Johnny Depp Performs Bob Dylan Song Paying Tribute To 'Sacrificial Hero' George Floyd
By Mike Walters on June 8, 2020 at 8:46 AM EDT
Gettyimages | Daniel Knighton
Johnny Depp channeled legendary songwriter Bob Dylan and performed his hit song 'The Times They Are A-Changin’ to honor 'sacrificial hero' George Floyd -- and explain to the world how the song applies to this important moment in our country.
The 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star posted a video on Instagram, of himself performing the song inside of his L.A. home, and included a lengthy caption about the important message behind the music.
"Two months before the world was subjected to the shocking live coverage of the merciless, bloodthirsty and public daylight murder of JFK in Nov. 1963, Bob Dylan sat down to write a song… He had a particular idea in mind, which he recorded mere weeks before Kennedy’s tragic Assassination," he began.
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Depp continued, "Dylan had already achieved stratospheric acclaim from his treasure-producing workmanship and poetic abilities. He had already jacked up the bar of songwriting to an untouchable level. He also became a reluctant prophet, which can be quite an occupational hazard…Yet he remained himself while dodging all manner of con artists, bloodsuckers, angles, arrows, ignorance, injustices, and scrutinization of his life. His intentions remained pure. So he sat down and wrote the gold standard of protest songs, the seminal and most significant, mind-boggling and staggeringly poetic, prophetic protest song the world will ever know: “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.
Johnny Depp then explained how much the lyrics of this classic folk song applies to the current state of this country and the killing of George Floyd.
"Dylan’s song applies to Covid-19, it also, very strongly applies to the life-altering image of George Floyd, forever seared to our brains…" Depp said.
He continued, "For me, it applies to the moment we are in, it applies to the moment they were in in 1963, it applies to everything before and everything since and everything that will be," Depp wrote. Adding, "and it applies now, more than ever. It was performed a couple of weeks before our collective paralysis was rendered complete by the images of our fellow human George Floyd being cruelly and brutally tortured to death on live TV."
Johnny asked that his millions of fans to "take a moment to remember the sacrificial hero George Floyd and look with hope towards the changes that his tragic death will cause."
In the end, he said, "let’s salute the reluctant prophet Bob Dylan and the dream of change he inspired then, now, and onwards… His impact is that of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Hunter Thompson, Marlon Brando, Woody Guthrie, William Blake, Picasso, Bach and Mozart. Dylan’s song is to be kept near you, AT ALL TIMES!!"
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