Things Have Changed (2000) – Bob Dylan

This song is pivotal – not only in Bob Dylan’s career but as a wider statement about human nature and our strange place in the modern world. Dylan, who almost never explains or interprets his own songs, made an uncharacteristic exception at the Academy Awards on March 25, 2001. Accepting the Oscar for Best Original Song with Things Have Changed, he stood before the biggest stage possible and told us:

“I want to thank the members of the Academy who were bold enough to give me this award for this song, which obviously [is] a song that doesn’t pussyfoot around nor turn a blind eye to human nature”.

I was lucky enough to see Dylan perform in Sydney in 2001, at Centennial Park – the very night before he won that Academy Award. Wonder Boys, the film for which he wrote Things Have Changed, remains terribly underrated. Dylan’s music is peppered throughout. Director Curtis Hanson, a longtime admirer, had personally sought Dylan for the project. Dylan, complied – and here we are today.

During his Oscar performance in the video at the end of this post, Dylan seems to wholly embody the persona. Allen Ginsberg once said Dylan could become “a column of air” on stage, with every fiber of his being focused on the breath carrying the words. That night was exactly that. My old man called me right after the broadcast and said: “Dylan’s eyes penetrated the TV screen. He didn’t sing that song, he was that song.” My dad wasn’t exactly full of his praises up until that point, so that is another reason this song holds such a special place in my heart. Also, I remember Bob parading that Oscar stature on his piano for many months; cheekily masquerading it to his audiences. He was beyond proud of his accomplishment.

I’ve written about Things Have Changed in bits and pieces before, but it feels like this article finally ties the whole puzzle together. Things Have Changed is my Bob Dylan post 2000’s Desert Island song. It resonates with me on two levels: first, instinctively and impulsively, like Freud’s Id; and second, as social commentary on the harsh, unpredictable world of politics and human behavior – the realm of the Super-Ego. The Ego, caught between the two, must somehow survive the strange pressures of modern life. In that sense, Dylan channels Freud’s idea of the central conflict of man in the modern age. We are torn between raw impulses, moral restrictions, and the uneasy compromises we make to exist. Dylan is staring right into the heart of it.

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed.

This song is Dylan – him the writer prophesying with his pen, much as he once invoked the role of writers in The Times They Are a-Changin’. He also speaks closer to our ears than just about ever before. There’s a stark warning in his words: before you leap blindly into the lake – like Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy – pause and think twice. The roles have reversed. Dylan, once the fiery young man urging progress forward, now steps back to caution us. The train of “progress,” never actually stopped at the station – it just thundered past, a runaway engine, more radical and uncompromising than even the movements he once championed in the early ’60s. We need to take stock – or else all hell will break loose.

It seems fitting to close with Dylan’s own parting words from that Oscar stage in 2001:

“God bless you all with peace, tranquillity and goodwill.”

[Verse 1]
A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train
Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose

[Chorus]
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

[Verse 2]
This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
Lot of water under the bridge; lot of other stuff, too
Don’t get up, gentlemen, I’m only passing through

[Verse 3]
I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the Bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand
Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street

[Verse 4]
I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
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
Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake