Dylan’s lyrics become pointed as “the curse / it is cast” plays over The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) slipping away from the grassy knoll. Starting in 1940, the audience moves through historic events like Hiroshima and the JFK assassination with assists from masked crusaders. Snyder jumps onto Dylan’s vast-yet-specific song, one that encompasses generational change and fear, and tasks it to accompany a quick overview of the movie’s world. The song never changed, but the passage of time allowed its meaning to shift and grow.Įventually, that growth would come to encompass superheroes in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, a 2009 adaptation of the legendary graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

Once cautioning square parents not to hate their hippie children, the words could be seen decades later as a warning to grown hippies that their children would rebel against them. As literary critic Christopher Ricks wrote in Dylan’s Version of Sin, lyrics like “your sons and your daughters / Are beyond your command” could themselves change. “Come gather 'round people / wherever you roam,” he began, “and admit that the waters / around you have grown.” The lyrics to “The Times They Are A-Changin’” are rhythmic and steady, building on top of each other until each verse reaches its inescapable conclusion.ĭylan struck a deep chord, even as the times continued to change. He wanted to write an anthem, something that could capture the spirit of Scottish and Irish balladeers who would gather large crowds to spread a message.

Alan moore zack snyder