[5] Dylan first recorded "Masters of War" in January 1963 for Broadside magazine, which published the lyrics and music on the cover of its February issue.
[6][7] The song was also taped in the basement of Gerde's Folk City in February and for Dylan's music publisher, M. Witmark & Sons, in March.
Additionally, they both participated in anti-war activism during the '50s and '60s, and Seeger shared many of the pacifist values expressed by Dylan in “Masters of War".
"[19] Hip hop group the Roots performed an epic 14-minute version of the song that was considered by critics to be the high point of a Dylan-tribute concert in 2007.
[20] In October 2020, Canadian rock band Billy Talent uploaded a cover of the song to YouTube, with a message from drummer, Aaron Solowoniuk, urging American viewers to vote in the 2020 United States presidential election.
"[3] Critic Andy Gill described the song as "the bluntest condemnation in Dylan's songbook, a torrent of plain speaking pitched at a level that even the objects of its bile might understand it."
Gill points out that when the song was published in Broadside magazine in February 1963, it was accompanied by drawings by Suze Rotolo, Dylan's girlfriend at the time, which depicted a man carving up the world with a knife and fork, while a hungry family forlornly looks on.
The repetitive text and accompaniment's droning single harmony work in tandem to drive home relentlessly the singer's perspective."
[24][25][26][27] Sounes suggests that, "He was probably being dilberately provocative, knowing exactly what to say to irritate Baez, but at the same time he did not write the song simply because it chimed with antiwar sentiments then in vogue.