“I watched it at my manager’s office. The next night, Saturday, I had a concert upstate, in Ithaca or Buffalo. There was a really down feeling in the air. I had to go on stage, I couldn’t cancel. I went to the hall and to my amazement the hall was filled. Everybody turned out for the concert. The song I was opening with was The Times They Are A-Changin’ and I thought, ‘Wow, how can I open with that song? I’ll get rocks thrown at me.’ That song was just too much for the day after the assassination. But I had to sing it, my whole concert takes off from there.
I know I had no understanding of anything. Something had just gone haywire in the country and they were applauding that song. And I couldn’t understand why they were clapping or why I wrote that song, even. I couldn’t understand anything. For me, it was just insane.” — Bob Dylan to writer Anthony Scaduto
DORIAN LYNSKEY is the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, published by Faber and Faber (March 2011) and Ecco (April 2011). He writes for the Guardian, The Word, Q, Spin and Empire.
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