Lyrics I Love #23: Things Have Changed

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About the Song

Track: Things Have Changed

Length: 5:07

Album: Wonder Boys - Music from the Motion Picture (2000)

Artist: Bob Dylan

Songwriter: Bob Dylan

Favorite part: 

“Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me”

© 1999 Special Rider Music

Here’s Why I Love It

In honor of the greatest songwriter of all time turning 80, I had to feature this song. I could literally fill an entire playlist with Bob Dylan’s lyrical genius. His work stands (and will stand) above every other singer/songwriter, and deservingly so. Bob Dylan is a unicorn.

With that being said, I should speak to Dylan’s cultural significance. As in, there was a literal divide in musical history—call it pre-Dylan and post-Dylan. The introspective singer/songwriter just didn’t exist in a popular way before he came along,  and he influenced everyone from the Beatles, Byrds, Stones, and on and on. Given the time period of the early 60s and considering everything that was happening politically and culturally, the country was ready for an artist like Dylan. And sure, there has to be a first, and the first doesn’t have to be the best, but in this case, it was. 

The thing most people miss about Dylan (IMO) is his work ethic. Mainly because we don’t like to mix “hard work” with “creative genius.” One appears to be practical and the other magical. How odd is it that something so ethereal can also be extremely sensible? For me, this is the recipe of all the greats—Springsteen, Petty, you name it. But not only is Dylan’s catalogue massive, he’s also been on a Never Ending Tour that started in 1988. It only stopped because of the pandemic.

For me, the thing that makes Dylan so special (technically) is that he writes outside the confines of what a song is supposed to be. As a comparison, my favorite songwriter Tom Petty does the exact opposite: he writes inside the confines of what a song should be. This is something many do, although not as well (IMO), but nobody consistently does what Dylan does. Let alone with such vicious insight and poetic precision. I can find artists who write with elements of Dylan (almost everyone) but nobody does it quite like Dylan.

Some may wonder why I featured this song (of all the Dylan songs). Well, it’s one of my absolute favorites. It’s a lyrical pounding from the first line to the last, only to be cemented by the recurring and stinging reminder, “I used to care, but things have changed.” (Plus, that shaker is just awesome.)

*** Read the lyrics and Listen to the song ***


*This article is part of the ongoing Lyrics I Love series: short interpretations of the meaning and story behind one song with lyrics that move me.