DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

The Times They are a-Changin’ ~ Bob Dylan  

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet, and disc jockey who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan’s most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, became anthems of the anti-war and civil rights movements.

Dylan’s early lyrics incorporated politics, social commentary, philosophy and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has shown steadfast devotion to many traditions of American song, from folk and country/blues to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly, to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing.

The Times They are a-Changin’

“The Times They Are a-Changin” is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his 1964 album of the same name.

Dylan appears to have written the song in September and October 1963.  He recalled writing the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the moment.  He told Cameron Crowe in 1985:

“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.”

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’.

• Audio from the 1964 album, The Times They are a-changin’:

Other Songs Posted for this Artist

• March 5, 2010 -- What Was It You Wanted – Bob Dylan
• September 26, 2008 -- All Along the Watchtower ~ Bob Dylan
• July 31, 2008 -- Subterranean Homesick Blues ~ Bob Dylan
• June 29, 2008 -- Mr. Tambourine Man ~ Bob Dylan
• December 21, 2007 -- Desolation Row ~ Bob Dylan