the times they are a changin essay

Untold Dylan

The meaning behind the music and words of Bob Dylan

The times they are a changin’. The meanings behind Bob Dylan’s song

By Tony Attwood

This article updated 14 June 2017.

By pure chance as I settled down to gather my thoughts on The Times in preparation to write this review, I also listened to Girl of the North Country. And I think this truly brought home to me how different from his general self Dylan was, in writing The Times. How strident, how determined to make a point.

How different also because the song is in what is, for Dylan, a most unusual time signature – 12/8.

You can hear this time signature by listening to the guitar as he plays 1,2,3; 1,2,3; over and over again, with the “1” being the bass note of the chord, and 2,3 being the chord itself.

This process allows a multiplicity of words to get an accent because there are four accented words on syllables in each bar, rather than one, as we get in 4/4 (four beats in a bar).

12/8 is a c0mplex time in which the music is arranged (as noted above) in threes, with four groups of three making up a complete bar. If we look at the opening…

Come gath- er ’round peo- ple Wher- ev- er you roam And ad- mit that the wat- ers A- round you have grown

the bold words and part words are the emphasised words, the first of the 1, 2,3 across two bars. It gives the whole song its effect and fits with the strident, “this is how it is” concept, which is so unusual in Dylan.

Interestingly it seems to have been written just two weeks after “When the ship comes in” which tells not of how it is now, but how it will be in the future When the ship comes in. Perhaps as a result, “When the ship” is a much more joyous song telling of wonderful times to come. “Times,” written in the aftermath of the Washington march, is solid telling us it is happening now, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it.

Musically we can also note as Bream does in Dylan disc by disc that the melody is directly copied from One too many mornings – but we don’t hear it as such because the time signature is so different. One too many is a straight four beats in a bar piece – none of the complex rhythmic interplay of the twelve beats in four groups of three that Times gives us.

The opening is, of course, firmly based in the folk tradition of telling the villagers to gather around and I will tell you of wonderful things that are happening. Dylan did the same opening with North Country Blues where he commands, “Come gather round friends.”

Likewise the emphasis on an old traditional approach to songwriting is emphasised by Dylan writing “A-changing” and not “changing” in the title – a phrase dating back to 18th century English folk ballads.

But Times has neither the joyous buoyancy of “ When the ship ” nor the delicate feeling and concern of Girl of the North Country, nor the desperate bleakness and sorrow of North Country Blues. All the wistfulness has gone, this is definitive, strident, telling. There’s nothing personal here.

Dylan has a few times talked about the song and its meaning, and we all know how confusing and contradictory he can be, but in one interview in Melody Maker he did make a point that seems to me to be valid, as one comes to look back on a song that clearly has anthem proportions. Dylan said, it is “about the person who doesn’t take you seriously but expects you to take him seriously.”

Which from the point of view of the young incorporates everyone from parents to teachers, from those who programme TV channels to politicians.

And yet what has been called one of the most famous protest songs of all, isn’t really a protest song at all. It isn’t protesting about anything, rather saying, “time to wake up, the world has moved on”. It is a song about perception. You don’t have to rise up and overthrow the evil empire, but rather just admit that the world has changed irrevocably. So be careful – it might just pass you by, and you might just be left wondering where the old world went.

Certainly the world moved on at a pace none of us could have anticipated, although Dylan continued to open his concerts with the song. Talking to Anthony Scaduto, Dylan said, “Something had just gone haywire in the country and they were applauding the song. And I couldn’t understand why they were clapping, or why I wrote the song. I couldn’t understand anything. For me, it was just insane,” which in a perverse way shows how a perception of a song can be influenced by those who proclaim they know its meaning, rather than by the guy who wrote it.

So we have to

And accept it that soon You’ll be drenched to the bone

had already happened, the world had moved on.

And yet there is a secondary meaning within all this, for as Dylan says, there is no catching up to be done. The pathways are diverging here – you get on the route you choose and then you are stuck there.

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’

Dylan wasn’t right of course, because the changes of that year were just the sort of thing we had to get used to; from here on it was all change all the time, and by no means always for the better. Modernism was over, and the constant change, evolution and re-evaluation of post-modernism was now what we had to get use to. Dramatic, endless change, not the one off divergence that Dylan imagined.

Although he was absolutely right in saying,

For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled

Being non-changing in a world of endless change and re-invention was not an option if you wanted to stay part of the mainstream. The only way to opt out was the rural idyll of the later “New Morning” songs.

Of course what most teenagers of the time loved most of all was the lines telling their parents that it was all over. The cry “You don’t understand” suddenly had extra validity because it was on a record…

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’

Except of course that those who were teenagers at the time are now parents and grandparents. Maybe however we (or some of us) try to keep up with new ways of seeing.

While many songs about the revolution to come (from The Red Flag onwards) are seriously upbeat, Dylan is seriously downbeat. There is no joyous future, just a saying, “you are past it, get out of my way”. The song has no humour, just as indeed as the AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine points out, the album has no humour.

In fact this song opens an album that really I don’t want to listen to as an album any more. So as I said at the start, while I welcome the chance opportunity to hear Girl of the North Country again when I was actually meaning to play Times, there is not so much here I really want. Some tracks, yes, but somehow for much of the album, and particularly this song, the moment has gone. “One Too Many Mornings” and “Boots of Spanish Leather,” are for me the great exceptions.

And it was this realisation that led me to realise that the whole album except “Times” is about days gone by. This is an album that says, “the past has gone, the new times are here, but I want to tell you what it was like the past”. “Only a pawn”, “Hattie Carrol” and “Hollis Brown” all tell of desperate times, not a bright new future. “Restless Farewell” and “One too many mornings” tell us the only thing to do is to keep on moving on.

Since the 1980s the song has had more to do with advertising than political and social change. Steve Jobs used it in 1984 to unveil the Macintosh computer. Ten years later Coopers & Lybrand, the accountants (who were my company’s accountants at the time, curiously) used it. Two years after that the Bank of Montreal got their hands on it. By 2005 it was being used to advertise insurance. Finally, as if to show that there was a meaning in the song, but just never the one we imagined, Dylan’s hand written notes for the song were to at auction for just under half a million dollars to a hedge fund manager.

Yes, he was right, the times were changing. I just wish that change had had less to do with rampant capitalism and religious fundamentalism and more to do with humanity, honesty and perhaps most of all, trying to be a decent sort of bloke in a world gone wrong. But that’s just me.

Just under two years after he had written the song, Dylan did an interview with the English pop/rock/jazz/blues weekly, “Melody Maker” as said, “It was nothing to do with age or parents… This is what it was, maybe – a bitterness towards authority – the type of person who sticks his nose down and doesn’t take you seriously, but expects you to take him seriously.”

What is on the site

1: Over 400 reviews of Dylan songs. There is an index to these in alphabetical order on the home page, and an index to the songs in the order they were written in the Chronology Pages.

2: The Chronology. We’ve taken all the songs we can find recordings of and put them in the order they were written (as far as possible) not in the order they appeared on albums. The chronology is more or less complete and is now linked to all the reviews on the site. We have also recently started to produce overviews of Dylan’s work year by year. The index to the chronologies is here .

3: Bob Dylan’s themes. We publish a wide range of articles about Bob Dylan and his compositions. There is an index here.

4: The Discussion Group We now have a discussion group “Untold Dylan” on Facebook. Just type the phrase “Untold Dylan” in, on your Facebook page or follow this link

5: Bob Dylan’s creativity. We’re fascinated in taking the study of Dylan’s creative approach further. The index is in Dylan’s Creativity .

6: You might also like: A classification of Bob Dylan’s songs and partial Index to Dylan’s Best Opening Lines

And please do note The Bob Dylan Project , which lists every Dylan song in alphabetical order, and has links to licensed recordings and performances by Dylan and by other artists, is starting to link back to our reviews.

