Bob Dylan

Biography

Bob Dylan is the stage name of the performer/composer/lyricist who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman. Dylan made his first reputation as a folk singer, and one of his early songs in this line was “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.” As the title suggests, the song was a satire on the John Birch Society, then at its height, a group whose anti-Communist conspiracy theories saw President Eisenhower himself as a collaborator with the Reds. Dylan’s lyrics say, “I was lookin’ high and low for them Reds everywhere/ I wus lookin in the sink and underneath the chair”. On May 12, 1963, Dylan walked out on a dress rehearsal of the most famous television program in America, the Ed Sullivan Show, protesting the fact that CBS execs wouldn’t let him play this song (after Ed Sullivan and his producer had approved it.) The controversy helped launch Dylan into super-stardom, where he has remained through all the decades since.