Bob Dylan
The Times They Are A-Changin'

THE REVIEW

Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown and you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone: the times they are a-changin'.

With this verse opens the most political album of the young Bob (1964). Great songs, no doubt about it, then that unmistakable slightly nasal tone and that harmonica randomly shooting out notes send chills down your spine.
The times are changing, Zimmy shouts, and in a few songs he lists everything that must change: no more wars with people claiming God on their side ("With God On Our Side", great piece, and Baez's voice graces him greatly in the Live 1964), no more poverty and people without jobs ("North Country Blues"), no more exploitation and instrumentalization of blacks ("Only A Pawn In Their Game"), no more rich and privileged murderers of innocent poor unpunished ("The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carrol"). The new times are at hand and Goliath will be defeated by the new Davids ("When The Ship Comes In", another masterpiece). There's also space for a beautiful love ballad, "Boots Of Spanish Leather", and a melancholic song, also a milestone of Dylan's songbook, dismantled and rebuilt a million times, "One Too Many Mornings".

The album closes with a "Restless Farewell", a restless farewell. And it's truly restless: all the political and social charge in Dylan's songs is running out. We are on the verge of a thematic shift, we are on the verge of an electric shift, Dylan no longer wants to be the leader of movements and the idolized prophet of pacifism. He's had enough.
No doubt about it, an album that sends chills down your spine, guitar and harmonica, and even the voice is an instrument, which knows how to be angry when it says "Baaat yuh wu philosophaize disgrace..." and sweet and poignant when it says "I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss, for that is all I'm wishing to be owning".
It's Bob's strength: he is not a singer, because he doesn't sing, he hums and screeches and shouts. But he knows how to say what he wants to say, and every time he does it in a different way. That's why he is unique, that's why this album is unique.