Bob Dylan’s Political Music Was Pulled From Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Ad

Bob Dylan started his career by writing inherently political protest music. He moved away from this style of music relatively quickly, but his protest songs are still culturally significant. When political campaigns use them now, though, they quickly hit hurdles.

Political campaigns cannot use Bob Dylan’s music

Dylan began his music career writing protest music. In his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, he put out songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Masters of War,” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” He also performed at the March on Washington in 1963. 

Dylan’s protest songs are political so, naturally, politicians have sought to use his music for their campaigns. Recently, New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani posted an election day ad on X (formerly Twitter) using the song “The Times They Are a-Changin’.’” In it, he told viewers, “New York is a-changin’,”

In less than 24 hours, the video was no longer on the platform, with a note saying, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright holder.”

Universal Music Publishing Group purchased Dylan’s publishing rights in 2020. A spokesperson for the company told The New York Times that “as a longstanding policy, we do not license Bob Dylan compositions for projects involving political figures.”

While this was UMPG’s move, not Dylan’s, he said he moved away from protest music less than a decade into his career.

“I haven’t lost any interest in protest since then. I just didn’t have any interest in protest to begin with — any more than I did in war heroes,” he told Playboy in 1966. “You can’t lose what you’ve never had.”

Still, Dylan revisited the genre in 1975 when he released the song “Hurricane.”