One can always gauge the state of affairs in the land by listening attentively to its popular music. By the 1960s American pop transitioned from the vapid, cliched love songs and into darker territory. Unhappiness with the Vietnam war as well as broad clashes over civil rights for women and minorities led to protests, counter-protests and lots of general violence. Into that milieu stepped a young twenty-something singer by the name of Bob Dylan. In contrast to songs of decades past, his music was more sparse and trafficking in alienation, poverty, and the struggle for acceptance.

On this day, February 10, in 1964, Bob Dylan released his third and arguably most famous studio album The Times They Are A-Changin’. The album’s songs touched on themes of losing jobs as companies move overseas for cheaper labor (“North Country Blues”), of injustice caused by class differences (“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”) and of the travails of the undertrodden poor (“Only a Pawn in Their Game”).

Dylan’s most famous song off the album was also entitled “The Times They Are a-Changin,” and its lyrics and meaning have been dissected and debated at length. Superficially, at least, Dylan sings about the rapid rate of change, urging his listeners in every station in life, whether they be the older generation of parents, or the legislators in Washington, to pay attention to the change in social order and adapt, lest they “sink like a stone.”