Comments for Dylan, Bob, The Times They Are A-Changin'

The finest protest album ever. Period. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is one of the best of Dylan's 2-dimensional morality plays, even better than Only A Pawn In Their Game. Much more a sense of waste and personal loss. Pawn is more a sense of overt societal protest, whereas Hattie Carroll is an attack against upper class indifference. Both are modern classics in the folk tradition.

I like the album, but it dates worse than the others - too serious & topical even though the causes are good. "Freewheelin'" stands the test of time better.

The title track may even surpass "Blowin' in the Wind" as his best ever composition.

Dated? Maybe, but only in the sense of a great beginning. This set of acoustic poetic images set an entire generation thinking even if many of that generation were so wrapped up in these values that they didn't even realize it. For some it was a great awakening. For some the awakening came months or even years later. Dylan reigns!

beautiful from start to finish. a real sense of anguish and a cry for truth are deeply conveyed. dylan takes specific incidents and reveals their universal connection on an immediate, emotional level. never one to fall prey to the flowery notion of "hippie" idealism, dylan was more concerned with truth than escapism.

That's why his early work still sounds so fresh today; he wasn't trying to ride hippie bandwagon. Listen to Dylan's best work (along with that of Phil Ochs, Tim Hardin and Richard Farina), as opposed to a song like "Are You Going to San Francisco". The latter sounds very quaint, even a little camp today, whereas "Times They Are a-Changing" or "Hard Rain" or "Masters of War" keep reinventing themselves for each succeding generation. And "Hattie Carrol" could just as easily be about that black woman you saw on the bus who's working two jobs to keep her children shelterd and who's dying her own lonesome death brought on by racism, poverty and inner city strife.

The Times They Are A-Changing is a very sober, almost grim recitation of the ills plaguing American society in the early 60''s. It doesn''t play as well today as Freewheeling Bob Dylan but it is still a good record for all its earnestness. The title track is a little over rated, but there are some gems here. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol" is a haunting recitation of a senseless racial murder. "The Hour That the Ship Comes In" is rarely recognized as one of Dylan''s classics but I think it is just that. The song dances and the mystical imagery of a spirit-filled universe celebrating the day of cosmic deliverance is, I think, very powerfully moving. The love songs, "Restless Farewell" and "One Too Many Mornings" are good also. It''s an album worth having though it''s not one I play a lot anymore.

Dylans greatest folk album.One of the best protest songs of any era in "only a pawn in their game"