Nalyd Bob

You can love or hate the guy but it is hard to not acknowledge the genius of Bob Dylan. He was as gifted as a songwriter as it can be. I had this strange idea thinking about one of his most famous song “The Times they are A-changin”. It was written sixty years ago in 1964. If you listen to the lyrics, they announce the 68 protests that spread across the west —USA and France notably— but also the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact Troops. The weird thing is that you can give the lyrics another reading. This is the hallmark of geniuses. Their creations go beyond their author’s mind. If you read the lyrics with the current world state of affairs they take a new light and remain oddly on point. They sound like a closing parenthesis of the last sixty years. This song marked the beginning of a profound cultural change that swept across the world. The same lyrics are also perfectly fit to the end of this era.

The times they are A-changin

Another ultra famous song from Bob Dylan is also a perfect match for our times. I am thinking at “Like a Rolling Stone”. Imagine writing a song that is so good that it has been chosen as the name of the most famous rock band ever… Bob Dylan is to musical culture what some thinkers are to the political and intellectual class. Not always as famous as the cover boys but much more influential.

Now listen to the song and think at our social media era. Maybe the lyrics

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

Ahh you've gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street

take a different understanding in 2025 with instagram influencers, and WEF “you will own nothing and be happy”. But I encourage you to listen to the song and pay attention to how the lyrics can be uderstood today in our digitized environment. This is a mind blowing experience.

The closing lyrics are the perfect closing statement of the era we just went through.

When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal

Maybe you feel naked and seen on social media ? We have reached a point where posting a dissident tweet can get you in legal troubles in “liberal democracies”… It looks like there’s a change on the other side of The Atlantic (pun intended). Europe is not yet ready. The aftermaths of the Berlin security conference with a crying chairman after JD Vance delivered a brillant speech couldn’t be more fit too.

In other news, there are elections next week in Germany.