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Bob Dylan Walks Out of The Ed Sullivan Show

Back in the day on May 12th, 1963, a young, talented yet relatively still unknown Bob Dylan walked off the Ed Sullivan Show. The singer-songwriter had been booked on the highly rated television program ahead of the release of his second album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.” He rehearsed and planned on performing his song, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” when CBS network censors suggested he change his tune – literally. Dylan’s selection poked fun at the conservative John Birch Society and its insistence on communist conspiracies with the lyrics of the song singing, “I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere / I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair / I looked way up my chimney hole/ I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl.” Rather than acquiesce to the censors’ objections and perform another song, Dylan simply decided walk out of The Ed Sullivan Show altogether.

News of the musician’s principled stance raised his reputation as an artist with integrity among an ever emerging audience – that is until he appeared in a Victoria’s Secret commercial decades later!

For Uprising, this is your truth professa’ saying it’s no mystery why they conceal our people’s history!