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By Tony Attwood
About a week ago I wrote a piece on this site which argued that Bob’s real message does not concern revolution, but continuity. That was in relation to “Watching the River Flow” but since then the notion has been on my mind… I think from my teenage years when I first heard Bob’s songs I have seen him as a critic of the status quo and a herald of the new world – but now in old age, I start to wonder.
Of course there is the line “Come mathers and fathers throughout the land and don’t criticise what you can’t understand….” and that seems pretty clear as an announcement. And I do try and understand the world of those younger than me by talking not just with my daughters but also my grandchildren. Indeed the first verse of “Times they are a changing” still speaks to me…
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'
At least, I have always taken that to mean, that the world around us is changing and if we refuse to change and stick to the old beliefs and old ways, then we will become increasingly out of touch and hence out of date and thus irrelevant. But if we also change we can still influence the pattern of the changes that happen.
Now that is of course a major challenge to some religions – in fact I think to virtually all religions, since it seems to me (as a non-religious person) that all the religions I know about preach the details of an unchanging and unchangeable eternal truth. A truth which, as I understand it (but don’t believe), is as total and as relevant today as it was before the industrial revolution, and as indeed as it was 2000 years ago.
And yet “Times” seems to have a completely contradictory message. Unless of course one starts to argue that there is an eternal underlying truth, and then there is an endlessly wavering and changing way of behaving relevant to the present day. But that feels to me like a touch of special pleading.
Now of course I do admit that some of “Times” could refer to the fact that the world has obviously changed and obviously changes all the time and the lines below, including the “loser now” line could be related to the notion of Mathew 5:5 – “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” But this seems to be contradicted in “Times” by the lines that tell us
The battle outside ragin' Will soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'
I do appreciate that this could be a 20th century way of proclaiming that approach of the Second Coming and yet that in turn seems contradicted by
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'
In fact I think it is that verse which clearly shows that the most obvious understanding of Dylan’s “Times they are a changin” is by and large what he meant. Which is to say that visions, views, moralities and approaches to life change all the time. Thus in the early 19th century Britain began to outlaw the slave trade, and year by year moved from the notion of trading in slaves being legal to the ideals of equality which have grown to be part of our constitution ever since.
While acts of government thus do mark specific changes in what is and what is not legal, there is a constant evolution of the way people see society and the world around them, an evolution that seems to be on-going. And so it can be argued that it is that constant change that Bob is singing about, not any sudden revolutionary change.
But perhaps the most important message within the song is that the change for the better is inevitable, and there is no point is challenging the changes that are happening. Society makes changes happen, and there’s nothing much we can do about it.
That was certainly not the strong message accepted by many young people in the 1960s, and whether it is possible to say that the changes promised and hoped for have come about, is still a contentious issue.
But it does seem to me that Bob’s proclamation that “Times they are a changing” is not only true in terms of the obvious technical and scientific developments of the eras since the song was written, but is true of virtually all aspects of life. Many of those changes may not have actually proceeded as rapidly as one might have hoped, nor as rapidly as Bob seemed to suggest in the song, nor indeed always in the direction we might have hoped, but they have continued.
Of course one can debate whether life is “better” now than it was when Bob wrote the song; personally as a white middle-class male living as I do in the UK, I would suggest it is. But the song is not primarily about material wealth but about the moral and social bases of our society (they most certainly have changed since the 1963). But that’s not the question. The real issue that Bob was suggesting, if not overtly saying was surely, things would get better for the vast majority of people.
As a result when Bob sang, “I used to care but things have changed” we surely have little doubt that he was singing about a relationship with one person, rather than how our societies work.
I’d like to think that times have changed for the better, and that in general terms, Bob still cares – as indeed I do. And yet although I am pretty sure about me, I am not always certain about Bob. But then, he’s older than me, and maybe I’ve still got more of that road to travel.