Lyrics, “Times They Are A-Changin'” (1964)
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’
And 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
The battle outside ragin’
Will 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’
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin’ lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Nice pick, Susan. They sure are! Who wuldda thunk it? 9/11. Trump and 1/6/20. Putin. Covid. Mass shootings of children. Climate change. The iPhone. GPS. The internet. D-day.
I’ve always been fascinated by history, and no more so than now. Also cosmology and the meaning of it all, if, that is, there is any meaning to it all. I am increasingly convinced that the nature of nature is randomness. Engineers call it stochastic behavior, which now seems to be the character of quantum dynamics. In other words, the butterfly effect. Parallel worlds. Anything you can imagine can happen, it’s all a matter of probability. Votes actually matter. There’s an ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” I think it’s both blessing and curse. I don’t want to die, I want to see what happens.
I do believe in the butterfly effect and it can be fascinating to see it in action. As for randomness in nature, I’m not so sure. Evolution and adaptation are certainly not random; they’re very deliberate and purposeful, if one can say that about nature. On the other hand, there’s the infinite monkey theorem. Adapting to change has never been my forte and while on the one hand I’d like to stick around and see what happens, on the other I’m sometimes glad I won’t be around. Depends on my mood.
Once, I was one of the sons and daughters beyond their command. Now, I am on the old road and rapidly aging, hoping to lend my hand before sinking like a stone. Thanks for sharing Dylan’s timely lyrics. He was correct then, and maybe even more so now.
Either he was prescient, or we just keep doing the same old things, what goes around comes around, human nature, yada yada. I hope that means better times will come again because I really don’t like where we are now.
perfect choice
I couldn’t tell you now what prompted the thought, but I couldn’t let it pass.
Most appropriate but scarily so. I, too, have mixed feelings, wanting to see what happens and other times thinking I might prefer to be spared the experience. Still, will I muster the oomph to keep challenging what must be challenged?
All we can do is all we can do, for as long as we can. I hate that our grandchildren think this is the way the world is. I hope we can show them it doesn’t always have to be this way.