Blowin' in the wind, by Bob Dylan.

Do you remember the first post in this blog? We talked about protest songs and we read this text. One of the musicians we read about was Bob Dylan.

Let's learn more about the story of the song. According to Wikipedia:

"Blowin' in the Wind is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in 1963. Although it has been described as a protest song, it poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. The refrain "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind" has been described as "impenetrably ambiguous: either the answer is so obvious it is right in your face, or the answer is as intangible as the wind".

 In 1994, the song was inducted into the Germany Hall of Fame. In 2004, it was ranked #14 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Song of All Time".

Now, let's listen to the song and try to order the paragraphs below. Can you identify in the song any sentence with an structure similar to those in bold in the text above? How is this structure called?

1) How many times must a man look up                         
    before he can see the sky?                                             

2) How many years can a mountain exist
    before it's washed to the sea?
3) Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
     before she sleeps in the sand?

4) Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
     that too many people have died?

5) How many roads must a man walk down
    before you can call him a man?

6) Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
     pretending he just doesn's see?

7) Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
     before they're allowed to be free?

8) The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
    the anser is blowin' in the wind.

9) Yes, 'n' how many years must one man have
     before he can hear people cry?

Copyright © 1962 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1990 by Special Rider Music.