Who Is Bob Dylan's Song 'The Times They Are A-Changin'?

“Come gather ’round people, wherever you roam”, these are the first two verses of Bob Dylan’s well-known song, “The Times They Are A-Changin’”. A song meant to define what the United States and the world was going through: out with the old and in with the new. This hit single was released in 1964, in Dylan’s album, The Times They Are A-Changin’. The idea behind it was made by Dylan, to make an anthem for the changing times during the Civil Rights Movement. Since its release, Dylan has been labeled as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. When writing the song Dylan was quoted in saying, “This is definitely a song with a purpose. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other …show more content…
Some people didn’t approve of Dylan when writing his songs, but he was sure it was what the people wanted to hear. The people wanted something to define a generation filled with rebels and trailblazers. The lyrics were constantly changed and mended to give a perfect picture of people’s views on social injustices and the government’s unwillingness to change them. The song was given a whole new meaning when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated within a month of Dylan recording it. While he was touring, Dylan used the song as the opening to his concert. With the president’s assassination he was extremely worried that the audience would disapprove and even boo him off the stage. However, he received just the opposite, “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.” (Dreier, “The Political Bob Dylan”). Dylan didn’t understand it nor did want it, but he had just been labeled a protest