Analysis Of The Protest Song 'Only A Pawn In Their Game'

A key part of the Civil Rights and Vietnam War protest era’s culture, topical songs comment on recent events in politics and social news. These anthems are often protest songs that offer both the original news story as well as the singer’s own analysis and commentary. Bob Dylan wrote many of these, such as “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” This song takes the story of a poor white man killing an innocent black man and instead of writing about the racism of the white Americans against black Americans, he discusses how elite white politicians and businessmen encourage racism and fearmongering to keep the poor whites down with the black Americans. This is a subversion of the typical protest song which discusses the surface level injustice of a hate crime, and by focusing on the poor white as a “pawn” in the game played by elites, Dylan

It implies that a black woman’s life is worth just six months of a white man’s. After reading about the death in the newspapers, Bob Dylan wrote “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” He makes a few minor errors in the facts of the case. First, he misspells Zantzinger’s name as “Zanzinger,” and he also describes Hattie Carroll as a mother of ten rather than eleven. As another example, he calls Carroll a “maid of the kitchen” whose primary job was cleaning, while her actual job as barmaid revolved more along drink-making, though she did clean as well. Finally, he uses the singular “judge” despite the trial having a panel of three. Dylan was inspired to write this song in his outrage over the crime, but the case illustrates a deep institutional aspect of racism that he conveys well in his lyrics. Not only did a wealthy white man feel comfortable in striking a black woman hard enough to kill her, he was hardly punished despite being judged guilty. By writing “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” Dylan preserved the memory of both the case itself and the outrage around