"The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released as the title track of his 1964 album, The Times They Are a-Changin'.
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 r.p.m. single in Britain in 1964, it reached number 9 in the British top ten[1] and was Britain's hundredth best selling single of 1965.[2]
Ever since its release the song has been very influential to people's views on society, with critics noting the general yet universal lyrics as contributing to the song's everlasting message of change. The song ever since has been an occasional staple in Dylan's concerts.
The song has been covered by many different artists, including The Byrds, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beach Boys, Joan Baez, Phil Collins and Bruce Springsteen. The song was ranked #59 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[3]
| "The Times They Are a-Changin'" | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Outer sleeve of the 1965 Swedish release.
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| Single by Bob Dylan | |||||||||||
| from the album The Times They Are a-Changin' | |||||||||||
| Released | January 13, 1964 (album) March 8, 1965 (single) |
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| Format | 7" | ||||||||||
| Recorded | October 24, 1963, Columbia Studios, New York City | ||||||||||
| Genre | Folk | ||||||||||
| Length | 3:15 | ||||||||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | ||||||||||
| Producer(s) | Tom Wilson | ||||||||||
| Bob Dylan singles chronology | |||||||||||
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Inspiration and composition
Dylan appears to have written the song in September and October 1963.He recorded it as a Witmark publishing demo at that time, a version that was finally released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
The song was then recorded at the Columbia studios in New York on October 23 and 24,[4] and the latter session yielded the version that became the title song of Dylan's third album.[5] The a- in the song title is an archaic intensifying prefix as seen in the British songs, "A-Hunting We Will Go" and '"Here We Come A-wassailing", from the 18th and 19th century.
Dylan recalled writing the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the moment. In 1985, he told Cameron Crowe: "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."[6]
Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin recounts how Tony Glover stopped by Dylan's apartment in September 1963, picked up a page of the song Dylan was working on and read a line from it: "'Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call.' Turning to Dylan, Glover said, 'What is this shit, man?' Dylan shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'Well, you know, it seems to be what the people want to hear.'"[7]
Dylan critic Michael Gray called it "the archetypal protest song." Gray commented, "Dylan's aim was to ride upon the unvoiced sentiment of a mass public—to give that inchoate sentiment an anthem and give its clamour an outlet. He succeeded, but the language of the song is nevertheless imprecisely and very generally directed."[5]
Gray suggests that the song has been outdated by the very changes that it gleefully predicted, and hence the song was politically out of date almost as soon as it was written. The lyrics used reflected his views on social injustices and the government’s unhelpful attitude towards change.
Literary critic Christopher Ricks suggests that the song transcends the political preoccupations of the time in which it was written. Ricks argues that Dylan is still performing the song, and when he sings "Your sons and your daughter/Are beyond your command", he sings inescapably with the accents not of a son, no longer perhaps primarily a parent, but with the attitude of a grandfather.
Ricks concludes: "Once upon a time it may have been a matter of urging square people to accept the fact that their children were, you know, hippies. But the capacious urging could then come to mean that ex-hippie parents had better accept that their children look like becoming yuppies. And then Republicans..."[8]
Critic Andy Gill points out that the song's lyrics echo lines from the Book of Ecclesiastes which Pete Seeger adapted to create his anthem "Turn, Turn, Turn!".
The climactic line about the first later being last, likewise, is a direct scriptural reference to Mark 10:31: "But many that are first shall be last, and the last first."[9]
Less than a month after Dylan recorded the song, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
The next night, Dylan opened a concert with "The Times They Are a-Changin'"; he told biographer Anthony Scaduto: "I thought, 'Wow, how can I open with that song? I'll get rocks thrown at me.' But I had to sing it, my whole concert takes off from there.
I know I had no understanding of anything. Something had just gone haywire in the country and they were applauding the song. And I couldn't understand why they were clapping, or why I wrote the song. I couldn't understand anything. For me, it was just insane."[10]
The Byrds' version
Like other Dylan-penned compositions that the band had covered, such as "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "All I Really Want to Do", the song was intended to be the A-side of a single.
The song is sung by band leader Jim McGuinn and prominently features The Byrds' signature twelve-string Rickenbacker guitar. The song was heavily played at live concerts, surrounding the song's release.[12]
I remember the Beatles were in the studio for one of them (version of
'The Times They Are A-Changin'). That kinda put a lot of pressure on
us.
“
”
— Roger McGuinn [13]
Columbia Records originally pressed thousands of cover sleeves for the alleged single, but Byrds manager Jim Dickson asked for the release to be dropped due to the group's dissatisfaction, most vocally David Crosby; Dickson originally thought the song would have made a strong single.
In a 2004 interview, Chris Hillman stated his dislike towards the song, suggesting that "we shouldn't have bothered with that song".[13][15]
Another version of the song, recorded in June, appears as a bonus track on the 1996 reissue. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" ended up becoming the band's third single, reaching #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts and #26 on the UK Singles Chart.[16][17]
The Byrds performed the song on the U.S. television program Hullabaloo, but failed to make a long-term impact.[18]
CBS England issued "The Times They Are a-Changin'" as the lead track of an EP, alongside the Gene Clark-penned "Set You Free This Time", which gained moderate success.[19]
In addition to its appearance on The Byrds' second album, "The Times They Are a-Changin'" appears on several Byrds' compilations, including The Very Best of The Byrds, The Byrds, The Essential Byrds, There Is a Season, The Byrds' Greatest Hits and The Byrds Play the Songs of Bob Dylan.[20]
The song also makes its appearance on There Is a Season boxset, which comprises 99 tracks and includes material from every one of the band's twelve studio albums, presented in roughly chronological order.[21]
| "The Times They Are a-Changin'" | |
|---|---|
2011 re-release picture sleeve 45 rpm vinyl
|
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| album track by The Byrds from the album Turn! Turn! Turn! | |
| Released | December 6, 1965 |
| Recorded | September 1, 1965, Columbia Studios, Hollywood, CA |
| Genre | Folk rock |
| Length | 2:18 (album version) 1:54 (original version) |
| Label | Columbia |
| Writer | Bob Dylan |
| Producer | Terry Melcher |
Source: Wikipedia.org
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