The LRB recently published a letter from Benjamin Letzler called the Shoah after Gaza[1]. Letzler’s only point is that Bob Dylan was a plagiarist when he wrote the song “With God On Our Side “. Dylan took the "With God on Our Side" melody from the traditional Irish folk song "The Merry Month of May". "Dominic Behan wrote a song "The Patriot Game. Behan said Dylan stole the melody and the opening two verses of his song, where the storyteller gives his name and age. Behan tried to claim the melody as an original composition, but in reality, Behan had done the same thing as Dylan, using the melody without accreditation. According to Letzler, "Nothing came of the spat, not even a fistfight, is a testament that Dylan’s ‘With God on Our Side’ was a dud. Nobody cared”.
By any stretch of the imagination, this important song
deserves far more thought than Benjamin Letzler has given it, especially in
light of the current Genocide being perpetrated by the neo-fascist Israeli
regime in Gaza. In another letter to the LRB, Martin Gorsky makes his point.
“Elizabeth Benedict cast doubt on Pankaj Mishra’s remark, quoting Peter Novick,
that the Holocaust ‘“didn’t loom that large” in the life of America’s Jews
until the late 1960s’ (Letters, 25 April). In 1964, Bob Dylan’s album The Times
They Are a-Changin’ featured the track ‘With God on Our Side’, which included
the words:
The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens, they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side
The song ranges from the Genocide of Indigenous Americans to the conflicts of the Cold War, arguing that barbarism always comes clothed in moral righteousness.”[2]
According to Wikipedia, “The lyrics address the tendency of
Americans (or many societies) to believe that God will invariably side with
them and oppose those with whom they disagree, thus leaving unquestioned the
morality of wars fought and atrocities committed by their country.”
There is a childishness and stupidy about Letzler’s letter.
The fact that the LRB published without comment is telling. Not everyone has
been as light-minded as Letzler. Again, according to Wikipedia, “In a 1984
interview with David Barsamian, Anthony B. Herbert reported that while serving
in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, he was asked by a general to stop
playing a record containing Joan Baez's version of "With God on Our
Side," with the general describing Baez as "anti-military".
Dylan has been forced into defending his body of work on
numerous occasions. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he offered a
robust defence of his art, “I’m working within my art form. It’s that simple,” I
work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures
that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It’s called
songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then, after that,
anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it.”[3]
A cursory look at the “With God On Our Side” lyrics shows it
to be a complex and politically astute song. Dylan mentions American and world historical
events, such as the murder of Native Americans in the nineteenth century, the
Spanish–American War, the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, The
Holocaust, the Cold War and even the betrayal of Jesus Christ by Judas Iscariot.
It is perhaps ironic that a few years after Dylan wrote the
song, he was accused of being a Judas[4].
He replied, "Judas - the most hated name in human history! If you think
you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah,
and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way
equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All
those evil ... can rot in hell,".
Letzler is entitled to his opinion, but before he opens his mouth again, he should maybe put his brain into gear or, in the words of the great man, he “can rot in hell,".
