Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Bob Dylan has condemned the killing of George Floyd in a new interview with The New York Times.

Floyd was a US citizen who died May 25 after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer’s knee.

“It sickened me to no end to see George Floyd tortured to death like that,” a saddened Dylan shared. “It was beyond ugly. Let’s hope that justice comes swift for the Floyd family and for the nation.”

Bob Dylan wrote several of his best-known songs about the struggle for racial equality in the US, not least amongst them ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’.

He would also document the systemic racism endured by Black Americans in ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carol‘, ‘Only a Pawn In Their Game‘ and 1976 hit single ‘Hurricane‘.

Never one to shy away from the truth, Bob Dylan also offered a prophetic gaze into the current state of modern America.

“There’s definitely a lot more anxiety and nervousness around now than there used to be,” the 79-year-old reflected. “But that only applies to people of a certain age like me and you, Doug. We have a tendency to live in the past, but that’s only us.”

“Youngsters don’t have that tendency,” Bob Dylan contended. “They have no past, so all they know is what they see and hear, and they’ll believe anything. In 20 or 30 years from now, they’ll be at the forefront. When you see somebody that is 10 years old, he’s going to be in control in 20 or 30 years, and he won’t have a clue about the world we knew.”

“Young people who are in their teens now have no memory lane to remember,” he mused. “So it’s probably best to get into that mind-set as soon as we can, because that’s going to be the reality.”

A number of other notable mountains, including Beatle Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd‘s Roger Waters, have also commented on the injustice of Floyd’s death.

The full interview here.