On This Day in 1963, Bob Dylan Stepped Into the Studio and Recorded a Protest Song That Is Just as Poignant Today as It Was Then

On this day (October 23) in 1963, Bob Dylan entered the Columbia recording studio in New York and recorded “The Times They Are a-Changing.” The song captured the hearts and minds of listeners who, at the time, wanted to see positive changes in the world around them. Its lyrics remain relevant more than six decades later.

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“The Times They Are a-Changing” sees Dylan employing traditional folk songwriting. The opening lines, Come gather ‘round people / Wherever you roam, harken back to early folk songs in which the singer begins by beckoning a crowd to come near and hear their story. Then, there’s the use of the antiquated “a-changin’” in the title and the end of each verse. He drew inspiration from the traditional ballads of England and Ireland for the song’s structure.

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Dylan’s mind wasn’t stuck in the past when he wrote the song, though. Instead, he wrote verses that were poignant at the time. However, instead of writing about current events and the shifting culture of the early 1960s, he kept things vague. As a result, it has been an anthem of change for generations. The universality of the song wasn’t an accident. It was by design.

Bob Dylan’s Anthem of Change

“I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, with short, concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way,” Bob Dylan wrote in the liner notes of Biograph. “This is definitely a song with a purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and who I wanted to say it to,” he added.

Dylan used the song as the title track of the album he released in February 1964. By that time, social change in the United States had reached new heights after the assassination of JFK in November 1963. Months after the album dropped, President Johnson called for the air strikes that began the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War. The counterculture movement, later referred to as hippies, began in response to the war and the draft that fed it more young American men.

 “The Times They Are a-Changin’” became an anthem for anti-war protesters and other members of the counterculture. Decades later, it remains an incredibly popular protest song.

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