The Times They Are A-Changin' - Aftermath

Aftermath

On October 26, 1963, three days after recording the final song for The Times They Are a-Changin', Dylan held a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. That night, he performed eight songs from his forthcoming third album, as well as several outtakes from the same album sessions (including "Percy's Song", "Seven Curses", and "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"). Columbia recorded the entire concert, but it was decades before a substantial portion of it was officially released (in fact to date the concert in its entirety has not been released). Nevertheless, the performance was well received by the press and audience alike, but its success was to be overshadowed by the events of November 22, 1963.

On that day, at 12:30, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Dylan's friend, Bob Fass, was sitting with Dylan in Carla Rotolo's apartment the day of the shooting. According to Fass, Dylan was deeply affected by it and said: "What it means is that they are trying to tell you 'Don't even hope to change things'." Dylan later claimed that Kennedy's death did not directly inspire any of his songs, but in a manuscript written shortly after the assassination, he wrote: "it is useless to recall the day once more." In another, he repeatedly wrote: "there is no right or left there is only up and down."

Three weeks to the day after Kennedy's assassination, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee gave Dylan their annual Tom Paine award for his contribution to the civil rights movement. Dylan gave a disastrous acceptance speech at the awards ceremony held at Hotel Americana in New York, at one point claiming he saw something of himself in Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy's assassin. After the ceremony, a number of eyewitnesses reported that Dylan seemed very nervous and was drinking quite heavily before giving his speech.