Positively Bob Dylan - The Annotated Recordings
North Country Blues
 Track 5     4.33 minutes
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'
LYRICS & MUSIC BY BOB DYLAN
Introduction Guitar 
Bob Dylan 1. Come gather 'round friends
And I'll tell you a tale
Of when the red iron pits ran empty
But the cardboard filled windows
And old men on the benches
Tell you now that the whole town is empty.
2. In the north end of town
My own children are grown
But I was raised on the other
In the wee hours of youth
May mother took sick
And I was brought up by my brother.
3. The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming
'Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him.
Well a long winter's wait
From the window I watched
My friends they couldn't have been kinder
And my schooling was cut
As I quit in the spring
To marry John Thomas, a miner.
3. Oh the years passed again
And the givin' was good
With the lunch bucket filled every season
What with three babies born
The work was cut down
To a half a day's shift with no reason.
Then the shaft was soon shut
And more work was cut
And the fire in the air, it felt frozen
'Til a man come to speak
And he said in one week
That number eleven was closin'.
Close They complained in the East
They are playing too high
They say that your ore ain't worth digging
That it's much cheaper down
In the South American towns
Where the miners work almost for nothing.
So the mining gates locked
And the red iron rotted
And the room smelted heavy from drinking
Where the sad silent song
Made the hour twice as long
As I waited for the sun to go sinking.
I lived by the window
As he talked to himself
This silence of tongues it was building
Then one morning's wake
The bed it was bare
And I's left alone with three children.
The summer is gone
The ground's turning cold
The stores one by one they're a-foldin'
My children will go
As soon they grow
Well there ain't nothing here now to hold them.
Official Sony Music Lyrics at
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ANNOTATION
Source/Precedents
Based on a traditional song.
Comments
1. Sung as a female narrator, not unusual in blues tradition, see House of the Rising Sun.
2.  
3.
4.
5.
5.
6.
The Critics
1. 
2.
Notes
iron pits ran empty  : Based on demise of the local iron ore mines,

Failed to come home : stoic euphemism for 'killed at work'

John Thomas : Traditional Blues character, also slang for penis.
miners work almost for nothing : the export of American industry to low labour cost countries  was to continue unabbatted for the remainder of the 20th century. The subject would be revisted, more radically, in Union Sundown, INFIDELS Track 6.
ALTERNATIVE RECORDINGS
Bob Dylan
#1 THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'  Track 5.
#2
#3
#4
Other Artists
1.  Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald
2.
3.
4.
For extensive information on alternate versions see Olof Björner's  excellent ... 
 It Ain’t Me, Babe
RECORDING DETAILS
Recorded: 6 August 1963
Release Date : 13 January 1964
Published :
Studio:  Columbia Studio A, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Master Number: CO-78971
Take: 1
Producer: Tom Wilson
Engineer/s: 
Company: CBS
Record Number : Columbia Mono CL 21055
Columbia Stereo KCS 8905
CD Number: CBS 467175-2
Record: Side A  Track 5  (13 January 1964)
CD: Track 5   (Date)
Time:  4.33 minutes
Musicians:
Bob Dylan Vocals/Guitar/Harmonica
All Recording Data usually from Record /Compact Disc Cover, and
Clinton Heylin, Dylan : Behind Closed Doors - The Recording Sessions 1960-1994 Penguin Books 1996
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