
I couldn’t resist re-purposing this image, which I originally posted three years ago, as a final submission for this week’s Photo Challenge: H2O, to celebrate the Nobel Prize for Literature being awarded to Bob Dylan today. I shall never forget hearing “The Times They Are A Changin'” for the first time in the sixties. His lyrics seem even more relevent today than they did all those years ago.
Read them, listen to them, reflect on them.
“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’
Then 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
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll 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’.”
Bob Dylan ย 1963
I am SO happy to see this. I have read a plethora of tosh from a number of people I thought better of who presume that because Dylan is a musician and a popular one at that, that somehow he is not a valid choice for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Of course he is. First and foremost Dylan’s poetry has shaped more than one generation. I am beyond thrilled at the announcement. Your choice of lyric is perfect and you are so right that it resonates even more strongly now than it did in my youth. Thank you Andrew and by the way – the picture is spectacular!
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Thanks so much Osyth. His words reflect the history of our lives both yesterday and today. A great poet and a great award ๐
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Nice choice to finish off the challenge. Never did I anticipate a link between H2O and Dylan. ๐
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Thanks Lignum.
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