The Times They Are A Changin’
Words are powerful.
Bob Dylan, and other folk music prophets wrote/write what the eye of a seeker sees and what a hungry soul feels. Songs, poetry and all great stories are prophetic and deeply moving when they echo the past or are in tune with the times. It just feels like a great day to share Bob Dylan’s words in the midst of these changing times….
The Times They Are A Changing
Song by Bob Dylan & The Band Lyrics (you can read, and then listen below)
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’
And 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
The battle outside ragin’
Will 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’
Source: LyricFindSongwriters: Bob Dylan
October 17, 2020 at 11:27 pm
I enjoyed having the lyrics so I could sing along. Even if you (more or less) know the words, it’s easy to ignore exactly what they’re saying. Now as a writer, I like the second verse:
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again …
In this month’s Atlantic, an article by George Packer, “Make America Again,” says we may be in one of history’s “plastic hours” when “an ossified social order suddenly turns pliable …” Dylan says, again in verse 2, “And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin.” But maybe this period is exactly the time for writers to speak and influence that spin.
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October 18, 2020 at 3:10 pm
Thanks Nicki, http://nickichenwrites.com/wordpress
That’s exactly why I put up both the lyrics and Bob singing. Glad you enjoyed. It’s timeless, sadly because we are always doomed to repeat history.
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October 18, 2020 at 2:57 pm
For some reason I can’t “Like.”
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October 18, 2020 at 2:57 pm
Ah, now it worked.
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