Music
Dylan not allowed to play early protest songs in China
by Ciaran Thompson
April 7, 2011
Back in the early ’60s, Bob Dylan walked off the set of the Ed Sullivan Show (the country’s highest-rated variety show at the time) after producers asked him not to sing “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a track that pokes fun at the conservative John Birch Society.
Now at the age of 69, the legendary singer/songwriter appears to care less about censorship as last night he performed his first ever concert in China and was told to stay away from playing his early politically-motivated folk songs.
The concert was originally supposed to take place last year, however complications with the Culture Ministry and a reported financial dispute with a Taiwanese promoter led to its cancellation. View Dylan’s government-approved set list below. [Rolling Stone]
Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’
Tangled Up in Blue
Honest With Me
Simple Twist of Fate
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum
Love Sick
Rollin’ and Tumblin’
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Highway 61 Revisited
Spirit on the Water
Thunder on the Mountain
Ballad of a Thin Man
Like a Rolling Stone
All Along the Watchtower
