Bob Dylan’s songs was also a force in the Cordillera
Like other parts of the country, all nooks and crannies of Baguio City in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were resonating with political protests that led to the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. Protest songs were one of the powerful tools. The most popular ones included the songs of Bob Dylan who just won the other day the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.
A relevant part of BLOWING IN THE WIND (he wrote in 1963) that follows says why:
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
That song was followed by THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’ whose relevance up to now remains as can be shown by a part of it:
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s the battle outside raging
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Indeed, Bob Dylan’s songs helped changed the world, including the Cordillera. But the battle for justice, equal opportunities and against the exploitation of politicians and those who-have remains hereabouts.**
