From "The Death of Emmett Till" to "Boots of Spanish Leather", Suze Rotolo had a tremendous amount of inspiration in Bob Dylan's writing as well as his path to folk music fame. Dylan also had a mutual influence on Rotolo, who eventually separated from Dylan at the young age of 19 due to the "pressure, gossip, truths and lies that living with Bob entailed" as stated in his memoir (qtd in Greene 2011). Ultimately, Rotolo not only influenced Dylan to write his masterful protest songs and love songs that captivated entire movements and people of the 1960s, but that same influence would be a big reason behind the fame and success of Dylan throughout his life and throughout his generations. to come. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As a young adult traveling to Greenwich Village to join the folk music scene, Bob Dylan had exactly no experience with protest songs. He primarily focused on channeling his inner Woody Guthrie and covering and performing classic folk songs from the past and present. As much of an influence as Woody Guthrie had on the young singer-songwriter, Rotolo may have had a similar influence. Of course, this was hardly evident even when they first met in Riverside Church and spontaneously in local clubs and gathering places around Greenwich Village (Scroll 94). After meeting Suze, Dylan was not particularly interested in politics. But with Rotolo struggling to reach the political vanguard, it was inevitable that there would be some overlap of her interests with his. In the first protest song Dylan wrote, "The Death of Emmett Till", which he performed at a Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) benefit. concert booked by Rotolo, addressed the brutal murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago, Mississippi by white racists in 1956. Till's killers walked free, causing outrage in the activist community (Marqusee 52). This was just the beginning of a series of political protest songs, all originally inspired by the young Rotolo's interest. From here, Dylan would go on to write over 200 songs over the next two years. As Marqusee describes in Wicked Messenger, these compositions would consist of topics such as poverty, race, war, class, violence, outcasts, prisoners, social change, friendship, and love (53). When Dylan wrote another famous racial protest song, "Oxford Town," which appeared on The Free Wheelin' Bob Dylan, he spoke about events at the University of Mississippi where, after prospective African-American student James Meredith attempted to enroll, where many White citizens and even Governor Ross Barnett denied Meredith's entry. In fact, the Kennedy administration and federal guards intervened, escorting James Meredith to his dormitory. Local and regional police along with white University students stormed federal guards in a mob scene with lead pipes and Molotov cocktails, where, as Dylan explains in the lyrics, "Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon". Another 28 were killed, 160 injured, and only once was the song performed live by Dylan at that "Oxford Town" show in 1991 (Marqusee 66). As previously stated, racial violence was not the only protest topic Dylan had written about since then. his relationship with Suze Rotolo develops. After “Oxford Town” Dylan wrote poetically about “John Brown,” a young soldier sent to fight for his country. In the song, "John Brown's" mother wasproud of her son for going to fight as a soldier and "picking up a gun" and that he would earn medals. Dylan writes and "John Brown" explains to his mother: "Oh, and when I was there I thought, God, what am I doing here? I'm trying to kill someone or die trying, but the thing that scared me The thing that scared me What struck me the most was when my enemy came closer and I saw that his face was just like mine." "John Brown" returned from the war after a cannonball left him essentially unrecognizable, but before turning his back on his mother he handed over the medals he promised to win (Marqusee 67). The song's popularity was not only celebrated in the activist culture of the 1960s and 1970s, but also more recently, when Dylan appeared on MTV Unplugged in November 1994 (Williamson 218). The idea that a song like "John Brown" transcends decades and entire generations unanimously demonstrates not only how significant Dylan's songs are, but also how willing and devoted his listeners are. A song like "John Brown" is still connected to mothers, soldiers and people today, as many Dylan songs can be. The longevity and significance of Dylan's early-career love songs, influenced by Rotolo, are as strong as his songs about political protest and activism. Rotolo not only influenced Dylan's lyrics and songwriting, but she also appeared on the cover of arguably his most famous album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. In 1962, when Rotolo left for Perugia, Italy, a heartbroken Dylan wrote three of his most famous love songs; “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” “Spanish Leather Boots,” and “Don't Think Twice, It's All Good” (NPRMusic). As Marqusee describes in Wicked Messenger, "Don't Think Twice," along with Dylan's other love songs, was self-consciously modern and pioneered the way male-female relationships were depicted in popular music (184). Dylan is also brutally honest in moments like on “Don't Think Twice” when he writes, “I once loved a woman, a little girl, I was told / I give her my heart, but she wanted my soul / Don't do it ". Don't think twice, everything is fine. We see this honesty and sincerity again in “Ballad in Plain D,” based on an argument Suze Rotolo and her sister had with Dylan, when he writes, “For his parasite sister, I had no respect / Bound by her boredom.” , his pride to protect. Dylan obviously later in his career would disagree with the release of "Ballad in Plain D", the song which Williamson criticized as "sappy, vicious and self-pitying but as irresistible as a highway crash" (179). However, this song would end up permanently ending Suze and her relationship, so her bitterness and self-pity may be entirely justifiable (Williamson 179). The connection between these different types of love and protest songs can be seen in their lyrical styles too, not just the fact that they were all directly or indirectly influenced by Suze Rotolo. As Marqusee so aptly points out in Wicked Messenger, all of these songs were written in the same period, and all of these songs are "moodyly mournful and tenderly utopian at the same time" (54). So, although Dylan would educate and develop his own artistic style throughout his career, there appears to be a direct source of interests that inspired him to write the songs that would take him to the pinnacle of folk music culture. This direct source of his early interests, once he became famous in Greenwich Village and beyond, is Suze Rotolo. Many can argue that he would have found his way to the top and been considered.