{"id":21945,"date":"2016-05-12T04:56:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T08:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyesofageneration.com\/?p=21945"},"modified":"2021-03-04T11:35:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T16:35:43","slug":"may-12-1963-bob-dylan-ed-sullivan-the-koch-brothers-yep-after-seeing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/?p=21945","title":{"rendered":"May 12, 1963&#8230;Bob Dylan, Ed Sullivan &#038; The Koch Brothers? Yep!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May 12, 1963&#8230;Bob Dylan, Ed Sullivan &amp; The Koch Brothers? Yep!<\/p>\n<p>After seeing this photo, many swear they remember seeing Bob Dylan on the Sullivan show, but it never happened&#8230;it almost did though.<\/p>\n<p>In May of 1963, Bob Dylan was still an aspiring young musician who was preparing for the release of his second album &#8220;The Freewheelin\u2019 Bob Dylan&#8221;. At this point in his career, Dylan had received little national attention, but it seemed that was all about to change when he received an invitation to perform on &#8220;The Ed Sullivan Show&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dylan decided to perform \u201cTalkin\u2019 John Birch Paranoid Blues\u201d, a satirical blues number skewering the conservative John Birch Society, and the red-hunting paranoia associated with it.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bob Dylan, &quot;Talkin&amp;apos; John Birch Paranoid Blues&quot; (1962)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AylFqdxRMwE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A few days earlier, Bob auditioned the song for Sullivan who seemed to have no issue with it. However, on the day of the show during the dress rehearsal, an executive from the CBS Standards and Practices department decided Dylan could not perform the song due to its controversial nature.<\/p>\n<p>When the show\u2019s producer, Bob Precht, informed Dylan of the decision, Dylan responded saying, \u201cNo; this is what I want to do. If I can\u2019t play my song, I\u2019d rather not appear on the show.\u201d Rather than choose a new song, Dylan walked off the set of the country\u2019s highest-rated variety show.<\/p>\n<p>The story got widespread media attention in the days that followed helping to establish Bob\u2019s reputation as an uncompromising artist. The publicity Bob Dylan received from this event probably did more for his career than the actual performance would have.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of The John Birch Society, did you know Fred Koch, father of the right wing billionaire sons Charles and David Koch, was a leader of the John Birch Society from its founding in 1958 until his death in 1967?<\/strong> In fact, Charles Koch followed his father&#8217;s footsteps into the John Birch Society. Charles, and his brother have spent millions fueling a John Birch Society-like &#8220;Tea Party&#8221; peopled with right-wingers. much like Birchers of decades past.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, the playbook deployed by the Kochs today, through myriad organizations, resembles a more sophisticated (and expensive) playbook of the John Birch Society back then.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/189359747768249\/photos\/a.197108410326716.39183.189359747768249\/1007860175918198\/?type=3\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp_automatic_fb_img\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/May-12-1963...Bob-Dylan-Ed-Sullivan-The-Koch-Brothers-Yep-After-seeing\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/189359747768249\/posts\/1007860175918198\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May 12, 1963&#8230;Bob Dylan, Ed Sullivan &amp; The Koch Brothers? Yep! After seeing this photo, many swear they remember seeing Bob Dylan on the Sullivan show, but it never happened&#8230;it almost did though. In May of 1963, Bob Dylan was still an aspiring young musician who was preparing for the release of his second album [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":21946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[859,783,822,680,704],"class_list":["post-21945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bob-precht","tag-cbs","tag-ed-sullivan","tag-people","tag-producer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58957,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21945\/revisions\/58957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}