10 Comments

Great point about post-modernism. I think Dylan is a great TITULAR writer- his titles are better than the content which is always deranged, and the form of the song which can be digitalised and traded as a commodity. The quasi-Christian sentiments for example are quite misconceived: Jesus didn’t say the last shall be first and the first last- he said ‘there are MANY that are last that shall be first’ and vica versa. Dylan universalises the point and loses the political definition of Christ’s economy of salvation. However it remains a stirring title even in its capitalist acquisition- there is still something going on they don’t know about, he really did touch the revolutionary impulse and the nature of time really is still changing x

Enlightening this view of The Times surely is, though I cannot share your view of the whole album it appears on. The bleakness of that album, filled with a desperate compassion, is dear to me, expresses exactly how I feel when looking at the world, but funny an understandable, less and less people seem to be able to bear the tone of such art. It is the poetry of a naked landscape after radioactive lightning struck, it is the world we have come to live in. To me, because of the beauty it contains, the album makes it into an entrancing black and white album of the changes we suffer.

I meant black and white picture, sorry

Wow! I always thought it was Girl *From The North Country. Thanks Tony for the clarification and your great article (as usual). I didn’t read any further.

thanks for all this. my main fascination is Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall. my thoughts are: what would Dylan say if he would write about the current world situation????

ec – he recently said that the actual Hard Rain was not radiation but the way the media manipulates reality and tells lies. I think he would say exactly the same today

Hello Tony, one of the greatest songs ever. Come inside Bob Dylan’s Music Box http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/657/The-Times-They-Are-A-Changin ‘ and listen to every version of every song.

Hi Tony. I’ve done some research but I’m still getting confused with time signatures. Why is this song classed as being in 12/8 instead of 6/8 or 3/4? Thanks

3/4 is three beats in a bar with the first beat having the accent. It is the time of the waltz and generally sedate and slow.

6/8 is two groups of three in a bar with each group of three having an accent on the first note. Thus we hear 3/4 as being a fairly slow 1 – 2 – 3 over and over, but with 6/8 we hear a fast 123 123 over and over. Because there are so many notes we often hear it as two strong beats (the 1 beat of each group) in each bar – so we can hear 1 2 1 2 with each of those divided into 3.

12/8 has four groups of 3 in each bar. In Times the four groups give a feeling a strong pulse on each of these

1 Gath(er round) 2 peo (ple where) 3 e (ver you) 4 roam (and ad)

So it is the feel. I believe all musicians will feel that song as four beat to each bar (gath peo e roam) but instantly hear that each beat divides into three

Gath er round Pe ople where Ev er you Rome and ad

and so on Hope that helps. It is all about the way musicians hear the music and thus where the accents are put – although the accents can be very subtle.

Very helpful thanks although I’m still not quite sure how the different times translate into different tempos. For example why is Gates of Eden then considered 6/8, is it something to do with the slower tempo?

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Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-changin as a Revolutionary Song

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Encore: 'The Times They Are A-Changin" Still Speaks To Our Changing Times

Lynn Neary at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2019. (photo by Allison Shelley)

Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" came out in 1963 as the country was entering a tumultuous time. Both the civil rights and antiwar movements embraced it as an anthem of protest.

American Anthem

'the times they are a-changin" still speaks to our changing times.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

When thousands of young people descended on the National Mall earlier this year for the student-led March for Our Lives, singer Jennifer Hudson ended the event with an emotional rendition of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JENNIFER HUDSON: (Singing) Come together 'round, children, wherever you are.

DESTINY ROAD CHOIR: (Singing) Gather 'round. Gather 'round.

HUDSON: (Singing) And admit that the waters around you have grown.

FADEL: Dylan wrote that song in 1963 when the civil rights movement was underway and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam were gearing up. It would become the anthem of his generation. Now, more than 50 years later, it vibrates with new meaning, as NPR's Lynn Neary reports for our series American Anthem.

LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Imagine you're 13 years old, on the cusp of adolescence. You're sitting in a comfortable, suburban home watching a news program about a civil rights protest. Young people, not much older than you, are being beaten with water from fire hoses and attacked by police dogs.

(SOUNDBITE OF SCREAMING)

NEARY: The images shatter your comfortable world. You feel angry, confused. You want to do something. But you're not sure what. That 13-year-old was me. And right around that same time, I discovered Bob Dylan. Pretty much nothing was ever the same after that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'")

BOB DYLAN: (Singing) 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.

NEARY: When Bob Dylan first hit the music scene, singer Joan Baez was the reigning queen of folk. She fell in love with both the man and his music. But even now Baez doesn't pretend to know what went on in Dylan's head when he wrote "The Times They Are A-Changin'." It may have become an anthem, she says, but she doubts that's what he set out to create.

JOAN BAEZ: It's impossible to write an anthem. I would never attempt it. I mean, I think there are probably a lot of well-meaning musicians who have written a lot of songs. But to get people to really relate to it and have a sort of universality of time and place, that's difficult. And that's what this song does.

DYLAN: (Singing) For the times they are a-changin'.

NEARY: Dylan's music was like nothing you'd ever heard before. It wasn't just that twangy, nasal voice. It was those lyrics.

DYLAN: (Singing) 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.

NEARY: Anthony DeCurtis grew up in New York's Greenwich Village near the folk clubs where Dylan got his start. But DeCurtis, who is now a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, says he may as well have lived a thousand miles away. He came from a conservative Italian family whose values he was starting to question.

ANTHONY DECURTIS: Some of the rock stars that I was so infatuated with had a view of society that was very different from what my family and certainly my school was trying to instill in me. So I was trying to understand. And Dylan was very important in that process.

NEARY: Inevitably, DeCurtis, like so many other young people, was drawn into the antiwar movement.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Antiwar demonstrators protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in mass marches, rallies and demonstrations.

NEARY: It was a movement, DeCurtis says, that quickly went from peaceful protests to a growing militancy.

DECURTIS: It was people who felt like they were in a battle. And, you know, you can go back to "The Times They Are A-Changin'" for that. The line has been drawn. The curse has been cast. You really felt like you had to stand on one side or the other.

DYLAN: (Singing) 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.

NEARY: As the '60s faded into the '70s, the urgency of the song faded with it. Bob Dylan went on to other things. And the generation, he first sang for grew up, became mothers and fathers themselves. By the time a new generation came along, the times had already changed. Matt Malyon was born in 1971. He was in his 20s before he discovered Bob Dylan.

MATT MALYON: There was a budget tape, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan." And I bought it - a cassette tape, if you can remember that technology.

NEARY: Malyon thinks "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is more relevant now than ever. He teaches writing to teenagers in Seattle, many from immigrant families. When he played this song for his students, he thought they would like the poetry of the lyrics. Instead, they were caught up in the meaning of the words.

MALYON: The song spoke to them. They see these words as living. It's not something anchored to the '60s. It's something live and now. And I think that ties to the timelessness of the piece.

NEARY: When Jennifer Hudson sang "The Times They Are A-Changin'" on the Mall last spring, she was backed up by a choir of young people.

JONATHAN BALL: All right - let's run it from the top.

NEARY: Ranging in age from 13 to 30, they meet regularly to rehearse in Columbia, Md.

DESTINY ROAD CHOIR: (Vocalizing).

ERIKA EDMUND: (Singing) Come gather 'round, people, wherever you are.

NEARY: Choir director Jonathan Ball says he was surprised when the choir was asked to sing "The Times They Are A-Changin'" at the march. He didn't know the song. And neither did most of the members of the choir. Ball says as they started to rehearse, the lyrics took on more meaning for all of them. He began imagining what it would be like to sing those words - come senators, congressmen, please heed the call - on the National Mall.

BALL: In my mind, when I was arranging the part, I was, like, I hope the president hears this. I hope the senators, the congressmen are actually listening and - like a movie almost, like - you know, like, they hear the music. And they just, like, write a new law.

EDMUND: (Singing) Come, senators and congressman. Please heed the call. Don't just stand in the doorway. Don't you block up the hall...

NEARY: Erika Edmund is the lead singer. She says the full impact of the song really hit when the choir sang it during the march.

