Masters of War

I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those than turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it's wrong. I'm only 21 years old and I know that there's been too many wars ... You people over 21 should know better. 

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records. 

[of the song Masters of War] I've never really written anything like that before. I don't sing songs which hope people will die, but I couldn't help it in this one. The song is a sort of striking out, a reaction to the last straw, a feeling of what can can you do? 

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.

"Hard Rain is a desperate kind of song." It was written during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962 when those who allowed themselves to think of the possible results of the Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontation were chilled by the imminence of oblivion. "Every line in it," says Dylan, "is actually the start of a whole song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one." 

- from the sleeve notes to the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, released in May 1963 by Colombia Records.

i know there're some people terrified of the bomb. but there are other people terrified t be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. experience teaches that silence terrifies people the most 

- from the sleeve notes to the album Bringing It All Back Home, released March 1965 by Colombia Records.