could hardly do otherwise given the striking similarity. However, as others have pointed out, both could also be said to draw on the melody of the traditional Irish tune The Merry Month of May.
In terms of the philosophical underpinning of the song Dylan, in his Chronicles autobiography, describes how he had an epiphany while reading Vom Kriege by the 18th century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz in which the author theorises that politics has taken the place of morality, and that politics is nothing more than brute force. Dylan writes: ‘Don’t give me any of that jazz about hope or nonsense about righteousness. Don’t give me that dance that God is with us or that God supports us. Let’s get down to brass tacks. There isn’t any moral order.’
Dylan’s genius lies in his ability to communicate profound concepts and observations in a concise and poetic way that makes them readily digestible. With God On Our Side is a prime example of his gift. And like many great works of art, it remains as relevant today as it was the day he wrote it.
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