Bob Dylan Revives ’60s Protest Song For The First Time In Nearly A Decade

Bob Dylan has brought Mas­ters of War back to the stage for the first time in near­ly a decade. The rare moment came when Dylan opened his set at Willie Nelson’s Out­law Music Fes­ti­val with the 1963 protest clas­sic. Fans felt the weight of the moment—he last sang the track live at the Desert Trip Fes­ti­val in 2016.

Amer­i­can Song­writer reports that Dylan first per­formed the song dur­ing the festival’s stop in Buf­fa­lo, New York. The next night in Her­shey, Penn­syl­va­nia, he chose it as his open­er again. Both nights remind­ed audi­ences that the song’s sharp mes­sage still res­onates more than six­ty years after its debut.

The Ori­gins Of Mas­ters Of War

Dylan wrote “Mas­ters of War” for his sec­ond LP, The Free­wheel­in’ Bob Dylan, dur­ing a tense moment in U.S. his­to­ry. The coun­try was on the verge of enter­ing the Viet­nam War, and his blunt lyrics reflect­ed deep frus­tra­tion. In the song’s final verse, Dylan direct­ly wished for the down­fall of those send­ing oth­ers to die.

Bob Dylan / Everett Col­lec­tion

In the album notes, Dylan admit­ted he had nev­er writ­ten any­thing so direct. He described the track as his reac­tion to “the last straw,” a moment when anger over­came restraint. Lis­ten­ers quick­ly con­nect­ed with its unflinch­ing hon­esty

A Song’s Mean­ing, Then And Now

Over the years, some mis­un­der­stood “Mas­ters of War“. In a 2001 inter­view, Dylan called it a “paci­fistic song against war” and clar­i­fied that it was not sim­ply an anti-war state­ment. He wrote it to chal­lenge what Pres­i­dent Dwight D. Eisen­how­er had described as the “mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex.” That idea shaped the track’s cre­ation

Bob Dylan’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary song made a come­back for the first time in almost a decade / Flickr

Adding “Mas­ters of War” to his 2024 setlist sparked spec­u­la­tion. Some believe he may be speak­ing out, in his own way, about con­flicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Dylan rarely com­ments on cur­rent events, but his choice to per­form the song again made a clear statement—its rel­e­vance has not fad­ed since 1963