"John Brown" is a song written by popular songwriter John Dylan in 1962 in response to the Vietnam War. Although it was not included in his early studio albums, it was performed publicly and was included in a few compilations and demo tapes. In writing a 600-word essay about the song, one might begin by describing the context of the Vietnam War and the involvement of folksingers in protests against it. Dylan himself, in particular, rose to prominence as part of an anti-war movement and wrote many songs about the topic.

"John Brown" consists of twelve four-line stanzas with one-line stanzas inserted after the fourth, seventh, and tenth main stanzas. It is written in a manner imitating a traditional folk ballad. The stanzas rhyme ABCB. The poem uses a four-beat line with an irregular number of unstressed syllables. 

The poem is a narrative about a young man, John Brown, who becomes a soldier, heads off to Vietnam, and then returns after having been wounded. It is narrated in the third person, with extended sections of dialogue between John and his mother. It follows in the tradition of writing about the return home of a disabled soldier, which was pioneered by World War I poets like Wilfred Owen.

The poem begins by describing the mother's pride at her son becoming a soldier. She sends him off and receives letters which seem upbeat in tone; she shares her pride with her neighbors. Next, the letters cease for 10 month, and then her son returns home, badly wounded. The son describes his growing disillusionment with war and how he began to realize that the "enemies" were just young boys like himself. At the end of the song, he drops his medals in his mother's hand and limps away.