62 Years Ago Today, Bob Dylan Made His UK Chart Debut With a Hopeful Anti-Establishment Anthem Based on a Carter Family Classic

62 years ago today (April 3), Bob Dylan was on the official UK Singles chart for the first time with “The Times They Are A-Changing.” Later in the month, it peaked at No. 9, giving Dylan his first of six top 10 hits in the country. It wasn’t released as a single in the United States. Despite that, it became an anthem for the ever-growing counterculture, just as he had intended.

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Dylan wrote “The Times They Are A-Changing” and recorded it as the title track from his 1964 album. The single hit shelves in the United Kingdom on March 8. Roughly six weeks later, in mid-April, it became his first hit on the UK Singles Chart. The song’s chart success is less important than its social impact, though.

[RELATED: 3 Times Bob Dylan Completely Changed a Song After Releasing It]

On one hand, it was a timely song. Dylan was watching the Civil Rights movement unfold in the United States and wrote from the perspective of someone witnessing a great change and of the people who were trying to stand in its way. It captured the thoughts and feelings of those in the growing counterculture who were still years away from being called hippies. On the other hand, the lyrics are vague enough to be timeless. Each generation sees its own major changes, which means these lyrics will forever be relevant to those listening with the right kind of ears.

Behind Bob Dylan’s Timeless Anthem

Bob Dylan didn’t just sit down to write a song and come away with “The Times They Are A-Changing.” He set his pen to paper with a purpose when he wrote this one. “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,” he wrote in the liner notes of the career-spanning 1985 compilation Biograph. “This is definitely a song with purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and who I wanted to say it to.”

According to Songfacts, Bob Dylan borrowed the song’s melody from the traditional song “Wayworn Traveler.” More specifically, he looked at the rendition recorded by the Carter Family in 1936. First, he wrote a new set of lyrics to the melody, which he called “Paths of Victory.” Then, he wrote new lyrics and changed the time signature to create “The Times They Are A-Changing.”

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