In his song “With God on Our Side,” Bob Dylan takes on the perspective of a local Midwesterner whose views seem confined to the systematically patriotic teachings of his hometown. Dylan structures the song's crux like a history class curriculum, with major war victories listed chronologically, from America’s initial conquering of native land to the Cold War. Dylan stitches it between an introduction of the speaker’s background and two final stanzas questioning the validity of the speaker’s perspective. The author uses colloquial language and the repetition of God as an all-powerful justification for all wrongdoings to characterize the speaker as an All-American patriot. However, Dylan uses an underlying to hint at the injustices of war crimes. Through this, the author conveys differences between the speaker’s ignorance of people in other countries at the expense of his support for America in the wars and his indignance against war crimes regarding all ethnic groups.  

The speaker stereotypes ethnic groups based on their stances in wars fought with America, favoring those who stood with America and antagonizing those who fought against America. At the time of European colonialism of Native Americans, the government mistook them as Indians and wrote them into their “history books” without giving the Native Americans a chance to declare their identity (9; 10). The minimization of Native American identity helped the American government hide the fact that they killed individuals with families and backgrounds. The speaker uses the slur “Indians” instead of Native Americans, echoing the government’s will to strip away their identities (12;14). The speaker continues by generalizing citizens of other ethnic groups as “Germans” or “Russians,” “friends” or enemies to “fear,” “hate,” and “run and […] hide” from (35; 41; 36; 45; 46). By grouping all people from an ethnic group as one and labeling them as friends or enemies, the speaker overgeneralizes in the same way that many history books do, making it easier to be hostile against enemies. He glazes over individuals and paints entire ethnicities as good or evil simply because of the actions of a few politicians. Comparatively, the speaker spends more time characterizing American soldiers as heroes. He is “made to memorize” “the names of the heroes,” emphasizing each individual as important to the country, juxtaposing his generalization of other ethnic groups. He describes American soldiers as “cavalries,” which connotes the protection of a country and heroism (11;13). The stark contrast between the speaker’s respectful view of soldiers in America and his stereotypical and shallow view of foreign ethnic groups shows his polarized thought and ignorance of the truth about those outside of his limited community and a blind belief in the government’s words without knowing whether they are empirically true.   

Aside from glorifying the American soldiers, the speaker also uses higher power as an irrational justification for the war crimes. The speaker echoes the prevalence of religious thought in the Midwest at the time by alluding to Christianity when he claims that his homeland, its allies, and himself have “God” on their side (8; 16; 32; 40; 48; 56). To have God on a country’s side means the country abides by the Christian morals of loving thy neighbor, never killing, et cetera, painting the country and its government as holy and giving. God's support implies a having moral cause above all human objection for their actions. However, it is impossible to know whether God supports a country or government, given the intangible nature of religion, which shows that the speaker believes in the superiority of his country and government even without concrete evidence. The speaker repeats the notion of not questioning God or the government, “[accepting]” the unknown reason for fighting and hatred for other ethnic groups (30; 47) without "[asking] questions” (55). This shows that the government is covering up its crimes with a higher power that most citizens would not dare question, paradoxically using God as a justification for murder. The speaker unquestioningly believes in it and echoes these thoughts because he does not dare question God’s word, which reflects the government’s.   

Dylan brings the reader to an epiphany regarding the injustice of war crimes in the last two stanzas. He breaks the pattern of ending each stanza with the phrase “With God on its/their/your/our/his side” by ending with “If God’s on our side/He’ll stop the next war” (8; 16; 32; 40; 48; 56; 71-72). This sudden break in the sentence patterns and the author’s ironic tone leads the audience to question the real intention of the song, which is to criticize war crimes. Dylan implies that if America and its allies had God on their side, he would help stop the next war and prevent suffering and millions of deaths, no matter their ethnicity.  

Throughout the poem, Dylan also reveals his indignance at war crimes against citizens from all ethnic backgrounds. Dylan exemplifies his indignance first by juxtaposing US relations with the Germans and Russians. He begins with the paradoxical statement that the Germans “murdered six million/ in the ovens they fried” but still had “God on their side” (37-38; 40). Dylan explicitly states the number of Jewish people who were killed in the Holocaust to quantify the scale to which the Germans sinned. In doing so, he implies that they did not deserve to have a holy figure like God on their side. Hence, the author suggests that the American government decided Germans had God on their side only because they “were friends” now (36). This exposes the arbitrary nature of what grants a country God’s support and the injustice of it. Contrary to America’s reconciled relationship with Germany, the author describes an equally irrational hatred for Russians whom the speaker “learned to hate” and “must fight” throughout his life (41; 42). The author continuously uses forced words and phrases like “forced,” “made to,” “learned to,” “accept,” and “must” to describe the speaker’s reaction toward what he must do for America in the war (22; 29; 41; 44; 47; 51; 52). The forceful verbs show not only that the speaker does not naturally hate the Russians but instead learned to because of the government’s ideologies but also that the speaker is not necessarily willing to aid the government in committing all these war crimes in general. The author criticizes citizens for complying with the government by juxtaposing cowardly verbs like “run” and “hide” with the verbal irony of “bravely” (46; 47). Dylan implies that people only know how to run and hide without reason, yet they have the nerve to call their hatred bravery.   

Although modern warfare is often implicit or economic, citizens still face decreased quality of life when the government allocates resources they could have utilized for welfare into warfare. The ever-prevalent threat of nuclear warfare also heightens with increased tension among developed nations like the US and China. The poem’s final message is that the government’s justification of war using patriotism and religion is illogical, pushing the audience to apply that to modern-day conflicts and see through government propaganda. Dylan strategically uses the medium of folksongs to convey this message because it is easily understandable by a wide range of audiences and is appealing to those of all ages and educational backgrounds.