The lyrics to Bob Dylan’s iconic song of 1964, The Times They Are A-Changin’ seem more apt than ever. With the impending divisive US presidential election, Covid 19 and the huge challenges in its wake, the UK setting itself adrift from the EU – the biggest trading bloc in the world – and the climate crisis, you couldn’t have imagined a more toxic bunch of hurdles before us. Dylan’s words in the third verse, Come senators, congressmen…, apply to all politicians wherever they are. Let’s hope they heed the call.
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’
And 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
The battle outside ragin’
Will 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’
Bob Dylan
Meanwhile, back home, where weak sun shines on fading leaves, soon to explode in a riot of autumn colours before fluttering down to the ground, plants well past their best slowly hunker down for winter, tall grasses flutter in the light breeze and probably stay that way until the first frost freezes their wispy tufts hard and makes them look like frozen spears, it’s autumn.
My latest book, Otto and Frankie, is available in all formats. It’s different from anything else I’ve written and took almost three years in the making.
It’s about a dying man’s fight against injustice, his wife’s unusual affair, and the love from his long-lost daughter.
I’m told it’s a compelling read.
Nick Wastnage 