vimeo:
spotify:
@#31 on my list of Bob Dylan’s top 200 songs.
Wikipedia:
“The Times They Are a-Changin’” is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album of the same name. Dylan wrote the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the time, influenced by Irish and Scottish ballads. Released as a 45-rpm single in Britain in 1965, it reached number 9 in the British top ten.
Ever since its release the song has been influential to people’s views on society, with critics noting the general yet universal lyrics as contributing to the song’s lasting message of change. Dylan has occasionally performed it in concert. The song has been covered by many different artists, including Nina Simone, the Byrds, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, Joan Baez, Phil Collins, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen. The song was ranked number 59 on Rolling Stone‘s 2004 list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.
I knew exactly what I wanted to say and who I wanted to say it to…. This was definitely a song with a purpose. It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads …’Come All Ye Bold Highway Men’, ‘Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens’. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time.”
– Bob Dylan (liner notes to 1985’s Biograph)
The first time a lot of pop fans noticed Dylan was when the ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’ came out as a single in 1964. To pop-trained ears, it was a laughable record. The singer had a voice that made Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys sound like Mario Lanza—and plainly, he hadn’t even the most elementary sense of timing. He brought in the second syllable of that title word ‘Changin’’ far too soon: at a quite ridiculous point. What was the record company playing at? Just because Bob Dylan was the writer of an interesting song called ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ didn’t mean he could expect to start singing all his other songs himself . . . To others, the striking thing was that here was someone who wasn’t just pop-singing, but truly communicating.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
He succeeded. “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” expresses a feeling that was in the air but had not yet been put into words (not in a popular, accessible medium), that all these political and cultural (and personal) changes going on were part of one large Movement, a sea change, something of historical proportions, the sort of thing spoken of in biblical prophecy. This song may have been the decade’s first public identification ofwhat later came to be called the “generation gap”-the new road ofthe children against the old road oftheir parents. Dylan took his own advice, seized the chance and wrote a hymn that would continue to be relevant throughout the changes ofthe next six years (at least). Naming the album after the song was a natural move, and served to heighten the dramatic impact of both album and song.
– Paul Williams – Bob Dylan Performing Artist I: The Early Years 1960-1973
Genuine modern broadsheet writing, this epic outburst of the early Sixties youth renaissance still thrills with its quasi-biblical prophecy of a new era just coming into flower.
– Ian MacDonald (Uncut Magazine – Bob Dylan’s 40 best songs)
Dark words, bright words of ice and fire, as if an angel did desced and use the writer as a pen.
– Mike Scott (Uncut Magazine – Bob Dylan’s 40 best songs)
When people describe Dylan as the “spokesman of a generation,” they are thinking of the man best defined by “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” And while Dylan would later bluntly reject that title, he consciously sought it with this passionate anthem. A masterpiece of political songwriting, it addresses no specific issue and prescribes no concrete action, but simply observes a world in violent upheaval. (That the song was released just months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy only lent it more power.) Dylan sings in the voice of a bard or prophet, in cadences that are clearly biblical – in his words, “short, concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way.”
– RollingStone Magazine – 100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
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Bob puts something into “The times They Are A-Changin’” that is unique to the evening. It’s not the way he sings the song, in any tecnical sense, but rather the feeling he manages to communicate. There is a sincerity in his singing, an unusual degree of conviction, a fresh, bright enthusiasm often associated with springtime.
~Paul Williams (BD Performing Artist 1974-86)
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Musicians:
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Performance at the White House:
A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Movement
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On January 24, 1984, during the annual shareholders’ meeting of Apple, Steve Jobs began his speech by introducing the original Macintosh with the second verse of “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”
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Don Henley (live, 1993):
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Tracy Chapman:
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Bruce Springsteen – 1997 Kennedy Center Honors:
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Keb’ Mo’:
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Joan Baez:
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-Egil
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