The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan (1963).
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’
I’ve had this on repeat the last week or so.
Ancient wisdom from the vibe shift of another generation.
It sounds so innocuous (YouTube). Dylan with his level tone and that harmonica. It’s timeless. But then you listen to the lyrics…
That fourth verse? Gives me shivers.
Some background over at Wikipedia.
You get those eras where everything up-ends. The axes on which the world is measured no longer make sense. On the other side, there are new institutions, new ways of operating, new ways of feeling. Until now, it hasn’t been like that.
As a Gen X tailender, the last couple decades have felt a bit like an eternal 1990s. But I want to be baffled by music! I want to be surprised by culture!
And now – it’s happening? I love it. I love Gen Z. I love being continuously challenged to re-configure my internal scaffolding. I love their energy. It’s infectious. They’re grappling with the world - politics and identity and fashion and everything else - and that’s infectious too.
Anyway, what does a vibe shift feel like? And how should you act? Dylan wrote this song as documentary, last time round – a voice that came from you and me
as Don MacLean put it.
It’s funny, I must have heard it a thousand times, and I’ve really only heard it this week.
On a technical note, reading the final verse it looks like it should speed up. Shorter words, fewer beats per line.
As a writer, to me, that’s an acceleration.
BUT music is rhythmic. Each verse is the same length. So shorter lines mean the words have more room. It’s almost not noticeable but in that final verse, the words extend, they grow and lift.
So it ends on a note of power. Not urgency but strength. It hadn’t occurred to me before that music would work like this.
There’s a growing coalition around change. Change first, values next. Break the logjam, end the great stagnation, crack the egg on a societal level, whatever you want to call it. The coalition connects ugly politics burning it all to the ground and shitposting inventors on the socials. I mean, it’s not a coalition that can hold, clearly. And I’m sure many in it would deny their participation.
But if we are to (say) get through the climate crisis, the ability to change is a prerequisite. And it is all connected, the opening the Overton window of weirdness is contagious.
Though when things do get moving, we’ll all start arguing about which way. And who knows how it’ll settle out. One side or the other or more likely some unimagined and unimaginable synthesis/detente.
That’s the ancient roadmap in the song.
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
Vibe shifts eh. As previously discussed.
The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan (1963).
I’ve had this on repeat the last week or so.
Ancient wisdom from the vibe shift of another generation.
It sounds so innocuous (YouTube). Dylan with his level tone and that harmonica. It’s timeless. But then you listen to the lyrics…
That fourth verse? Gives me shivers.
Some background over at Wikipedia.
You get those eras where everything up-ends. The axes on which the world is measured no longer make sense. On the other side, there are new institutions, new ways of operating, new ways of feeling. Until now, it hasn’t been like that.
As a Gen X tailender, the last couple decades have felt a bit like an eternal 1990s. But I want to be baffled by music! I want to be surprised by culture!
And now – it’s happening? I love it. I love Gen Z. I love being continuously challenged to re-configure my internal scaffolding. I love their energy. It’s infectious. They’re grappling with the world - politics and identity and fashion and everything else - and that’s infectious too.
Anyway, what does a vibe shift feel like? And how should you act? Dylan wrote this song as documentary, last time round – as Don MacLean put it.
It’s funny, I must have heard it a thousand times, and I’ve really only heard it this week.
On a technical note, reading the final verse it looks like it should speed up. Shorter words, fewer beats per line.
As a writer, to me, that’s an acceleration.
BUT music is rhythmic. Each verse is the same length. So shorter lines mean the words have more room. It’s almost not noticeable but in that final verse, the words extend, they grow and lift.
So it ends on a note of power. Not urgency but strength. It hadn’t occurred to me before that music would work like this.
There’s a growing coalition around change. Change first, values next. Break the logjam, end the great stagnation, crack the egg on a societal level, whatever you want to call it. The coalition connects ugly politics burning it all to the ground and shitposting inventors on the socials. I mean, it’s not a coalition that can hold, clearly. And I’m sure many in it would deny their participation.
But if we are to (say) get through the climate crisis, the ability to change is a prerequisite. And it is all connected, the opening the Overton window of weirdness is contagious.
Though when things do get moving, we’ll all start arguing about which way. And who knows how it’ll settle out. One side or the other or more likely some unimagined and unimaginable synthesis/detente.
That’s the ancient roadmap in the song.
Vibe shifts eh. As previously discussed.