It’s going to take a new Bob Dylan

In the early 1960s, the world was afraid too. Terribly afraid. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the US and USSR came close to pushing the red button. The button that triggered the atomic bomb and the last world war. The one that would have destroyed a good part of the planet.

Instead of attacking each other head-on, the two superpowers hijacked their nuclear submarines and clashed on foreign lands, sacrificing innocent populations. We called it the Cold War, yet napalm was hot in Vietnam. It was America’s children who were the aggressors and often the aggressors came home in coffins. At home where racial riots were rampant. At home where civil rights rallies tried to put an end to injustices, before dying. At least Martin Luther King will have had time to convey his dream.

Things weren’t going well in the United States 60 years ago. What was different about today was that we felt a current, a wind of change, a call to challenge the established order, launched by the committed singers. The movie A complete strangercurrently on view, describes this era very well.

It is a biographical film about the beginnings of Bob Dylan, but it is also the history of folk music, of the influence of songs with lyrics on American society. Bob Dylan connected all of America to its social responsibilities by plugging in his electric guitar. By making protest speech popular.

The counter-power will always be, initially, the power of words. And few poets handle them as well as Bob Dylan. As evidenced by the song The Times They Are A-Changin’ (the French translation is by Georges Ionnitis):

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’

(Gather together, good people, wherever you come from,
You will notice that the water around you begins to rise
So admit that soon you will be soaked to the skin
And if your existence deserves, in your eyes, to be saved
So hurry up and swim, so you don’t sink like a stone
Because times are changing)

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 all, authors and critics, you who prophesy with your pen
Keep your eyes wide open, the opportunity won’t come again
And don’t speak too quickly, because the wheel is still turning
She has not yet designated the lucky ones
And keep in mind that losers today will be winners tomorrow
Because times are changing)

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 all, senators and representatives, answer the call, please
Do not stay in the entrance, do not obstruct the passage
Because he who does not follow the movement risks being carried away
The battle outside rages
She will soon shake your windows and shake your walls
Because times are changing)

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’

(Come all, fathers and mothers, from the four corners of the country
And do not denigrate what escapes your understanding
Your sons and daughters are grown up now
Your old traditions have gotten really old
If you don’t want to participate, at least let them be free to choose new ones
Because times are changing)

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’

(The path is traced, the lot is cast
What starts slowly will speed up
As sure as today’s present will be tomorrow’s past
The established order is disappearing
And the first will be the last
Because times are changing)

How can you do nothing after hearing that? How can you not participate in change? It wasn’t politicians who ended the Vietnam War and racial segregation, it was public opinion.

And public opinion would never have been so strong without the message bearers, without Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Angela Davis and Joan Baez.

Today, times are not changing, times are going backwards. We are all here, helplessly watching what is happening at the moment. We can’t believe it. We see that this does not make good sense. But we don’t do anything. We lower our arms in front of those who raise their right arm.

Before, the song, with its words, with its tempo, lifted people up. The American protest or Quebec nationalism would not have gained ground without it. Today, the song no longer impacts the collective, it impacts the individual. Taylor Swift is opening up about her problems. Everyone makes their own personal list. Everyone sings in their own corner. In his karaoke booth.

It’s not politicians or billionaires who are going to change things. It’s not their interest. They are the dreamers. Before, at the forefront of dreamers, there were singers.

Is it because influential singers have become millionaires that we no longer feel this desire for change in them?

It would take a new Bob Dylan. But for a Bob Dylan to arise, it takes a current. A family of thoughts. Dylan is the chosen one of folk music. From this group of thinkers who wanted justice and peace. Where are they, where are they, now? Lost somewhere on social media. It is not for nothing that the leaders of these platforms tolerate misinformation. It’s to bury their speeches. Divide and conquer. To encourage chaos and discourage heroes.

To the dreamers to sing louder! It’s up to us to listen louder! So that the meeting takes place, between them and us. And times are changing.

Is there a Bob Dylan, somewhere on TikTok, to stop the ticking of the time bomb we’re all sitting on?