Mozambique Bard?

I first learned of Bob Dylan's 1976 song Mozambique from a 2016 article in Adrian Frey's Club of Mozambique newsletter. Frey points out that many people in Mozambique had -- like me -- never heard of the song until Dylan won (reluctantly) the Nobel Prize in Literature four decades later.

Frey outlines reasons that some in the former Portuguese colony were pleased at the attention while others were offended by the breezy lyrics about a place that was in such real duress at the time of its struggle for independence and subsequent civil war. Among the YouTube comments associated with the live video above is a post by user gardenofthegods, defending the song as a sophisticated but widely misunderstood commentary on the dire situation in Mozambique at the time. Of course, being a YouTube comments section it is not surprising to see the same user yammering on about the volume controls in his phone. Better audio is available on the studio version.

I will be looking for more insight from those who know Dylan or Mozambique better than I do.

Lagniappe

I learned of this song from Fascinating Facts About Every Single Country on Earth, posted on Far & Wide by Max DeNike last week. As the title suggests, he shares just one item about each country, and most of them are rather interesting.