EDMUND: Because we're there looking at all of these people. I would look into the crowd, seeing people crying. You know, you had people that are begging, screaming for a change. So it makes it easy for me to sing the song because it means so much to what I've seen now.

NEARY: Choir member Therron Fowler was amazed that one song could be so powerful.

THERRON FOWLER: This anthem - it brought us together for something bigger than ourselves, no matter what race, what culture, background, religious - whatever. It brought everyone together.

NEARY: And so a new generation takes up the anthem that inspired young people more than 50 years ago. But it's not a song that looks to the past. It's an anthem of hope for a future where change is always possible. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.

HUDSON: (Singing) For the times - they are a-changin'.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The Times They Are Changing – Summary, Analysis and Questions and Answers

Table of Contents

The Times They Are Changing by Bob Dylan

Introduction

The poem was released in 1963, during the hippie/civil rights movement in America. The song “The Times They Are A-Changing” became a rallying cry in the early 1960s. The poem calls on the common people to band together and question the flaws of government. Through the line “For The Times They Are A-Changing,” Bob Dylan also provides an optimistic assurance to those who stood up.

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• The opening line “Come gather ’round people” is a typical language used in the folk traditions of telling villagers to gather around to announce new – and in this case ominous – things that are about to happen.”

• Asking people to gather around together, to unite.

• People need to see the flaws of the government; what is happening with racism and poverty.

• Existing system needs a change. It is unjust.

• And now there is a change happening outside that stand up against the injustice.

• As Dylan asks the people of the world to “admit that the waters around [them] have grown,” he means that change has arrived.

• Water has cleansing power.

• He says that if people don’t accept and embrace change, they’ll drown in the past.

• This was released in 1964, At that time, the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak and anti-war sentiments in the midst of Cold War tensions were going strong.

• He is trying to show that with all this call for change, those who wish to maintain the culture of the past will eventually fall because the new movements are growing at a fast rate. STANZA 2

• The folk atmosphere provides a simple rhythm that Dylan repeats in the second stanza, but he shifts his attention from everyday people to writers and journalists.

• He calls for those who prophesize with their pens to take careful note of change for when the times are changing, you never know what can happen.

• He tells them not to speak ill of them.

• The news has been talking badly about the times they are in and about the crisis.

• Since the “wheel’s still in spin,” meaning that a lot of change is still happening, Dylan explains that “the loser now will be later to win” so this is the time for journalists and writers to watch the world with sharper eyes.

• This is a universal idea that applies to journalism, and we see it every day.

• Surprising events happen all the time and modern journalists should try their best to foresee them.

• Tells them not to speak too soon because everything is changing.

• Addresses the senators and congressmen.

• The third stanza focuses on politicians, who are tasked with answering to the will of the people.

• He asks them to listen to the call from those who want the change and to act responsibly.

• As Dylan points out, unfortunately, many senators and congressmen and those involved in government affairs, only work in their own best interests.

• When the people demand change, Dylan points out that the congressmen cannot “stand in the doorway” or “block up the hall.”

• He urges them not to block those who fight for freedom.

• He shows that the stalling politicians will ultimately be the ones who lose in the end because the demand for change (the raging battle outside as Dylan puts it) near the doors of the Capitol building will eventually overpower even the strongest of politicians.

• If the politicians block the people who want the change, they will be hurt badly, they’ll break your windows and shake your walls.

• The last group of people that Dylan addresses consists of parents.

• In the fourth stanza, he reminds parents that the children are the future.

• Since times are changing, parents don’t really have a say in criticizing what they don’t understand.

• He says that parents should not attempt to send their children on the path of the dusty, ageing old road for their lives are unpaved.

• It’s the sons and daughters who must forge the new road, and if parents don’t want to help, Dylan argues that they should “get out.”

• This is Dylan’s stance on cultural change.

• It’s controversial due to the argument that parents want what’s best for their children and sometimes their “best” is different from that of the children.

• He may be addressing the parents who hinder the decision making processes of their children really stand in the way of the future.

• Every child has dreams and aspirations, and every time that a parent stands directly in the way of a dream, the future grows less bright.

• The fight has begun and the line is drawn by the youth.

• The curse of the past will be overthrown.

• Those who are fighting for the freedom and rights are now the minority, but they soon will be the ones ruling and making the change-as the present now will later be past.

• Jesus made the statement “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30) in the context of His encounter with the rich young ruler.

• The last stanza shows the universal and perpetual nature of change.

• The established order is rapidly fading- it shows that there is a change taking place.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

I. Choose the right answer from the following: 1. To whom does the poet say “Don’t stand in the doorway/Don’t block up the hall a. Writers and Critics b. Senators and Congressmen c. Mothers and Fathers d. None of these

A: b 2. What is the figure of speech found in the line “Or you’ll sink like a stone?” A: Simile. 3. Which is the refrain that recurs in the poem? A: “For the times they are A- changing.” 4. In which year was Bob Dylan awarded the Nobel prize for literature? a. 2010 b. 2015 c. 2016 d. 2012 A: c

II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two. 1.What does the expression ” the waters around you have grown” mean? Answer: The poet calls the people’s attention to the injustices around them and asks if they do not see what is happening. 2. Explain “you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone.” Answer: The poet asks the people to react to the injustices around them, or else one will perish. 3. What does the poet ask the writers and critics? Answer: To keep their eyes wide open to the changes around, so that they could write about it. If they miss there won’t be a second chance. 4. What is the battle implied in “There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’?” Answer: Youngsters have already started their protest and they are strongly revolting against corruption. 5. What does the line “the first one now will later be last” imply. Answer: Those who are in power now will be pushed down as powerless because no one can stay long on a throne of deceit. 6. Explain “Your old road is rapidly agin'” Answer: The olden days of the previous generation are gone and the present times are new and should be approached with newer thoughts. 7. What is the context of the song” The Times They are A-Changing”? Answer: During the American civil rights movement in the 1960s, Bob Dylan wrote the song as an anthem of change for the time. 8. Why does Bob Dylan say that the present now will later be past? Answer: Change is inevitable and is the only constant. Change happens during every time so this present can change at any moment.

Long Answer Type Questions

III. Answer the following questions in a paragraph of about 100 words each: 1. Why are the people asked to gather round? Answer: The poet is calling the people to unite to face the flaws of the government. He asks them to admit that if they do not react against it they will perish. The government is for the people, so they should observe its working and raise voice against injustices like poverty and racism and think about an upcoming change 2. Comment on Bob Dylan ’s use of language. Answer: Bob Dylan ’s use of language is often challenging and complex . The poem has short concise verses. He comments on current life and times with wit, insight and astonishing imagery. He was also influenced by Beat generation poets, whose style were to make use of free-style, nonrhyming and highly vivid word play. He wrote with freedom, without the traditional constraints. 3. Discuss generational conflict in “The times they are A-changing”. Answer: In the fourth stanza of his poem, Bob Dylan ’s asks “Mothers and Fathers- Throughout the land” to not criticize what they do not understand. The generation of their sons and daughters are beyond their command now. Youngsters can make a change in the society. So when they do gather for a change, the older generation shouldn’t stop them. Bob Dylan doesn’t force everybody to stand up against the injustices in society. If anybody can’t accept or understand let them move away from the way of the ongoers of protest.

Essay Type Questions

IV. Answer the following questions in not more than 300 words each: 1. Consider Bob Dylan ’s “The Times -They are A-Changing” as a song of protest. Answer: The poem was performed in 1963 during the political and military upheaval. The song is a call for youngsters to come together and bring a needed change. It is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s.

