This isn’t gonna be another music article about bands or groups the writer likes. I will try to put up songs from every genre. If you would like to see a certain song, comment on this or any future article I post up, and I will try to publish them as soon as I can.
The who?
Bob Dylan: The Times they are a-changin’
Bob Dylan's single cover for The Times they are a-changin'
The Video
The lyrics
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, congressman
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he who 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
You 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’.
The Meaning?
You have to understand that this song was written in the 1960s, but could make references to modern day. The 1960s was all about the Civil Rights Movement. The first verse talks about the peace walks and then getting the fire hoses turned on the protesters. The second verse refers to all of the debates about the civil rights movements among writers, critics and ordinary Americans. Perhaps it is about how the sixties was a historic time Americans shouldn’t choose a side too quickly.
Now the third verse explains how senators and congressmen had the ability to change the problem in Vietnam, yet refused and then gets a warning “There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’. It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,” telling them they should help with the cause or go against the cause.
The fourth verse talks about how the mothers and fathers don’t understand that it’s not up to them what will happen in the future with the Civil Rights movement, and they have to accept that fact. Also, they have to accept the fact that it is up to their children how the world will turn out so the warning to adults is to stay away if you are going against the cause. Finally the last verse talks about how everything is changing and we shall see the outcome as time rolls on.
To reference the present and justify why this song is still meaningful, times have changed because we have our first black president, Barack Obama, which has changed US history forever. Instead of being engaged in a war in Vietnam , we are in Iraq having a “battle”, also another “battle” is the crisis of the health care plan. If Congress doesn’t choose a plan they will also use, then there is no point for this new plan. Critics obviously condem every move someone makes, especially bad (“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen”) but it is their voices that keep the issues alive and bring about change.
