On 28 August 1963, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performed Dylan’s song ‘When the ship comes in’. Written after a fussy hotel receptionist had refused Dylan a room because of his unkempt appearance, the song imagines a huge ship crewed by ‘wise men’ arriving to put right all the wrongs perpetrated by ‘the foes’ who abuse their positions of authority.
Dylan and Baez were not singing at a concert, but a political rally — the 1963 March on Washington. This was the occasion of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech. Many musicians lent their support to the cause of civil rights by performing to the vast crowds. Baez sang the civil rights anthem ‘We shall overcome’ and Dylan performed his new composition ‘Only a pawn in their game’, about the murder of Mississippi civil rights activist, Medgar Evers. Popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary sang ‘If I had a hammer’ and ‘Blowin’ in the wind’, another Dylan composition.
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