Long before Dylan had any sort of conversion to Christianity (he was, for a time, “born again” in the late 1970s and early 80s), his songs were saturated with biblical imagery (and they still are now). Often in popular culture elements of apocalypticism are there simply as assumptions on how one is to express things in times of trouble or in situations perceived as crises. The cultural revolution of the 1960s in the United States was a time of crisis in the eyes of the youth at the centre of this revolution, and Dylan was often considered a spokesperson for this revolution (even though he himself did not accept this role).<\/p>\n
Characteristic of the ancient apocalyptic worldview are notions that there is a sharp divide between evil and good people or beings (dualism), that current regimes or world-powers are under the control of evil powers, that some good power (God) is imminently or in the midst of intervening in a fundamental way to oust evil and restore good, and that that good power will establish a society in which good reigns forever and evil is forever caged or obliterated. These basic assumptions that undergird the apocalyptic worldview sometimes come to expression in popular music and film.<\/p>\n
In his pure folk days (shortly before the introduction of the electric guitar which, initially, resulted in some tomato throwing and booing at Dylan concerts), Dylan wrote a song you may have heard of: The times they are a-changin’ (1964 on his third album of the same name). (If you haven’t heard of it, then where have you been? It’s in bank commercials here in Canada now, after all–not what the 1960s youth had in mind.)<\/p>\n
In this song Dylan casts the cultural revolution of 1960s America in terms of an apocalyptic prophecy. Here there is the righteous (youth) and the wicked (the older generation of senators and others); there is talk of a raging battle; there are warnings of an imminent cataclysmic change which is described in terms of a coming flood that will bring the old order to an end (very common imagery for final judgment in ancient apocalyptic literature like 1 Enoch<\/em>); there is a prophecy of a new arrangement in which the corrupt ways of the old regime will be left behind (“get out of the new one”); there is talk of a reversal that will accompany the new arrangement (the first will be last). This Dylan tune illustrates well the often unconscious presence of apocalypticism in the western imagination (even if God is left out of the equation and substituted by some other group or power).<\/p>\n Come gather ’round people Come writers and critics Come senators, congressmen Come mothers and fathers The line it is drawn (Bob Dylan; Copyright \u00a9 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Do not emulate Dylan in using the term “prophesize”, which should be “prophesy”. You don’t know how many times I have corrected this in students’ papers!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long before Dylan had any sort of conversion to Christianity (he was, for a time, “born again” in the late 1970s and early 80s), his songs were saturated with biblical imagery (and they still are now). Often in popular culture elements of apocalypticism are there simply as assumptions on how one is to express things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,467,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apocalypticism","category-religions-of-the-ancient-mediterranean-blog-archive","category-visions-of-the-end-course"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13675,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/13675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philipharland.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWherever you roam
\nAnd admit that the waters
\nAround you have grown
\nAnd accept it that soon
\nYou’ll be drenched to the bone.
\nIf your time to you
\nIs worth savin’
\nThen you better start swimmin’
\nOr you’ll sink like a stone
\nFor the times they are a-changin’.<\/p>\n
\nWho prophesize with your pen
\nAnd keep your eyes wide
\nThe chance won’t come again
\nAnd don’t speak too soon
\nFor the wheel’s still in spin
\nAnd there’s no tellin’ who
\nThat it’s namin’.
\nFor the loser now
\nWill be later to win
\nFor the times they are a-changin’.<\/p>\n
\nPlease heed the call
\nDon’t stand in the doorway
\nDon’t block up the hall
\nFor he that gets hurt
\nWill be he who has stalled
\nThere’s a battle outside
\nAnd it is ragin’.
\nIt’ll soon shake your windows
\nAnd rattle your walls
\nFor the times they are a-changin’.<\/p>\n
\nThroughout the land
\nAnd don’t criticize
\nWhat you can’t understand
\nYour sons and your daughters
\nAre beyond your command
\nYour old road is
\nRapidly agin’.
\nPlease get out of the new one
\nIf you can’t lend your hand
\nFor the times they are a-changin’.<\/p>\n
\nThe curse it is cast
\nThe slow one now
\nWill later be fast
\nAs the present now
\nWill later be past
\nThe order is
\nRapidly fadin’.
\nAnd the first one now
\nWill later be last
\nFor the times they are a-changin’.<\/p>\n