3 Folk Songs From 1963 That Hinted That the 1960s Were About To Explode

The article highlights three 1963 folk songs as early signs of the decade’s growing use of music for protest. It argues that their forceful or unconventional approaches anticipated the more varied and emotionally direct protest music that followed.

Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” is presented as an angry anti-war call to action, while Pete Seeger’s recording of Malvina Reynolds’s satirical “Little Boxes” reached No. 70 on the Billboard Hot 100. Harry Belafonte’s “Come Away Melinda”, written by Fran Minkoff and Fred Hellerman, tells an anti-war story through a child and her father; the article notes that several other artists later recorded it.