Scribd
Upload
5 views2 pages

John Brown

John Brown is an anti-war song by Bob Dylan that explores the harsh realities of war through the story of a soldier and his mother. Initially filled with pride and optimism, the mother is confronted with the devastating transformation of her son upon his return, highlighting the brutal consequences of war. The song emphasizes the loss of humanity and disillusionment experienced by soldiers, contrasting romanticized notions of valor with the grim truth of combat.

Uploaded by

pingasujala02
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5 views2 pages

John Brown

John Brown is an anti-war song by Bob Dylan that explores the harsh realities of war through the story of a soldier and his mother. Initially filled with pride and optimism, the mother is confronted with the devastating transformation of her son upon his return, highlighting the brutal consequences of war. The song emphasizes the loss of humanity and disillusionment experienced by soldiers, contrasting romanticized notions of valor with the grim truth of combat.

Uploaded by

pingasujala02
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

JOHN BROWN

John brown is an anti-war song composed and performed by the American


singer, songwriter and noble laureate Bob Dylan. The song is an expression of
the singer’s deep-rooted sense of pacifism.
The lyric opens with a certain John Brown going off to fight “a war on a foreign
land”. The name of the place of battle is not known. It is not required anyway. A
war is a war wherever it may be. Brown’s mother is happy to watch his son
holding a gun, which will either kill him or force him to kill someone. She wants
her son to bring home some medals which she can put up on the wall when he
returns. Brown’s mother surety regarding the return of her son is indicative of
either a motherly optimism for her son or a complete ignorance of the realities
of war.
Brown decides to fight the good old-fashioned war and his mama goes around
telling everyone about her brave son. The romanticization of war and valour
finds its expression in the mother’s treatment of the letter that her son sends
her. Not only does she treat the letter as a means of personal communication
but also as a sign of her son’s valour and sacrifice. As often in the case, the
letters cease to come and when she gets the message that her son has
eventually returned, she rushes to meet him. At first she could not find her son
but when “she did she could hardly believe her eyes”, her son’s “face was all
shot up and his head was all blown off and he wore a metal brace around his
waist” which has kept his body steady; he also lost his voice. The brutality of
war is all too evident.
The debilitating effects of the war and the long-term consequences of it is a sad
reality which many war veterans have to deal with in their day-to-day life after
a good fashioned war. By the time John Brown returns, he has become a
different man: one who is thoroughly disillusioned by the idea of heroism, one
who can hardly move his mouth and whose mother can barely recognise him.

The soldiers face the brutality of war while parents send off their children, not
realising the full consequences of it. Far from being an arena for glory, it simply
turns out to be a hell-hole where people spend their time “trying to kill
somebody or die”. Above all, it is the rending away of humanity which is the
most brutal component of war as it denies the humanity of the very people
involved in it which is expressed by the narrator:
“But the thing that scared me the most was
when my enemy came close
And I saw that his face looked just like mine”

You might also like