A Yearlong Bob-A-Thon! Weekly Update, 1/22/25

Bob Dylan isn’t playing on The Times They Are A-Changin’, released on February 10, 1964. Weighty themes abound and the frivolous moments that popped up throughout Dylan’s first two albums are few and far between on his third album.

The album opens with the stunning title track, a call to make the world a better place or get the hell out of the way of those who are trying to do so. What follows is a collection of dark tales and urgent warnings about the state of the world in 1964.

In other words, this 61-year-old album was the perfect album to soundtrack the run-up to Inauguration Day 2025. But it is, as Dad would have said, a “heavy” listen all around.

Speaking of Dad, this is another one of the Dylan albums Dad did not own. We won’t be hitting them up until around John Wesley Harding. I picked my copy of the album up just recently at Matone’s, one of the local record stores I frequent.

So, The Time’s They Are A-Changin’ is not a Dylan album I’d immersed myself in until now, though I knew several of the songs from various sources. Of course, I probably first heard the title song when I wasn’t even in grade school yet. I first heard “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”, a harrowing true story of casual murder and racism, on the Biograph box set in 1985.

It was only a few months after diving into Biograph that I saw Dylan live, at Live Aid (July 13, 1985). Dylan closed the American show at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, with a Rolling Stone — Ron Wood and Keith Richards — on either side of him. This performance probably wasn’t my best introduction to Bob Dylan live, and it looks sloppy enough on YouTube videos, but I’m thinking Bob Dylan’s Live Aid performance wasn’t as awful as its reputation might indicate.

Good or bad, Dylan performed three songs in this acoustic setting that night: “Blowin’ in the Wind”, plus two songs from The Time’s They Are A-Changin’, “Ballad of Hollis Brown” and “When the Ship Comes In.”

While everybody at JFK that night knew “Blowin’ in the Wind”, at least by some kind of pop culture osmosis, most of us were not as aware of the other tunes. But, it doesn’t take a deep scan of the songs’ lyrics to understand why Dylan chose them. “Ballad of Hollis Brown” tells the tragic tale of a man so desperately to avoid his family starving to death that he murder them, then kills himself. In “When the Ship Comes In”, Dylan notes “that the whole wide world is watchin’”, which is indeed what happened on Live Aid day: billions of people watched Live Aid, in the pre-Internet era.

This is also the moment where Dylan suggested that some of the money raised that day be used to help American farmers pay off mortgages. He angered Live Aid creator Bob Geldof, but simultaneously inspired Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp to organize Farm Aid. Not bad for a stray comment, Bob.

Here and now, more than 60 years since the release of The Time’s They A-Changin’, and almost 40 years after Live Aid, the album continues to resonate in ways that ought to make all of us a little (or a lot) uncomfortable.

But don’t take my word for it. Give a listen to Bob Dylan’s thoughts on religious nationalism (“With God on Our Side”) and political manipulation (“Only a Pawn in Their Game”) and try to pretend these songs aren’t just as relevant now — probably even more — than they were in 1964.

I dare you.