John Birch Society

JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY

 
The John Birch Society  is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism and limited government.  After an early rise in membership and influence, efforts by people like conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. and National Review led the JBS to be identified as a fringe element of the conservative movement, mostly in fear of the radicalization of the American right.   (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Early pressings of Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan included “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” and three other wonderful songs that I got to know on bootleg albums as I bought them.  When the John Birch Society song became controversial, Columbia Records pulled back the albums and reissued them with the familiar song set that we know today.   
 
(April 2012)
 
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Much of the overheated rhetoric about J. Reuben Silverbird is about his name changes; even the minor switch from Ruben to Reuben is mentioned.  Using stage names is hardly limited to rock musicians – the very term itself shows that its origin is in the theatre.  You needn’t go any further than the drummer for the Beatles to find one:  Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey).  Guitarist and songwriter Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones used the name Keith Richard for many years.  The John Birch Society called Stones frontman Mick Jagger Mick Jaeggert” back in the 1970’s; a Google search brought up only two websites using this name – one French and one Hungarian – so this is probably not for real. 

 

(August 2013)

 
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By the time I was in college at the end of the 1960’sthe John Birch Society and other such groups had changed tactics slightly and were pushing two publications by David A. Noebel called Rhythm, Riots and Revolution (on “the Communist Master Music Plan”) and Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles.  
 
(July 2014)
 
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Some of the very early pressings of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that are now extremely rare included four sterling Bob Dylan songs that were later left off the album:  “Rocks and Gravels”, “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”, “Gambling Willie's Dead Man’s Hand” and “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues”.  Two of these four songs, under the names “Ride Willie Ride” and “John Birch Society Blues” are included on John Birch Society Blues.  The latter song is an hilarious but quite harsh take on the anti-communist group called the John Birch Society that has nice things to say about Adolf Hitler and neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln Rockwell.  One verse goes:  “Well, I investigated all the books in the library / Ninety percent of them have gotta be thrown away / I investigated all the people that I knowed / Ninety-eight percent of them have gotta go / The other two percent are fellow Birchers / Just like me.” 
 
 
(September 2017)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021