Dylan wrote this in about 10 minutes one afternoon. He put words to the melody of an old slave song called "No More Auction Block," which he might have learned from Carter family records. In the evening, Dylan took the song to the nightclub Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village, where he was due to play a set. Before playing it, he announced, "This here ain't no protest song or anything like that, 'cause I don't write no protest songs." During this first performance, Dylan couldn't read some of his own handwriting and made up some of the lyrics as he went along.

In the US, this was a #2 hit for Peter, Paul & Mary in 1963. Dylan was an obscure Folk singer at the time and for many people this was their first exposure to his music.

Dylan gained National exposure when he performed this with Peter, Paul & Mary at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. Magazines like Time, Playboy, and The New Yorker ran stories on Dylan after the performance.

Dylan wrote this in 1962, but did not release it until his second album a year later.

A 1963 Newsweek article fueled rumors that Dylan stole this from a New Jersey high school student. In 1962, Dylan let a Folk magazine publish the lyrics. The student, Lorre Wyatt from Millburn, NJ, got the magazine and played it for the band he was in, claiming he wrote it. They performed it for their school a few months before Dylan released the song, which led everyone in the school to believe Dylan had stolen this from Wyatt.

This song was a major influence on Sam Cooke and prompted a change in his music. Cooke felt this could easily have been about racial injustice and thought it had special relevance to the black community. He performed a soulful version on the ABC show Shindig and released a live version on his album Sam Cooke At The Copa. In December, 1964, just as Cooke began writing more political music, he was shot and killed by a motel manager who claimed she acted in self-defense. Released shortly after his death, Cooke's song "A Change Is Gonna Come" may be the best example of Dylan's influence on him.

This song is played in the movie Forrest Gump by the character Jenny. She's in a strip club, and she's "Bobbi Dylan." She's sitting on a stool naked playing guitar and singing, and when the drunk men start to get fresh Forrest tries to save her. (thanks, Natasha - Chico, CA)

Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary in the Radio Times, October 13-19, 2007: "His (Bob Dylan's) writing put Peter, Paul and Mary on another level. We heard his demos and Albert (Grossman, both Dylan and the trio's manager) thought the big song was Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, but we went crazy over Blowin' In The Wind. We instinctively knew the song carried the moment of its own time. He was rising so fast over anybody else, in the level of poetry and expression, to a shatteringly brilliant level." (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England)

This may be the most covered of Bob Dylan's songs. Some of the many artists who performed it include Dolly Parton, Nickel Creek and Neil Young. When The Staple Singers recorded it, they became the first black group to cover a Bob Dylan song.

Bob Dylan performed this in the BBC play Madhouse On Castle Street, which aired January 13, 1963. Dylan performed songs throughout the play, closing with "Blowin' In The Wind." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France, for above 2