Music can convey meaning and values. Bob Dylan influenced from Woody Guthrie the legendary folk singer of the 1930s and the beat generation promoted a hippie culture in his songs modelled on traditional folk songs. His album The Times They are A-Changing, firmly established him as the new voice of the 60’s protest movement like traditional folk ballads, Bob Dylan starts his song telling people to gather around. There has also been critical discussion if the song is really a protest song. It is just a wake-up call to make people realize that the world has moved on. It is about perception. The poet just asks people to accept the truth rather than overthrowing the power overnight. There is a conflict with power, war, poverty and racism. Dylan asks all people to come around and accept certain truths happening around them. He also asks to react against it or like a sinking stone one is pushed down. In the second stanza, Dylan is calling writers and journalists and asking them to keep an attentive eyes. In the third stanza, Dylan addresses the senators and those involved in government affairs. Bob Dylan is telling them to hear the call from those who want change and do not block. Next, he addresses mothers and fathers and tells them not to criticize what they do not know. Bob Dylan says there is a need for fighting for freedom. He also reminds that sons and daughters and beyond parents’ age. Those who are standing up for their freedom and for civil rights are now the minority, but soon they will be the ones ruling and making change. The song is timeless especially because of the meaning portrayed. Good intention breeds good results. 2. How does Bob Dylan present the generational war that happened in the America of the 1960s in the context of counter-culture? Answer: After the end of World War II, there were a series of change in culture in America. There was the Vietnam War and civil rights to be won. It was a decade of turmoil that saw one President (John. F. Kennedy) shot. So many historic moments occurred within close proximity of time. All these historical happenings lead to a counterculture in America. As change progressed throughout the 1960s so did the music scene. Bob Dylan began music directly targeting the changes taking place around them. The youth of the country were lashing out against the values and goals of their parents and cultivated a hippie culture. It essentially started off as a rebellion at home and against their parents. Bob Dylan ’s lines could best be placed in this context

“And don’t criticize What you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command”

America was trying to get up from the “crisis” of post World War II and the Great Depression of the 1930s. There was a decay of social order in 1960s. The decade was also labelled the ‘swinging sixties’ because of the fall or relaxation of social taboos especially relating to racism and sexism that occurred during this time. There was an extreme deviation from the norm. Bob Dylan wrote this song in 1964 at a time when all of these upheavals were going on and it stirred the then society to bring a “change”. The song instantly clicked with the youth of America. Youth were no longer to be held in the constraints of family do’s and don’ts. There was a need of social reform against the injustices in society. Bob Dylan not only addresses the youth but also all writers, critics, senators and congressmen. In a wealthy nation like America “The order is/ Rapidly fadin’” Bob Dylan is optimistic about the future. “The slow one now Will later be fast” Bob Dylan challenged the accepted beliefs of American Society, focusing on the feelings of individuals rather than entire social groups and many young people looked up to him for their ideas concerning social ideas. His lyrics came out with a deep message for the audience to think about. He encouraged his audience to move in a direction for change.

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Why is The Times They Are a-Changin' such a culturally significant song?

This short essay explores the cultural significance of Bob Dylan's infamous tune 'The Times They Are a-Changin' ', connecting Dylan's influences with the turbulent social and cultural developments in America 1960's and the subsequent influence Dylan's writing has had on todays generation.

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Fauzan Rodi

This study examines the lyric of a famous song entitled A Hard Rains a-Gonna Fall composed by American folk musician, Bob Dylan. The objective of this study is to analyze the perspective of the baby-boomer generation, which remarkably differs from that of the older generations in terms of their attitude on certain issues such as war, social injustice, racism and equality in the 1960s America. All of these are reflected in the lyric of the song and also in the sociological and historical facts around the time when the work was created. The approach of sociological literature is employed in this study, which is chosen for the analysis to start from the assumption that the meaning of the lyrics is seen as the reflection of what happens in the society. This is also to reconfirm that a literary work can be used as a means of analyzing a period of time and, therefore, giving insights as to how the general public think about it.

Marwa F AlKhayat

The current study is a postmodern appraisal of Bob Dylan's artistic career and vocal gestures to examine the way melody in popular music works in relation to speech and singing, the grand and the ordinary. It historicizes Bob Dylan's protest music of the 1960s within the paradigm of folk music culture. Dylan's music is full of riffs, blues sequences, and pentatonic melodies—all heavily part and parcel of blues, folk, gospel, and country music. It is the music that dwells on the pleasures of repetition, of circularity, and of the recurring familiar tune integrated within Dylanesque poetics of rhyme delivered with his idiosyncratic, deep and intense range of voices. Dylan is the official son of the legacies of social, communal, and ritual music-making that mirrors contemporary pop and rock back to folk and blues, street-sung broadsides and work songs, the melodies of medieval troubadours, and the blessed rhythms of Christianity and Judaism. The study is an attempt to illustrate how musicology and ethnomusicology in particular can contribute to understanding Dylan as a 'performing artist' within the postmodern paradigm. Thus, the study seeks to establish Dylan as a phenomenal, prolific postmodernist artist, as well as an anarchist. The power and originality of Dylan's music constitute a prima facie case that his performances should be considered postmodernist art.

Humaniora Vol 30, No 1

Jurnal Humaniora

The current study is a postmodern appraisal of Bob Dylan's artistic career and vocal gestures to examine the way melody in popular music works in relation to speech and singing, the grand and the ordinary. It historicizes Bob Dylan's protest music of the 1960s within the paradigm of folk music culture. Dylan's music is full of riffs, blues sequences, and pentatonic melodies-all heavily part and parcel of blues, folk, gospel, and country music. It is the music that dwells on the pleasures of repetition, of circularity, and of the recurring familiar tune integrated within Dylanesque poetics of rhyme delivered with his idiosyncratic, deep and intense range of voices. Dylan is the official son of the legacies of social, communal, and ritual music-making that mirrors contemporary pop and rock back to folk and blues, street-sung broadsides and work songs, the melodies of medieval troubadours, and the blessed rhythms of Christianity and Judaism. The study is an attempt to illustrate how musicology and ethnomusicology in particular can contribute to understanding Dylan as a 'performing artist' within the postmodern paradigm. Thus, the study seeks to establish Dylan as a phenomenal, prolific postmodernist artist, as well as an anarchist. The power and originality of Dylan's music constitute a prima facie case that his performances should be considered postmodernist art.

Theatre Journal

Steve Earnest

Theatre Journal, Volume 59, Number 2, May 2007, pp. 313-315 (Review) ... Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/tj.2007.0089 ... Access Provided by your local institution at 06/23/10 9:49AM GMT ... THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'. Music and ...

The mechanics of the mirage: …

Christophe Den Tandt

Rob S E A N Wilson

This essay focuses on US/China interactions, uncanny temporalities, and Pacific Rim discrepancies resonating through popular culture and belief systems as embodied in Bob Dylan’s conversion-drenched poetics (aligned to social beatitude) and protest politics (aligned to critique and allegory). Building out from the “Dylan controversy” of spring 2011, this analysis probes Dylan’s post-Beat poetic tactics from works like “All Along the Watchtower” and “Chimes of Freedom” to socialist-Judeo-Christian works of blasted prophecy from the more recent albums Modern Times and Tempest. “Bob Dylan in China, America in Bob Dylan” opens into transnational dynamics, transcultural wariness, and the post-Jeremaic aims of American cultural poetics and politics in contexts of globalization, global China, the efficacy of popular culture as a mode of transformation, amid Asia-Pacific differences.

Understanding Religion and Culture, Ed. by Terry Ray Clark and Dan W. Clanton, Jr.

Mark W Flory

The essay first utilizes the hermeneutics of suspicion and retrieval in order to examine ancient Hebrew prophecy, with an eye toward eliminating the potentially repressive elements of this ancient tradition, and toward reclaiming those elements that contribute to the postmodern project of defending otherness, and fostering transformation. With this reclaimed prophecy in hand, then, the essay explores the songs, performance style, and life of Bob Dylan as an example of a distinctly postmodern prophecy, i.e., prophecy that remains in continuity with ancient prophecy, and yet is distinctly postmodern.

Sydney Studies in Religion

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VEDA'S JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE [JOELL]

Bob Dylan, a songwriter, poet and a 2017 Nobel laureate in literature is often portrayed as the guiding spirit of the sixties counterculture. Dylan’s politically committed songs in the 1960’s articulated a vision of society that was radically different from the existing political realities. The paper highlights the cultural resonance of Dylan’s radical lyricism amidst the countercultural era. It depicts the close affiliations that existed between Dylan’s songs and liberation movements of the times.

