When Bob said Times are changing, it is quite likely he didn’t fully realise how.

By Tony Attwood

Jakob Brønnum and Eyolf Østrem have examined refrains in their substack series and  I am of course a long way behind them, but hoping eventually to catch up – although trying to examine Dylan’s music from slightly different directions.  And of course, as I am writing each one of these articles and then publishing it, I am not quite sure where I am going or if I will reach similar conclusions.  I’m probably as surprised as some of my readers at where we end up.

Anyway, previously in this series, which is becoming known (to me at least) as Dylan, the composer,  I’ve looked at…

1. Blowing in the Wind and No More Aucion Block
2. Bob Dylan’s Dream How the most subtle of musical changes gave the song a totally different meaning
3. Masters of War How Bob Dylan became a poet first and a songwriter second
4. Girl from the north country, Farewell, All Over You, The Death of Emmett Till
5. Davey Moore and Joni Mitchell’s complaint
6. Walls of Red Wing and New Orleans Rag
7. Seven Curses and With God on Our Side
8. Dylan 1963, the era of other people’s songs: From talking blues to eternal circle
9. North Country Blues and the evolution of the equality of lyrics AND music
10. Dylan in 1963: “Gypsy Lou” and “Troubled and I Don’t Know Why”
11. When the Ship Comes in: from Pirate Jenny onward.

and we have noticed that Dylan used repeated chorus lines and phrases in songs occasionally in 1963, most obviously with “the answer my friend is blowing in the wind,” and with “With god on our side,” and very clearly indeed with “the hour that the ship comes in” from the song of almost the same name.

Now these were not the only two songs with such a key repeated line.  “Blowing in the Wind” the previous year had used it, and it is quite possible that Dylan picked up the thought from that composition, thinking it was a handy way to hold a complex song together.   So it was that With God on our Side and Only a pawn in their game both used the same technique a little earlier in the year, and what we can see is that Bob liked the idea of the emphasis that this repeated line gave.   Of course, this wasn’t his invention, for a variation of it can be found in “This land is your land” by Woodie Gutherie where the title line appears repeatedly, and there obviously are many other examples.  My point is thus not that Bob invented the notion of a repeated line, but that he grabbed it and used it in ways that others had not considered before.  In fact I’ll put an example of one of the most brilliant line re-uses ever at the very end, just in case you’ve not come across it before.

But back to the plot: obviously, I can’t tell if the use of this technique or re-using a line in Bob’s very next composition was a deliberate ploy, or it just happened because Bob found a line that he liked, but quite obviously we do have it again in “Times they are a changing” although this time at the end of each verse.  In the “Ship”, the repeated line turns up half was through the verse.  In “Times” it is very definitely the last line of each verse and all the more powerful for that.  It sums everything up.

But both songs have a meaning in the lyrics which links them just as strongly as the technique of the repeated title line.  “Times they are a changin'” is both the title and the message, and the repetition of the line makes it certain that we are not going to forget that message.  I did wonder at the time how many frustrated teens, stopped from doing what they wanted, simply said to one or other (or both) parents, “Times they are a changing” before marching out, despite being told not to.

What is also interesting musically is the reversion in “Times they are a changing” to the 12/8 time signature of “With God on Our Side”.  Although triple time (which means pieces of music that have a 3 beat pulse in them rather than the 4 beat pulse that is common to most contemporary popular music) has been used in popular music from time to time over the years (we might think for example of “Norwegian Wood” by the Beatles) it is not that common.   And although 6/8 is not the same as 3/4 there is a certain linkage between the two, which makes some listeners feel that a piece in 6/8 is actually a fast 3/4.

In Times, however, there is a clear 12/8 rhythm, with the emphasis on 1, 4, 7, 10, with the biggest emphasis being on 1.

      1  2    3     4   5  
Come gather 'round people
  6 7 8   9    10, 
Wherever you roam
 11 12 1   2     3  4  5   
And admit that the waters
6   7   8   9    10
Around you have grown
11  12  1   2  3    4
And accept it that soon
5       6  7       8   9  10    
You'll be drenched to the bone
11  12   1,2  3  4  5   6    7  8, 9 10, 11    
If your time to you is worth savin'
12       1  2    3    4   5
And you better start swimmin'
6          7    8   9  10, 11
Or you'll sink like a stone
12      1,2,3  4    5  6 7,8,9 10, 11      
For the times they are a-changin'

12    1  2    2   4  5    6
Come writers and critics who....

Of course, this is a simplified approach – in that for example, the first syllable of “critics” at the end of the above example can be sung quickly on the fourth beat and held, but either way, the word “who” definitely comes on the sixth beat.

