The Times They Are a-Changin'

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'.

The Times They Are a-Changin'  was the quintessential protest song from the 1960s.  The lyrics are pointed and timely.  The second stanza (below) directs "writers and critics" to pay attention to the changes taking place all around them.  The third stanza directs Congressmen and Senators to get out of the way.  It is a remarkable aspect of history that, while it might be true that it doesn't repeat, it does rhyme (with apologies to Mark Twain.)

In the 1960s the Counter-culture, with a large overlap with the Left, was the center of "revolutionary" energy and ideas.  We were young, naive, fully believed all of the glowing and overblown things we had heard about ourselves almost from birth, were imbued with (and burdened by) a surfeit of narcissist grandiosity, and thought we were the first generation that had discovered injustice and would be the generation to cure the world of evil.  Our hubris was absurd in its extent and we largely escaped the consequences of our selfishness.

 [We also thought we were the first generation to discover sex and free love but that is apparently a discovery made anew by each generation.]

What is so deliciously ironic is that those who were once in the forefront of "revolution" have now  become the ruling class, the very people who have lost touch with the zeitgeist!  They are bewildered by the changes taking place, the tidal wave threatening to begin to overwhelm them in November.  They have forgotten how to swim in the rising waters and are flailing about, trying to stay afloat.  Soon, they will sink like a stone.  There is revolution in the air, the old authorities no longer convince, and a new group of people are becoming wise to their time to return Power to the People!  


Bob Dylan- 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 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'.