Bob Dylan just sang “Masters of War” for the first time in nearly a decade.
The singer opened Outlaw Music Festival set with his 1963 song. He last played the track at the Desert Trip Festival in 2016.
After playing the track during the festival’s Buffalo, New York, stop, he opted to open with it the next day too, when the show made its way to Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The Meaning Behind Bob Dylan’s “Master of War”
The protest song appeared on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the singer’s second LP. It debuted when the U.S. was gearing up to join the Vietnam War. In the track’s last verse, Dylan wished for the death of men in power who were sending others off to war to die.
“I’ve never really written anything like that before,” Dylan said in the album notes. “I don’t sing songs which hope people will die, but I couldn’t help it with this one. The song is a soft of striking out, a reaction to the last straw, a feeling of what can you do?”
In a 2001 interview with USA Today, Dylan lamented how some listeners misinterpreted his songs.
“People have been led down the wrong path by quasi-intellectuals who never really get the cultural spirit in the air when these songs are performed,” Dylan said. “[‘Masters of War’] is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war.”
“It’s not an anti-war song,” he added. “It’s speaking against what [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower was calling a military industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency. That spirit was in the air, and I picked it up.”
While Dylan rarely speaks out on current news, the fact that he added “Masters of War” to his set prompted many to wonder if, in doing so, he was condemning the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Dylan is set to continue performing with Outlaw Music Festival through its conclusion on Sept. 19 in East Troy, Wisconsin. The following month, Dylan will head to Europe, where he’ll bring The Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour. He’ll perform across the continent until the tour wraps on Nov. 25 in Dublin.
