Os inspiradores:
O 'homem do dia':
Uma canção que arrastou o povo para a rua contra uma guerra.
Come gather around 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
And if your breath to you is worth saving
Then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-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 telling who that it's naming
For the loser now will be later to win
Cause the times they are a-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
There's the battle outside raging
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-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 aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
Cause the times they are a-changing
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slowest now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
Cause the times they are a-changing
Bob Dylan
«Os anos 1960 foram fabulosos - um decénio de protestos e de rebelião. Uma geração inteira tinha o direito de beber e de morrer na guerra aos dezoito anos, mas não tinha o direito de votar antes dos vinte e um. A crise era inevitável. As conversas tornavam-se canções, as canções provocavam discussões. Organizavam-se marchas pelos direitos cívicos, marchas contra a bomba, marchas contra a escalada da guerra no Vietname. Mas eram também marchas contra a rigidez moral dos anos 1950. A Beat Generation tinha aberto uma brecha e nós, a geração seguinte, aproveitámo-la.»
Suze Rotolo - Le temps des possibles. Paris: Naïve, 2009, p. 14
O 'herdeiro':
«Bob Dylan is the father of my country. Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home were not only great records, but they were the first time I can remember being exposed to a truthful vision of the place I lived. The darkness and light were all there, the veil of illusion and deception ripped aside. He put his boot on the stultifying politeness and daily routine that covered corruption and decay. The world he described was all on view, in my little town, and spread out over the television that beamed into our isolated homes, but it went uncommented on and silently tolerated. He inspired me and gave me hope. He asked the questions everyone else was too frightened to ask, especially to a fifteen-year-old: “How does it feel... to be on your own?” A seismic gap had opened up between generations and you suddenly felt orphaned, abandoned amid the flow of history, your compass spinning, internally homeless. Bob pointed true north and served as a beacon to assist you in making your way through the new wilderness America had become. He planted a flag, wrote the songs, sang the words that were essential to the times, to the emotional and spiritual survival of so many young Americans at that moment.
«I had the opportunity to sing “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ” for Bob when he received the Kennedy Center Honors. We were alone together for a brief moment walking down a back stairwell when he thanked me for being there and said, “If there’s anything I can ever do for you...” I thought, “Are you kidding me?” and answered, “It’s already been done.”»
Bruce Springsteen - Born to run
