Published Feb 11, 2026, 4:01 PM EST
Jason Brow is a New York City–based music journalist with over a decade of experience covering pop culture, artists, and the music industry. He previously served in a senior role at People Magazine, oversaw music coverage for Hollywood Life as its Music Editor, and has contributed exclusive music coverage to major outlets including Us Weekly, Creem, and Metal Hammer. Jason covers a wide range of genres, from mainstream pop and rock to alternative, punk, and emerging artists, bringing industry knowledge and editorial insight to his writing for Collider.
At first listen, you'd think that Bob Dylan would have nothing to do with hardcore punk. Dylan is the patron saint of '60s introspective folk pontifications, an artist whose albums The Times They Are A-Changin', Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited are meant to soundtrack beatnik coffee shops and hippie love-ins. And 1980s hardcore punk was not. It was a violent rejection of its forefathers: the fashionable British nihilism and the artsy New York hipsterdom. Yet, Dylan was a guiding light when one of hardcore's most beloved songwriters doubted himself: Mike Watt of Minutemen.
"Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs" Was A Tribute, Not A Diss
Minutemen—Mike Watt on bass, D. Boon on guitar and lead vocals, and George Hurley on drums—formed in January 1980 and immediately stood out from their contemporaries with their sound and subject matter. Influenced by art rockers like Captain Beefheart and post-punk pioneers Wire, Minutemen approached hardcore in their own way.
They were angry, but eschewed the fury of Black Flag for a reserved paranoia and working-class frustration. Their songs lasted less than a minute (their SST debut EP, Paranoid Time, was seven songs that ran 6:30), but they didn't blaze through sets like Bad Brains or Minor Threat. They sang about politics in an abstract way. Contrast their work with the explicit lyrics of the Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, and Discharge. Their short bursts of anger at the modern world around them appealed to kids facing similar alienation—almost a little too much for Mike Watt.
The band's second album, What Makes a Man Start Fires?, opens with one of the group's most memorable songs, if just for the title alone: "Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs."
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Contrary to what the title would imply, this song is actually a compliment. Watt, who wrote the song, told influential punk fanzine Flipside (h/t Songfacts) that he wrote it because he thought his songs "were starting to sound too sloganeering."
"And then I thought, 'Hey Bob Dylan, his stuff was almost as vital as propaganda,'" added Watt, before praising the folk rock legend. "Bob Dylan was probably the only person who I listened to the words in the 70s. My dad was a sailor, and he was always away, and Dylan seemed like a surrogate dad to me in a way."
The Minutemen's music told stories in ways that mirrored Dylan's own songwriting. There were precise visuals, like the lyrics to "This Ain't No Picnic"...
Working on the edge, losing my self-respect / for a man who presides over me / The principles of his creed / Punch in punch out, eight hours, five days a week / Sweat, pain and agony, on Friday I'll get paid
...but the band also used similes and metaphors, like in "Tension" from The Punch Line:
“With your revealing / I get that feeling / Of a blind man in bed / Couldn't hear what I said / with your revealing/ I get that feeling / of a monk in a church / a big empty church.”
Instead of being at war with Dylan, the Minutemen were following in his footsteps. So, in this case, propaganda meant songs that could be used for slogans or bite-sized ideologies.
Punk was not always a perfect vehicle for nuance, and it's hard to convey a complex thought clearly in under 90 seconds, especially when the young fans around you want to chant along and dive off the stage.
"Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs" Came Out Of 'Crisis'
Watt further explained how he came up with the song in a feature with Dusted magazine. "I had a crisis," he said. Remember, I'm in my 20s in those days. I'm wondering, are me and D. Boon and Georgie being a little too upfront about wondering about how power's distributed?"
"And then one guy, that I listened to words, because I didn't really know what words were for in songs. I thought they were like lead guitar—I did listen to Bob Dylan," said Watt. "So I thought, he wrote propaganda songs, well, we can do it too. And we shouldn't be afraid. You know, we never wrote our own songs till punk. We didn't have confidence."
Watt had a chance to clarify his positive stance on Bob Dylan on Minutemen's landmark 1984 album, Double Nickels on the Dime. Often considered one of the best albums of all time—certainly, one of the best to come out of the early 80s punk scene—the double-LP includes the song "History Lesson – Part 2."
Written by Mike Watt, the song was a way to humanize themselves. "People thought we were spacemen, but we were just Pedro corndogs – our band could be your life! You could be us, this could be you," Watt told Rolling Stone in 2012. While proclaiming "our band could be your life," Watt's lyrics, sung by D. Boon, also proclaimed, "Mr. Narrator / This is Bob Dylan to me / My story could be his songs / I'm his soldier child."
English (US) ·