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The New York Times

Essay | the times they are a changin’, the times they are a changin’.

If this overused and cliche statement were more relevant or appropriate to the topic at hand, Bob Dylan would stop selling ladies undergarments and students would protest the Iraq War on the lawn of the Whitehouse. Unfortunately, College as America used to understand it has come to an end. Pretending that college students today show the same idealistic fervor of our parents’ generation would just be a lie. Even at a campus set in the heart of Greenwich Village, the birthplace of le tout New York boheme, there is a stark difference between college life then and now. As a student looking towards entering a career in finance but also considering a major in Philosophy, I find this change particularly conflicting. I am not lamenting for the woes of political apathy or nihilism in my generation, I am saying that college, as America used to understand it, can still make a comeback.

The central problem to all this multi-generational change is a public misconception as to the importance of choosing a concentration and adhering to its designated path during collegiate and post-collegiate life. Within this misconception I see a divisive attitude amongst peers. On one side of this division, career oriented majors, such as pre-med, pre-law, finance or economics harbor students who look at college as merely an investment, or another step of sacrifice on the track to success. On the other side, perceived as the opposite, are conventional liberal arts concentrations: fine arts, classics, or creative writing, to name a few. To understand these students’ perception of their choice, one would have to look no further than Web 2.0. On Facebook, the internet’s largest social networking site, started by two college students in 2004–groups with names like, “I picked a major that I love and will probably end up living in a box,” tell the story albeit with a slighting sense of humor.

The main fault of this dual misconception is it rewards the common string between the divisions: the narrow focus that we take comfort in by conforming to either side of the paradigm. Applying to college, I made a seemingly fatal mistake, stating ‘Undecided’ as my choice of major. Upon reaching NYU I was received by students who by the end of high school had started their own non-profits, were planning how to start their own hedge funds, or even both. Suddenly the fact that I stood out in high school for listening to Phish and watching independent films seemed of little importance. I quickly discovered that simply not knowing what I would be doing in ten years was a tragic character flaw. Was I the only one listening when Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said in The Little Prince, “On ne sait jamais!” If we are so eager to find truth in quantifying our intuitive assumptions (as attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, “there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”) try considering all the numbers. For example, experts with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that the average worker will change careers (not jobs) five to seven times in a work life. But whose fault is this?

One may place blame for this misconception on an endless list of sources. A friend who opted to attend the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, the paragon institution of free academic choice, put it plainly, “Our generation has no identity; everything we do is borrowed from nostalgia and commercialized as vintage.” Somewhat of an interesting statement coming from a girl wearing a blonde bob-haircut and Ray Band sunglasses, dressed in black. Penn Jillete, of Penn and Teller, when discussing the downfall of the music industry in the film Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King concedes that “This generation has done nothing to shock me; there’s nothing that I can’t understand and that’s sad. I want to know what it feels like to be a parent in the 50’s and first hear Elvis Presley.” Or consider the fact that the “famous for being famous,” celebrity is the icon for our generation. Never has a sense of entitlement been either aggrandized or emulated in our recent cultural history. Who is our Bob Dylan? In the age where the individual’s taste and freedom of expression seemingly cannot be overemphasized, how can we find a united identity?

What is most difficult and in turn essential to overcoming the dogmas of our generation is looking past the blame. If we look at the modern student as a social construction, a whole world of excuses is opened up. For college life to truly make a comeback, all students have to do is do what makes them happy. For academia to have the same sense of pristine freedom it had in the former generations, we cannot look at the “why” questions and try to point fingers, but we must ask “why do we ask the why questions” and move back to the humanistic feel of college as those generations remember it.

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exploring the art of Bob Dylan

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Like Blowin’ in the Wind , Times spoke to an entire generation of people who grew up in the sixties. Unlike most other politically aware songs, Times has lasted for several generations.

There are at least a couple of reasons why this song is still relevant. First, unlike most political compositions, Times is very non-specific: no actual events or people are mentioned. For that reason, the song doesn’t age as the events or people fade from memory. Second, the sentiments expressed in the song are universal and can be applied to any political or social movement.

Times is certainly one of Dylan’s best songs in the protest genre. Dylan’s own words on this song:

This was definitely a song with a purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to say and for whom I wanted to say it. I wanted to write a big song, some kind of theme song, ya know, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way.

The structure of the song is based on old Irish/Scot ballads, as Dylan acknowledges in the booklet included with the Biograph collection. Old ballads frequently use the same “Come all ye” and “gather round folks” phrases that Dylan uses in Times . A familiar example is “Come All Ye Fair and Tender Maidens” .

Times is steeped in religious imagery. Dylan biographer Robert Shelton suggests a connection with Revelations 1:3 .

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

A more obvious citation is Matthew 19:30 :

But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

And another possible connection is Matthew 20:16 :

So the last will be first, and the first will be last

Throughout the song Dylan rephrases the general idea of some impending, sweeping structural change:

Then you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone … For the loser now Will be later to win … For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled … And the first one now Will later be last

This album contains a number of Dylan’s weaker performances. The performance of Times , however, is right on. Although his guitar playing is a bit unsteady at times, Dylan really nails it. He clearly enunciates the words and suffuses the song with just the right amount of urgency.

One criticism often leveled at Dylan is that he is the prophet of doom and apocalypse, the master of gloom. However, this song – just like Blowin’ and Hard Rain – is not a forecast of unmitigated and unavoidable suffering. Re-read the lyrics. Although each of these songs warns of impending danger, each also predicts a brighter future and spurs the listener on to go out and work for a better ending. Contrary to popular belief – which is perhaps caused by the sullenness Dylan often exhibits in interviews and TV appearances – Dylan’s work is not nearly as bleak as it is often portrayed.

Dylan has, of course, performed Times many times over the years. An alternate version was released as an extra on the 2001 Love and Theft recording. Why I don’t know, since there’s nothing especially noteworthy about it. He slows the song down slightly, and the phrase “rattle your walls” is sung “vibrate your walls”. There is a version on At Budokan with some unnecessary backing vocals. In other versions, such as on the MTV Unplugged video, Dylan slows the song down even more, which adds a tint of fatigue and regret to the lyric. These versions are all fine, but the original is still the best.

From the alternate “Hard Ran” TV special.

Duet with Baez, Rolling Thunder tour.

From Bootleg Series, piano version.

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’.

‘When people want a treat they are looking for the Cadbury they know’: Mondelēz UK boss Louise Stigant on changing times

With cocoa and sugar prices at record highs and tougher regulation to fight rising obesity, the head of Cadbury’s has a lot on her plate over the peak chocolate season of Easter

I t’s Easter and chocolate is very much on the menu. But it could be meltdown for the industry as the cost of cocoa soared to a historic high of more than $10,000 a tonne last week after two years of poor harvests in the key west African growing region.

Sitting calmly among the relics of Cadbury’s history in the company archive, Louise Stigant, the boss of Mondelēz’s UK arm – which includes the British chocolate brand celebrating its 200th anniversary this year – is charged with making sure it has a future, as key ingredients, including sugar as well as cocoa, have soared in price .

Half of the Easter eggs sold by the company are picked up in just two weeks of frantic trading, making it the second busiest time for chocolate brands behind Christmas.

Consumers have had to grow accustomed to a higher cost of living over the past couple of years. Cadbury was no exception when it came to raising prices, increasing them on some products by more than 8% in January, on top of previous increases in 2023 . There was also a controversial reduction in size of the main Dairy Milk bar in 2022 and of course the 2015 change in recipe of the Creme Egg.

“We’re at 40-year record [cocoa price] highs. So it is very significant,” says Stigant. “We do have to make some choices that are tough choices, but we believe are right as we focus on making sure that [our chocolate bars] taste delicious.”

