Blowin' in The Wind - Legacy

Legacy

The first line of the song ("How many roads must a man walk down?") is proposed as the "Ultimate Question", in the science fiction novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It is also likely that this line was an allusion to Big Bill Broonzy's song, "When Will I Get to be Called a Man?"

In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Jenny sings this song for a show in a strip club, and is introduced as "Bobby Dylan". The film's soundtrack album features Joan Baez's 1976 live recording of the song, from her From Every Stage album.

In 1975, the song was included as poetry in a new high school English textbook in Sri Lanka. The textbook caused controversy because it replaced Shakespeare's work with Dylan's.

During the Iraq War protests, commentators noted that protesters were resurrecting songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" rather than creating new ones.

The song has been embraced by many liberal churches, and in the 1960s and 1970s it was sung both in Catholic church "folk masses" and as a hymn in Protestant ones. In 1997, Bob Dylan performed three other songs at a Catholic church congress. Pope John Paul II, who was in attendance, told the crowd of some 300,000 young Italian Catholics that the answer was indeed "in the wind" – not in the wind that blew things away, but rather "in the wind of the spirit" that would lead them to Christ. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI (who had also been in attendance) wrote that he was uncomfortable with music stars such as Dylan performing in a church environment.

In 2009, Dylan licensed the song to be used in an advertisement for the British consumer-owned Co-Operative Group. The Co-Op claimed that Dylan's decision was influenced by "the Co-Op's high ethical guidelines regarding fair trade and the environment." The Co-Op, which is owned by about 3 million consumers, also includes Britain's largest funeral parlour and farming business.