Day 76 (June 3): Bob Dylan - Only a Pawn in Their Game

Bob Dylan - The Times They are a-Changin' 180g 45RPM Mono 2LP
Today's song of the day is 56 years old. Fifty six! Can you imagine 56 years ago? I honestly cannot. I've lived for 21, and they've been impossibly eventful. The idea that you can go 56 years back seems genuinely unrealistic.

I caught Bob Dylan's "Only a Pawn in Their Game", from his 1964 album The Times They Are A-Changin' (you know, that song) in the brilliant James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which circles around the dispiriting reality that American, and Western society more largely, has been trapped in amber in so many ways in addressing its own deep-seated racism for decades and centuries.

This song isn't even from the middle of that struggle, but the way in which it describes the cold-blooded murder of Black activist Medgar Evars and the institutional failure to bring justice for the crime is disturbingly familiar. It really has not changed in any way. Throw this song into 2020, and it works exactly the same (not that you'd get Bob Dylan to sing it, poor guy's voice and all).

Nothing has changed at all, has it?

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