She admits prices could rise again, or chocolate bars be trimmed down, “always as a last resort”, as the price of sugar and cocoa continues to increase and the business faces “considerable challenges”.

“We understand the context that we’re playing in, we’ve taken decisions to absorb some of those costs over a period of time. And then we make very careful decisions about when and how we elevate our list price to our retailers, as a consequence of some of those input cost changes.”

We’re in Bournville , where the smell of chocolate still wafts from the Cadbury factory over the Birmingham suburb 200 years after John Cadbury founded the brand.

Around us are carefully displayed relics of some of the many iterations of its popular treats, from Dairy Milk and Wispa bars to Creme Eggs and Milk Tray boxes, but also those that no longer exist, such as Spira and Aztec bars and Cadbury’s Classic Ginger selection boxes.

As the group tackles rising costs, Stigant says: “You only need to look around this room and the heritage that exists, and that sense of the nation’s favourite, [to see] that it is absolutely fundamental that when people pick up a [Cadbury’s product] it delivers against the quality and the taste that they’re expecting of us.”

John Cadbury, a Quaker, began selling drinking chocolate in Bull Street, Birmingham, in 1824 as an alternative to alcohol, and began manufacturing in 1831 from a nearby warehouse. In 1879, John’s sons Richard and George moved the business to a rural area which they renamed Bournville, building workers’ cottages as well as a factory.

In 2010, there were fears the brand would shift all production overseas after it was bought out by the giant US corporation Kraft. While a factory in Somerset was controversially closed not long after the takeover, not only do the streets of Bournville remain a chocolate box of social provision – with homes, sports fields and parks – but the factory, and eight other sites in the UK employ 4,000 people.

Now part of Mondelēz – the snacking business that Kraft spun off in 2012 – Cadbury has brought back production of more Dairy Milk bars to the UK as well as Freddo and other brands. Stigant says the group has invested £270m in its UK sites, including its sciences lab in Reading.

“Twelve years on, I would imagine that if you were to walk into most businesses they’ve changed, and this business has changed. We’ve had to navigate lots of different opportunities and challenges. And I think we’ve done that successfully. But I think that ethos, that underpinning of care for one another, and generosity of spirit, remains in the culture that we have today.”

Stigant, who started her career with five years at the upmarket grocer Waitrose after taking a food marketing degree at Sheffield Polytechnic, is a walking example of a company that is prepared to do things differently. She fell into the food industry after enjoying a rather last-minute choice of a business studies A-level. Her interest in food came from her mother, an excellent cook as well as a hairdresser, while her father was a printer. “I had no experience of the world of sort of food or commerce,” she says.

Stigant says she was “brought up on Cadbury” but it was Kraft that took her on from Waitrose in 1994, where she worked her way up to head Mondelēz’s UK business in 2018. As a relatively rare female business leader in the UK, Stigant says that “a really important element of how I want to show up when I come to work is helping people reach their potential and see their possibilities”.

Another effort to maintain the Cadbury family ethos is an investment in Cocoa Life, which has been helping farmers to operate more sustainably, with an aim to secure all cocoa via the programme by the end of next year. About $400m has already been ploughed into initiatives including planting more trees, empowering women and tackling child labour in partnership with NGOs including Fairtrade, with a further $600m set aside until 2030 with the aim of supporting 300,000 farmers.

Mondelēz’s research centre in Reading is also working on ways to help farmers improve cocoa yields in the face of more erratic weather caused by the climate crisis. The research includes creating a farm in Indonesia designed to “support a better robustness against climate change”.

Then there is a totally different kind of research as the whole snacking industry faces increasing regulatory efforts in the battle against obesity. In England, restrictions on the marketing of food and drink that is high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) have so far been quite weak. Such products can no longer be displayed in prominent places in stores – such as aisle ends or by tills – but restrictions on advertising and multi-buy deals have been delayed until next year.

Mondelēz is responding by developing products that fall outside the HFSS restrictions, such as its Fruitier & Nuttier trail mix and bars. It is also working on reduced sugar versions of Crunchie, Double Decker and Fudge, and has launched the relatively low calorie Delights, with 91 calories per serving. Those experiments come despite recently ditching a low-sugar version of the Dairy Milk bar less than five years after it launched because of lack of demand.

“One thing we have learned is that when people want chocolate or a treat they are looking for that moment to be the Cadbury they know,” says Stigant.

Executive summary

Age 56 Family “Husband and two children, aged 22 and 25, who are all sport mad, and a crazy golden labrador.” Education Sheffield Polytechnic (food marketing sciences). Pay “I recognise the privileged position I am in, and the access to Cadbury chocolate is a real perk.” Last holiday Sri Lanka. Best advice she’s been given “Treat others as you’d like to be treated.” Biggest career mistake “Promoting a Jello easter egg mould … it was a wobbly career moment!” Phrase she overuses “ What’s the worst that can happen?” How she relaxes “Laughing loudly with family and friends.”

Observer business profile
Food & drink industry
Agriculture

Far Right’s Success Is a Measure of a Changing Portugal

Memories of dictatorship are fading. Dissatisfaction is mounting. It was a ripe moment for the Chega party to appeal to voter frustrations.

By Emma Bubola

Emma Bubola reported from Faro, Portugal, and several other towns across the Algarve, speaking to party officials, tourism workers, farmers and fishermen.

The sun-soaked Algarve region on Portugal’s Southern coast is a place where guitar-strumming backpackers gather by fragrant orange trees and digital nomads hunt for laid-back vibes. It is not exactly what comes to mind when one envisions a stronghold of far-right political sentiment.

But it is in the Algarve region where the anti-establishment Chega party finished first in national elections this month , both unsettling Portuguese politics and injecting new anxiety throughout the European establishment. Nationwide, Chega received 18 percent of the vote.

“It’s a strong signal for Europe and for the world,” said João Paulo da Silva Graça, a freshly elected Chega lawmaker, sitting at the party’s new Algarve headquarters as tourists asked for vegan custard tarts at a bakery downstairs. “Our values must prevail.”

Chega, which means “enough” in Portuguese, is the first hard-right party to gain ground in the political scene in Portugal since 1974 and the end of the nationalist dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar. Its formula for success mixed promises of greater law and order with tougher immigration measures and an appeal to economic resentments.

Chega’s breakthrough has presented Portugal as the latest version of a now familiar quandary for Europe , where the inroads of hard-right parties have made it increasingly difficult for mainstream competitors to avoid them .

The leader of Portugal’s center-right coalition, which won the election, has refused to ally with Chega, but experts say the result is likely to be an unstable minority government that may not last long.

Chega showed once again that taboos that had kept hard-right parties out of power, foremost the long shadow of a right-wing dictatorship from last century, were falling. Today the hard right has made gains in Italy, Spain and Germany, among other places.

Portugal had been considered the exception. It emerged from the Salazar dictatorship as a progressive society that supported liberal drug laws and showed little appetite for the far right. In recent years it became a booming tourist destination, flush with foreign investment , expatriates and a growing economy.

Even so, this month more than a million Portuguese cast what many saw as a protest vote for Chega.

The Socialist and the mainstream conservative Social Democratic party in recent decades have presided over a painful financial crisis and tough austerity period. But even in the country’s recent economic upturn , many have felt left out, anxious and forgotten.

Huge numbers of young Portuguese are leaving the country. Many of those who stay work for low salaries that have not kept up with inflation and left them priced out of an unaffordable housing market. Public services are under stress.

Chega campaigned promising higher salaries and better conditions for workers, who the party said had been impoverished by a greedy elite. It fought against mixed-gender bathrooms in schools and restitutions for former colonies.

A corruption investigation into the handling of clean energy projects, which brought down the Socialist government last year, handed Chega another talking point with which to attack the ruling class.

The party’s message struck a chord with many Portuguese who did not vote before and attracted young voters through powerful social media outreach. It also resonated with voters in Algarve who had voted reliably for the Socialist Party in the past.

“Here we have to work, work, work and we get nothing,” said Pedro Bonanca, a Chega voter who drives tourists on a boat to the fishing island of Culatra, off the Algarve coast.

