Bob Dylan's "John Brown" is one of the most moving antiwar songs recorded. The track avoids sloganeering, resonating an anti–Vietnam War sentiment with a straightforward, human, and very sad story: A mother proudly sends her son off to war, only to receive home a young man missing his hand and an understanding of what he'd been fighting for. Taking on the voice of the soldier, Dylan sings, "And I could not help but think, through the . . . stink, that I was just a puppet in a play." The song works so well because the storytelling is subtle; the political... More >>>