The Times They Are A-Changin

Bob Dylan’s third album, his first to contain all original songs, reveals a revolutionary-minded 22-year-old leaning to the political and social. He’s his generation’s reporter on both the anthemic title song and the lamenting-yet-urgent “With God on Our Side.” On the heartbreaking “North Country Blues,” he tells of a wife who loses her loved ones to the town mine. Dylan’s genius here is how he blends complex ideas of poverty and racism with beat poetry and sturdy acoustic-folk traditions, while making it all easy to sing along to.