“When I ask old people why they vote the Socialist Party, the only thing they can say is that they took us out of the dictatorship,” said Mr. Bonanca, 25. “But I don’t know about that. It was a long time ago.”

The top of his Instagram search bar featured André Ventura, the charismatic former soccer commentator who once trained as a priest before founding Chega in 2019.

In earlier campaigns, Chega used the slogan “God, Homeland, Family, Work,” similar to the Salazar dictatorship’s “God, Homeland, Family.” Before the recent election, Chega promised a mix of social policies that experts described as unrealistic, including plans to increase the minimum wage and pensions while also cutting taxes.

“Chega became a sort of catchall party of all anxieties,” said António Costa Pinto, a political scientist with the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon.

In the Algarve region, Chega appealed to underpaid waiters with unstable jobs, priced out of their hometowns or forced to emigrate. The party’s message resonated with aging fishermen who had to keep working to make a living. It spoke to farmers who said that they felt forsaken and that the government had prioritized watering golf courses despite looming drought.

“If we die, it’s because of them,” Pedro Cabrita, a farmer, said of the government. “My vote for Chega is a protest vote,” he said as he gazed anxiously at his orange grove, which he feared might dry out this summer.

In Olhão, an impoverished tourist town where Chega won nearly 30 percent of the vote, José Manuel Fernandes, a fishmonger, wondered why, despite the fact that Portugal is in the European Union, he could not aspire to the lifestyle of the German or French tourists around him.

“In the summer I see couples having a good time here, living in camper vans,” said Mr. Fernandes, who voted for Chega, as he cleaned a giant cuttlefish. “I have wanted to go on vacation abroad for 30 years,” he added, “but that moment never came.”

Economists say Portugal, which started from a lower economic point when it joined the European Union in 1986, has made progress but not the kind of productivity gains needed to catch up to its wealthier European partners. Instead it remains a relative bargain for European tourists and retirees, while many Portuguese feel increasingly plundered.

In the seaside town of Albufeira, as British bachelorette squads in blinking bunny ears cruised the streets, Tiago Capela Rito, a 30-year-old waiter, closed the cocktail bar where he worked. Despite working since he was 15, he still lives with his mother because he cannot afford his own apartment, he said.

He had never voted before, but he voted for Chega. “Ventura is telling us that we don’t have to leave the country to survive,” said Mr. Rito, who in the off season juggles construction and kitchen jobs, “that we can stay here and have a life.”

Down the road, Luís Araújo, 61, a waiter who also voted for Chega, said his son, 25, made more than triple his salary at a restaurant in Dublin.

“Our young people leave and these guys stay here,” he said of the influx of workers from Nepal and India who have arrived to fill low-paying jobs.

Though the numbers of immigrants arriving in Portugal has been smaller than in Italy or Spain, Mr. Ventura has cast a recent influx of South Asian immigrants as a threat.

“The European Union is being demographically replaced by the children of immigrants,” he said in Parliament in 2022, evoking the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. “Nobody wants that in 20 years Europe will be mostly made up by individuals from other continents.”

For some, Chega’s rise has brought back old fears, especially for members of the Roma community, one of Mr. Ventura’s early targets.

For some older Portuguese, too, the specter of the hard right’s revival has been unsettling.

As he cleaned his nets from small crabs and cuttlefish, Vitór Silvestre, 67, a fisherman on Culatra, said he still remembered being fearful to talk to the cobbler or even friends during the dictatorship years, never knowing who could be an informant.

“And now we are voting for the far right again?” he asked.

Tiago Carrasco contributed reporting from Faro, Portugal.

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in London, covering news across Europe and around the world. More about Emma Bubola

Newsletter: After 50 years, Skid Row may be changing forever

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Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter . It’s Sunday, March 31 . I am Liam Dillon, and I cover housing affordability. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:

Three developments that could change Skid Row forever.
Easter weekend storm slams Southern California .
Officials ruled the death of a teen an accident after a school fight. What comes next?
And here’s today’s e-newspaper .

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Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.

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Skid Row is the homelessness capital of America. It’s going to look different very soon.

No area is as synonymous with the nation’s homelessness crisis as Skid Row in Los Angeles. Now, the area is approaching a moment of generational-defining change.

Lots of other cities had their own “skid rows” before they were demolished, often through freeway construction and urban renewal projects. Not in L.A.

L.A.’s Skid Row persisted. To understand why, you have to go back to the 1970s.

The 50-block area just east of downtown’s central business district known as Skid Row was being threatened with redevelopment projects. But L.A. leaders decided that somewhere in the city had to have low-cost housing and social services for the region’s poor and downtrodden residents. They took steps to preserve thousands of rooms in turn-of-the-century single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels — buildings with tiny private rooms and shared bathrooms — that already existed. The motive, however, wasn’t just about giving poor people a place to live.

The idea, known as the “containment plan,” was designed to keep the people residing in Skid Row inside the neighborhood so they wouldn’t travel into other parts of the city.

Since then, homelessness and homelessness services have grown up across the region. But the push and pull between redevelopment — you can find toy manufacturers and even some high-end development — and preservation initiated by the 1970s debates over the containment plan still determines Skid Row’s fate.

Three major developments are in the works that could forever alter the community.

The SROs are in trouble. Back in the 1980s and ‘90s, with the support of city leaders, crumbling SROs were refurbished and turned into permanent homeless housing. But the buildings are facing financial and livability crises again .

One of the largest SRO providers, the Skid Row Housing Trust, fell into receivership last year. Most of the trust’s oldest buildings are in such disrepair that few are interested in buying them. The highest offer so far is from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation , which has struggled so much to operate its own SROs that state housing officials are formally objecting to the deal.
The city’s largest SRO, the Cecil Hotel, just went up for sale , a little more than two years after it reopened as housing for the homeless. My colleagues have reported on high vacancies , reports of violence and poor conditions at the hotel.

Many public officials and service providers argue the SROs have outlived their usefulness, and want to demolish and replace them with apartments that have private facilities for every tenant. If the SROs were to go away, it would end an era of last-resort housing that began with Skid Row’s creation.

Nonprofit providers are building homeless housing high-rises. The Weingart Center is changing the look and feel of Skid Row with three new homeless housing developments currently under construction. These buildings — 12, 17 and 19 stories — will be among the tallest in the area and house 700 people in studios and one-bedrooms. The first is set to open this spring. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is planning a 216-unit, 15-story building of its own in Skid Row.

A $2-billion project could bring thousands of higher-income residents to Skid Row. Denver-based developers Continuum Partners are proposing a massive $2-billion development on the northeast border of Skid Row next to Little Tokyo and the Arts District. If the City Council approves it, the project will bring 1,500 new homes, 410,000 square feet of office space, a 68-room hotel and retail restaurant space. Gov. Gavin Newsom has endorsed it.

The developer is conspicuously leaving Skid Row out of the marketing for the project, referring to the effort instead as “the New Gateway to DTLA.”

All together, it’s likely that five years from now, Skid Row will look vastly different than it does today. But the neighborhood’s status as the last resort for the L.A.’s most vulnerable doesn’t appear to be changing. Earlier this month, my colleagues Ruben Vives and Doug Smith reported on recently arriving migrant families with young children from Nicaragua, Peru, Honduras and Venezuela with no connections to Los Angeles living in tents on the streets of Skid Row.

The week’s biggest stories

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UCLA women falter at the finish in NCAA tournament loss to LSU.
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Today’s great reads

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She died after liposuction by a pediatrician. Doctors warn of cosmetic surgery’s “Wild West.” In California, doctors trained as pediatricians, OB-GYNs and other specialties can also take on lucrative — and potentially risky — cosmetic surgeries.

For your weekend

A ribeye on the grill at Jeong Yuk Jeom in Koreatown.

🍖 Twenty-five of the best Korean barbecue restaurants in Koreatown and beyond.
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✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games .

