Wednesday 14th November

I wonder if Dylan had any idea of the changes that were still to come when he wrote that song fifty years ago in 1962.  He was living through the rapid postwar changes in America, where a largely rural society was suddenly becoming urbanized, where young people – and by that he meant twenty-somethings, teenagers still did not matter – were demanding a bigger say in the way the world was run. America had a young President, who was promising a brave new world, even if the cold war was at its nastiest peak with the threat of nuclear war just there on the horizon.  But hardly anyone had telephones, television was still black and white and even in America only a couple of channels, there were no computers, cinema was still locked in that cosy Hollywood world of make-believe, un-besmirched by grim reality. Black people were still segregated physically in the South, and even in the big cities were definitely second class citizens.  Homosexuality was illegal, and gay people had to be very very careful.  Abortions were illegal too, so there were shotgun weddings and absolute shame if you were a single mother.  Divorces were uncommon and expensive and divorced women, especially, were generally not welcome in polite society.

And yet Bob felt that things were changing and he wrote an anthem that a whole generation sang, looking forward to a new world.  Little did he envisage the immense changes to come.  And yet how was he also to know that all that enthusiasm for real political change would dissipate so quickly.  Afghanistan has replaced Vietnam in the roll-call of foreign interventionist wars; Obama has replaced Kennedy; Al Quaeda and Muslim fanaticism has replace Russia in the new cold war, the rich are even richer; the poor just as destitute, and a majority of those are still black; but worst – a sort of apathy has settled over young people, the real drivers of society.  No longer are they looking for heroes and role models, simply celebrities, whose rich and easy lifestyle is to be emulated and admired.

And in fifty years time when ‘The Times They Are A Changin’ is dragged out of the archives will they have any clue at all what Bob was singing about.