<p id=”par-1_40″>Bob Dylan started his career by writing inherently <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/bob-dylans-best-5-protest-songs-ranked.html/”>political protest music</a>. He moved away from this style of music relatively quickly, but his protest songs are still culturally significant. <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/bob-dylan-said-political-party.html/”>When political campaigns</a> use them now, though, they quickly hit hurdles.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-political-campaigns-cannot-use-bob-dylan-s-music”>Political campaigns cannot use Bob Dylan’s music </h2>
<p id=”par-2_44″>Dylan began his music career writing protest music. In his 1963 album <em>The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan</em>, he put out songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/robert-plant-said-1-bob-dylan-song-changed-everything.html/”>Masters of War</a>,” and “<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/don-mclean-compared-bob-dylans-a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall-the-beatles-a-day-in-the-life.html/”>A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall</a>.” He also performed at the March on Washington in 1963. </p>
<p id=”par-3_49″>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’,”</p>
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<iframe loading=”lazy” title=”Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A-Changin’ (Official Audio)” width=”925″ height=”520″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/90WD_ats6eE?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>
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<span class=”related-article-flag”>Related</span>
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<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-scrapped-album-bob-dylan-covers-way-responded-1-requests.html/”>
Dolly Parton Scrapped an Album of Bob Dylan Covers Because of the Way He Responded to 1 of Her Requests </a>
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<p id=”par-4_31″>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.”</p>
<p id=”par-5_37″>Universal Music Publishing Group purchased Dylan’s publishing rights in 2020. A spokesperson for the company told <a target=”_blank” href=”https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/arts/music/zohran-mamdani-bob-dylan-song.html” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>The New York Times</a> that “as a longstanding policy, we do not license Bob Dylan compositions for projects involving political figures.”</p>
<p id=”par-6_22″>While this was UMPG’s move, not Dylan’s, he said he <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/bob-dylan-said-never-really-protest-singer-right.html/”>moved away from protest music</a> less than a decade into his career.</p>
<p id=”par-7_41″>“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.”</p>
<p id=”par-8_13″>Still, Dylan revisited the genre in 1975 when he released the song “Hurricane.”</p>