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

(Daniel Fishel / For The Times)

My first spot in L.A. looked like a scene from “Melrose Place.” Two stories, old motel style, courtyard in the middle. A wedge of sun-kissed paradise. As I unloaded stuff from my newly acquired Toyota pickup (a parting gift from an ex-boyfriend), I wondered just how I’d fit in here, this place called Studio City, where the streets are wide and everyone’s hair is the color of spun gold. With my black outfit, chunky shoes and the veneer of New York still on me, I thought, “What the hell am I doing here?” Then I saw him, from across the pool. The guy who would teach me about forever.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Liam Dillon, housing reporter Christian Orozco, assistant editor

Check our top stories , topics and the latest articles on latimes.com .

Liam Dillon covers the issues of housing affordability and neighborhood change across California for the Los Angeles Times.

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IMAGES

Avis sur l'album The Times They Are A‐Changin’ (1964)
(PDF) The Times They Are A-Changin’
Translation: The Times They Are A-Changin' on Behance
The Times They Are A-Changin' (single)
The Times They Are A-Changin' (arr. Adam Podd) Partitions
(PDF) "The Times They Are a-Changin'"

VIDEO

The Times, They Are A "Changin'
for the times, they are a-changin' (deleting soon)
The times they are a-changin’ (bob dylan cover)
The Times They are a Changin (Bob Dylan)
The Times They Are A-Changin'

COMMENTS

Meaning Behind Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'"
"The Times They Are a-Changin'" was written in the fall of 1963. Dylan recorded a demo of the song that later appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 .
The Meaning Behind The Song: The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan
The first verse of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" sets the tone for the rest of the song, with Dylan urging his listeners to acknowledge the changes that are happening in the world around them and to embrace them. The metaphor of rising waters, which will soon leave people "drenched to the bone," is a powerful image of the forces of ...
Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin' Essay
Open Document. Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" is a unique song that was written in the early 1960's during a time of political and military upheaval. The poem/song was written to influence the younger generation, and to serve as a rallying call for the people to come together to bring about a needed change.
The times they are a changin'. The meanings behind Bob Dylan's song
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'. Dylan wasn't right of course, because the changes of that year were just the sort of thing we had to get used to; from here on it was all change all the time, and by no means always for the better.
Summary Of Bob Dylan'sThe Times They Are A-Changin
Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" is a unique song that was written in the early 1960's during a time of political and military upheaval. The poem/song was written to influence the younger generation, and to serve as a rallying call for the people to come together to bring about a needed change. The civil rights movement was ...
Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin Essay
Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" is a unique song that was written in the early 1960's during a time of political and military upheaval. The poem/song was written to influence the younger generation, and to serve as a rallying call for the people to come together to bring about a needed change.
Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-changin as a Revolutionary Song
Written by Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin was created during the civil rights movement in the early 60's. Dylan invites people to collect in the... read full [Essay Sample] for free
The Times They Are A-Changin'
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 ...
'The Times They Are A-Changin" Still Speaks To Our Changing Times
"And, you know, you can go back to the 'The Times They Are a-Changin' ' for that: The line has been drawn, the curse has been cast. You really felt you had to stand on one side or the other ...
Encore: 'The Times They Are A-Changin" Still Speaks To Our ...
Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'" came out in 1963 as the country was entering a tumultuous time. Both the civil rights and antiwar movements embraced it as an anthem of protest.
The Times They Are Changing
The poem was released in 1963, during the hippie/civil rights movement in America. The song "The Times They Are A-Changing" became a rallying cry in the early 1960s. The poem calls on the common people to band together and question the flaws of government. Through the line "For The Times They Are A-Changing," Bob Dylan also provides an optimistic assurance to those who stood up.
(PDF) Why is The Times They Are a-Changin' such a culturally
This short essay explores the cultural significance of Bob Dylan's infamous tune 'The Times They Are a-Changin' ', connecting Dylan's influences with the turbulent social and cultural developments in America 1960's and the subsequent influence Dylan's writing has had on todays generation.
The Times They Are A Changin'
The Times They Are A Changin'. September 24, 2007 12:00 am. If this overused and cliche statement were more relevant or appropriate to the topic at hand, Bob Dylan would stop selling ladies undergarments and students would protest the Iraq War on the lawn of the Whitehouse. Unfortunately, College as America used to understand it has come to ...
The Times They Are A-Changin'
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 ...
The Times They Are A Changin Essay
Bob Dylan is an American singer born on May 24th in 1941, He is currently 81 years old as of today. The song "The times they are a changin' " is Bob Dylan singing about how people always stick to the past and should accept change and stay in the present. The song "The times they are a changin' " was released on January 13, 1964.
The Use of Figurative Language and Rhyming within "The Times They Are A
This essay provides the audience with information regarding the poem, "The Times They Are A-Changin'," and gives examples of figurative language and end and interline rhyming in the work. This essay received a C by one of Kibin's paper graders. Click here to see what was done well and what needs improvement.
Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin' Lyrics: 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 ...
Bob Dylan's Song: The Times They Are A-Changin
The lyrics of "The Times They Are A-Changin" were influential for the time period he wrote this song, which falls into the historical criticism …show more content…. Dylan's album of protest songs conveys the people's strength during protest and the need for others to listen to what was being said.
Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' at 60
10 February 1964. B ob Dylan 's third album, The Times They Are A-Changin', turns 60 in 2024 as its creator, age eighty-three this May, plans the next leg of his never-ending tour. For all his ...
"The Times They Are A-Changin'"
"The Times They Are A-Changin'" Political Protests--Iowa State University--May 1970 (click to enter) A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY AND ORAL HISTORY. Prepared and Organized By. Michele Christian, University Records Analyst, Special Collections Department and. Gerry McKiernan, Science and ...
The Times They Are A-Changin Essay
The Times They Are A-Changin Essay. Change is something that has been fought for throughout history. Rather than submitting to tyranny, people always rise to the occasion to invoke what they deem is right. Through the use of diction, tone, and imagery, Bob Dylan, author of the poem, "The Times They Are A-Changin'", describes an era of ...
The Times They Are A Changin By Bob Dylan
Free Essay: One cannot think of the 1960s and the 1970s without thinking of Vietnam and the social movements that went along with it. ... "Time They Are A Changin by Bob Dylan captured the spirit and essence of the change and turmoil that surrounded the Civil Rights movement". "Lift Every Voice And Sing" and " Strange Fruit" talk about ugly ...
Opinion
Ms. Taylor and Ms. Hunt-Hendrix are political organizers and the authors of the book "Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea." These days, we often hear that ...
NYC Congestion Pricing and Tolls: What to Know and What's Next
Amid the litigation, M.T.A. officials have suspended some capital construction projects that were to be paid for by the program, and they said at a committee meeting on Monday that crucial work to ...
AT&T Passcodes for Millions Are Reset After Leak ...
Nearly eight million customers and 65.4 million former account holders were affected by the data breach, the company said.
Trump promotes $59.99 'God Bless the USA Bible'
In a video promoting the new "God Bless the USA Bible," former President Trump holds up the book, an American flag rippling across its cover, and declares, "Make America pray again." Trump ...
'When people want a treat they are looking for the Cadbury they know
I t's Easter and chocolate is very much on the menu. But it could be meltdown for the industry as the cost of cocoa soared to a historic high of more than $10,000 a tonne last week after two ...
Portugal Had Little Appetite for the Far Right, Until Chega
"When I ask old people why they vote the Socialist Party, the only thing they can say is that they took us out of the dictatorship," said Mr. Bonanca, 25. "But I don't know about that. It ...
Similarities Between The Times They Are A-Changin And Bob Dylan
By using imagery, Dylan reflects the overall theme of the song "The times they are a changin'". Another literary device used in this song was repetition. In line 9, Dylan repeatedly said "For the times they are a-changin''(Dylan 9). This is also found on line 18,27,36, and 45.
Newsletter: After 50 years, Skid Row may be changing forever
The Weingart Center is changing the look and feel of Skid Row with three new homeless housing developments currently under construction. These buildings — 12, 17 and 19 stories — will be among ...