This song has been hijacked so many times, not least by the UK’s loony left, protesting against Margaret Thatcher. Wikipedia will tell you it’s a protest against protest folk songs.

Take the song at face value: as a protest against wage-slavery and a call for the freedom of sovereign professionalism.

There are numerous recordings of this. I love the original, from 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home, but the version from 1979’s Bob Dylan At Budokan is perhaps my favourite.

Here’s the infamous Newport Folk Festival:

And the original album, 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home:

(This post originally appeared on the Burning Pine site)