The times, they are a changin'

Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
and admit that the waters around you have grown
and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
if your time to you is worth saving
And you better stat swimming or you'll sink like a stone
foe the times, they are a-changing
...
The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
as the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fading
And the first one now will later be last
for the times, they are a-changing.

That's the Bob Dylan song Derek Webb opened with two weeks ago at Middlebury College. (Has it really been two weeks??) He blared those words in 120-grit tenor over big 3/4 time strums.
It took me a few minutes to get past the thought, "hey...this is the guy I've heard in all those songs. " A few times during the show I would come back, "no. wait. yes. that's his voice...that's him." I'm scared of that celebrity mentality, that euphoria you get when you see someone famous. It's as if you're suddenly ushered into the presence of the divine--as if all the attention ever given to that person has saturated them, as if it sticks out past the stage and bumps into you.

He played his last song and vanished behind the curtain. And it was good for me to see him. A real person, singing words with no studio in between us, hitting a guitar with his hand, just like I do.

Too bad you weren't there! (I'm sure you would have liked it, Kristen).