#The Times They Are a Changin'

[reprisearchive]

BOB DYLAN AGHHHH i love Bob Dylan

[marbleboa]

Collection of some fanart I made for The Times They Are a Changin', a post-canon horror fic by @bandtrees and @hatsunoid!

One of my favorite fics to be sure--a beautiful, bloody, haunting work that takes everything the series built up and tears it down in a way that's both painfully real and respectful to its source. I could rant about it all day but please give it a read if you have the chance!

[locutia]

These times

[ Art for @cowardlybean . Fanfic the art is for : The times they are a changin’ ]

[bandtrees]

“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'…” -- In October of 2022, Shigeo Kageyama has everything he could ever want. Now as old as his Master once was, he’s eternally grateful to still be in close contact with those from his youth — in fact, by the standards of adult friendships, they’re all doing remarkably well. Spirits and Such is, comically, somehow still in business, despite Reigen’s promises to retire someday, he and Ritsu are still attached at the hip well into college, and he even runs with the old Body Improvement Club on the weekends, and makes efforts to follow Touichirou’s rehabilitation in prison. …until the one thing he’s feared since he was 14 happens.

@tigsbitties and i's reigen birthday present, in the works since march, is here. heed the warnings and i apologize in advance.

[1976desire]

uk cbs records promo poster for “the times they are a-changin’” (b/w “honey just allow me one more chance”), 1964.

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon Soir 💙🎸🎙❤️

Peter, Paul and Mary 🎶 The Times They Are A Changing

Live in Newport Festival 1965

[3-6-9-the-end]

Cult of cool no.2 Bob Dylan.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Science is the secular religion of today and scientists are, in a very literal sense, the new priesthood. And it all began when Ben Franklin flew his kite in a thunderstorm in the crucial year of 1752.

"The Stars in their Courses" - Isaac Asimov

[haikudaykuu]

bobbie dylan!!

[rayonthego]

Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin’

[reprisearchive]

Bob Dylan, London Window 1966 Poster

[haysaprocky]

spiritual ascension is HARD WORK bitches. i can’t remember the last time i needed this much sleep 🥱

[excitedbones]

Going to ffn while ao3 is down only to find 10 fics for the entire fandom 😳

[bandtrees]

tried to channel one’s style for a fake cover for @hatsunoid​ and i’s postcanon horror fic, our big passion project we’ve been hammering away at since february. it’s still in the making and will be for the next while probably, because it’s very big and ambitious - and we wanna hold off from sharing too much about it publicly til its done, BUT i wanted to post this if nothin else :D

in ten years everyone is as happy as can be

[tobobby]

music review #1 - the ballad of hollis brown

rating: 10/10 song: the ballad of hollis brown album: the times they are a-changin' (1964) artist: bob dylan

just pre-dating dylan's electric era, this track is haunting and certainly a predecessor to songs like "it's alright ma (i'm only bleeding)". with its repetitive acoustic guitar chords and harrowing lyrics, this song is certainly one of my favourite dylan tracks, and i love it so much that i renamed my socials after the song.

the lyrics tell the story of a man named hollis brown who lives in a broken-down cabin & farm outside of a south dakota town. he has a wife and five children and is incredibly poor & jobless, with no one to help his family out. his family is going hungry & so they scream & cry, but still, hollis brown feels hopeless as he cannot do anything. and so, he uses the last of his money to buy shotgun shels and murders his children and wife and then himself. the song ends with the ominous lyric, "somewheres in the distance there's seven new people born".

first, i'd like to talk about the interesting lyric & rhyming pattern dylan utilises here. it's certainly unique, as it has the pattern of:

line 1 [A] line 2 [B] line 1 [A] line 2 [B] line 3 [C] line 4 [B]

it is quite repetitive, but also very impactful. another interesting aspect of the lyrics is the point of view. very few writings in general are written in second person point of view, and here, this pov is used to make the song all the more visceral. you are hollis brown; you walk the floor and wonder why with every breath you breathe; your wife screams are stabbin' you like the dirty driving rain; your eyes fix on the shotgun that you're holdin' in your hand. this certainly allows for the listener to, at the very least, make more sense of what brown's thought process it is, no matter how fucked up it is. dylan places the listener in the position of brown, and by doing this forces the listener to wonder what they would do in this situation, if they would have any other option.

this technique is certainly effective and although seemingly small is quite important in what makes this such a good song. another detail is the descriptive lyrics, setting, & similes dylan uses. there's a lot of scene-setting, such as the lines "way out in the wilderness a cold coyote calls" and "seven shots ring out like the ocean's pounding roar". it's extremely important to the listener as it helps visualise the setting of the song and understanding exactly how brown feels / what he is experiencing.

one of my favourite lyrics of the song has to be the line:

you walk the floor and wonder why with every breath you breathe.

there are SO many interpretations to this line. brown could be wondering why his life is so terrible, why he's stuck in this cycle of poverty. this could also take to mean that he's wondering why he's even alive (explained more in this genius lyric annotation), hinting at his suicidal tendencies early on in the song. or, it could be about his baby, as the line before this mentions his baby tugging at his sleeve. maybe he's curious as to what the baby wants from him, after he's tried everything he can. and again, this line (like most of the song) is written in second person, meaning you're placed in the shoes of brown, left to decide for yourself.

another one of my favourite verses is:

your brain is a-bleedin’ and your legs can’t seem to stand your eyes fix on the shotgun that you’re holdin’ in your hand

i love this lyric because it's so explicit. the bleeding - metaphorical at this point, but affecting brown physically; the shotgun in brown's hand, the final moments before he murders his family. dylan slowly hints at this moment the entire song making this climax incredibly effective. i just adore the uneasiness of it all.

finally, the last lines of the song (likely the most important, summing up the moral) is ambiguous and fascinating.

there’s seven people dead on a south dakota farm somewhere in the distance there’s seven new people born

that last line. "there's seven new people born". again, this can be taken to mean multiple things; is he referring to the fleeting nature of human existence, how easy it is to murder seven human beings and them being replaced immediately? is he referring to the cycle of poverty, that these seven new people will also be born into poverty and repeat brown's cycle? that it's easier to replace seven people than it is to keep them from dying?

many questions arise when listening to this song, and rightfully so. this song makes me think a lot, and i love it. it's an incredibly underrated track and i hope you all listen to it and love it as much as i do.