This is very unusual in popular music generally because 12/8 is tough to dance to without dancing as a waltz, but that didn’t matter here of course, because Bob was not writing a song to dance to and anyway, people don’t dance to protest songs.  But…

“Times they are a changin'” is not a protest song.   For in a protest song, the essence of the lyrics is not just that change is happening or about to happen, but rather that change is happening because of us.  We are changing the world from the old way in which those with money control everything to their own advantage, to a new just and fair society, or something along those lines.

But “Times” doesn’t say this at all.  It says that

...the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'

We are not making it happen, there are no revolutionaries as such. It is just the old regime being supplanted by the new regime, which will be a lot better.

Now there is, of course, a hint that the change itself might not be peaceful as in “The battle outside ragin’ Will soon shake your windows And rattle your walls,” but that is just a hint. And it would have been hard to make it much more than a hint, given that the record companies were being run by people who would remember the attempt to surplant our way of life, by the government of Germany.   So there is no call to arms, and there is no sign of revolutionaries coming along and sweeping away everything that has gone before.   Rather, there is a statement that change is happening, it is happening naturally, and above all there ain’t nothing you can do about it.

Of course this appealed greatly to the younger generation of which I was a part at the time (and oh! the irony of writing this now in my 70s, and having the enormous joy and pleasure of my grandchildren exploring the world, fighting against what they see as the irrelevant old ways, ignoring any suggestion that a grandfather might be able to offer some advice etc etc).  But I think in the era when the song was written, many of us ignored what the lyrics actually said (that change happens no matter what).  And if we could ignore that in the lyrics, we most certainly could ignore any implication there might be in the fact that the time signature made it sound like a waltz.   A revolutionary waltz?  Whoever thought of such a thing!

What did both attract me, and worry me, at the time the song was first heard in the UK was  the ending

The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last

… for I thought yes, I want the old ways kicked out in favour of a new world in which creativity and inventiveness would be valued equally with the virtue of hard work and knowing one’s place, but really, the band I was in was certainly not going to play a waltz, and I certainly wasn’t going to be found listening to a waltz!

And this was not just because we felt a waltz was 1930s, not progressive 1960s, but also because none of us had the talent of Bryan Ferry and co to turn the song into a four beats in a bar rocker (ie 4/4 not 12/8).

What strikes me is that this wonderful Ferry version contains a subtle underlayer, but despite this, there is still there, the threat to the older generation which is absolutely not in the Dylan original.   When Mr Ferry sings, “the order is rapidly fading” this is revolutionary.  When Bob sings it, it is like suggesting that an old-timer stays on the pavement so as not to be run down by passing traffic.

Thus, despite all the solidity expressed within the song both musically and lyrically in relation to the concept of natural progression, musicians have taken the song and had great fun with it.  And if you are listening to my examples, please do give the one below enough time to get through the first verse and then into the second.

In short what Bob had created, although I suspect neither he nor anyone else at the time quite realised it, was a piece of music (in fact many pieces of music) that could have one meaning when expressed in one way, but a different meaning when performed with the same words, but with a completely new arrangement.

Now, I have heard it argued that every song can be rearranged into something different but I would also argue that there are two issues here.  One is that just because Bob chose to give the world “Times” or, indeed, any other song, in one arrangement, that does not mean it is the best arrangement for all time.  The other is that I am not sure Bob is always a very good judge of what the possibilities are for his music.  And, of course, in that regard I am not the first to make such a comment.

But the implications of this are profound.  There are millions of well-known popular songs that really are trapped in their original arrangement because they don’t have anything within them that allows radical re-interpretation.   But that is not the case with many Dylan songs, and “Times” was neither the first, nor the last, that could be utterly transformed – not just into a new arrangement, but also into a new meaning.

In Bob’s original, the implication of the 12/8 time and the performance on Bob’s album is that this is the reality: times change, but at a fairly sedate pace, although the old folk (especially those in power) inevitably like to hold on to the past.   In reworkings of the song we find that by changing the rhythm and style of the accompaniment, the meaning of those lyrics now change.

The Bryan Ferry version of the song itself says, by transforming the song from 12/8 time into a solid 4/4 beat, that we are marching onwards to a new world, but this time we are the driving force.  In Dylan’s original version, the driving force was some sort of ill-defined natural change that has happened throughout human history.

And such a thought opens up a really radical notion, that Bob didn’t really see the possibilities of this song he had created or, indeed, perhaps of any of his songs.

Of course, over time that changed, and Bob has become a master of re-writing his own music, and indeed I have repeatedly slipped in, under the smallest of pretences, my own utter, utter favourite bit of Bob rewriting Bob.   If you are kind enough to read my ramblings regularly, you’ll know what’s coming and won’t have to play it, although I hope you will.  But if you are unsure what’s coming just sit back and enjoy this.  Because Bob The Arranger is a central part of Bob Dylan’s work, and a part of his legacy that is often ignored and it is a concept I want to explore further in this series.

If you have been, thank you for reading.