The Times They Are a-Changin' (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “The Times They Are a-Changin'” | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Album cover
|
|||||
| Single by Bob Dylan from the album The Times They Are a-Changin' |
|||||
| Format | 7" | ||||
| Recorded | October 24, 1963 at Columbia Studios, New York City | ||||
| Genre | Folk | ||||
| Length | 3:15 | ||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||
| Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | ||||
| Producer | Tom Wilson | ||||
| The Times They Are a-Changin' track listing | |||||
|
|||||
| “The Times They Are a-Changin'” | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by The Beach Boys | ||
| Album | Beach Boys' Party! | |
| Released | 8 November 1965 | |
| Genre | Folk | |
| Length | 2:23 | |
| Label | Capitol | |
| Composer | Bob Dylan | |
| Producer | Brian Wilson | |
| Beach Boys' Party! track listing | ||
|
||
"The Times They Are a-Changin'" is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his 1964 album of the same name. In 2004, this song was #59 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Dylan's friend, Tony Glover, recalls visiting Dylan's apartment in September 1963, where he saw a number of song manuscripts and poems lying on a table. "The Times They Are-a Changin'" had yet to be recorded, but Glover saw its early manuscript. After reading the words "come senators, congressmen, please heed the call", Glover reportedly asked Dylan: "What is this shit, man?", to which Dylan responded, "Well, you know, it seems to be what the people like to hear".
A protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s. Dylan, however, disputed this interpretation in 1964, saying "Those were the only words I could find to separate aliveness from deadness. It had nothing to do with age." A year later, Dylan would say: "I can't really say that adults don't understand young people any more than you can say big fishes don't understand little fishes. I didn't mean ['The Times They Are a-Changin'] as a statement... It's a feeling."
In 1996, "The Times They Are a-Changin" created some controversy for Dylan when he allowed Canada's Bank of Montreal to feature it in its advertising campaign.
The song was also quoted by Steve Jobs when Apple Computer introduced the first Macintosh computer, Macintosh 128K in 1984.
[edit] Cover versions
The song has been covered by many other artists, most notably Joan Baez, The Seekers, Phil Collins, Simon and Garfunkel, and Nina Simone (on 1969s To Love Somebody), and recently by Blackmore's Night.
The Beach Boys recorded a cover of the song for their 1965 album Beach Boys' Party!. Damien Leith also covered this song for his 2008 album Catch the Wind: Songs of a Generation.
