The Times They Are a-Changin’

You’re listening to…oh come on. You know what this is.

Bob Dylan’s 1964 anthem is perhaps inextricable from the decade’s place in American cultural history. But it was released as a 45 in the UK, and inspired by the music on that side of the Atlantic. Said Dylan in a 1985 interview: It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads …’Come All Ye Bold Highway Men’, ‘Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens’.

Lyrics like those gave Dylan himself pause on the night of November 23, 1963. President Kennedy had been assassinated the previous day.

‘I thought: Wow, how can I open with that song? I’ll get rocks thrown at me.’ But 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”

Photo: Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. [Entertainment: closeup view of vocalists Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.], 08/28/1963