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The Times They Are a-Changin
Now I have finished Nomad, which will be shown at the Miami Art Museum this fall and winter (opens to the public November 2). For better or for worse, the environment—its parts and their relationship—represents most of what I know about painting.
Earlier this afternoon, after I finished my notes on Nomad, I went for a long swim in the ocean. The beach was empty. Then a skinny and hairy man sat down on the sand and turned on his radio. I got out of the water. We both nodded—he seemed homeless and his radio was small. I sat near my things and we both looked straight ahead, towards the horizon: a band of dark ocean under an almost white sky. I could hear his songs. They seemed to be coming from farther away than the twenty yards between us. Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin came on. While listening, I noticed the dark clouds moving above. I knew it wasn’t going to rain but I left when the song ended, just in case.
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'
Then 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
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll 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'.
Earlier this afternoon, after I finished my notes on Nomad, I went for a long swim in the ocean. The beach was empty. Then a skinny and hairy man sat down on the sand and turned on his radio. I got out of the water. We both nodded—he seemed homeless and his radio was small. I sat near my things and we both looked straight ahead, towards the horizon: a band of dark ocean under an almost white sky. I could hear his songs. They seemed to be coming from farther away than the twenty yards between us. Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin came on. While listening, I noticed the dark clouds moving above. I knew it wasn’t going to rain but I left when the song ended, just in case.
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'
Then 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
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll 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'.
Labels: Narratives
posted by EMC at
1:05 PM
1 Comments:
i think it's easy, at this particular moment, to smile at the utopian idealism of dylan's song as a quaint relic of a by-gone era. but i think this reflects poorly on our present moment, since it seems particularly immune to the prophetic voice of art. in fact, artistic practice has even largely abandoned its prophetic role that dylan's song so well embodies. dylan's prophetic and apocalytic anthem manifests a supreme discontentment with the world as it is and a desire to project alternatives, even if those alternatives are 'only' through aesthetic form.
didn't dostoyevsky once say that "beauty will save the world?"
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