Can China Tolerates Bob Dylan And His “The Times they Are a-Changin'”

The question is still, “Will he or won’t he?” but it has shifted from people asking “Will Bob Dylan get a visa?” to “Will he pull a Björk during his China concerts?”

The Telegraph reports that Dylan, an American music icon, "charged through" his set list at Beijing's Workers' Gymnasium on April 6 with little interaction with the audience and only introducing his five-piece band after 90 minutes and the first encore.

The singer also left out some of his more famous protest songs including “Blowin' in the Wind” and “The Times they Are a-Changin'”.(lyric at bottom)

Dylan, like all artists performing in China, had to submit his set list beforehand for approval by the Ministry of Culture, which in its formal invitation reminded the singer that he would have to "conduct the performance strictly according to the approved program," according to the L.A. Times.

Dylan’s set, which he played to a crowd of 6,000 in the 18,000-seat stadium, did include other hits including "Tangled up in Blue" and "Simple Twist of Fate."

"Foreign acts coming into China are watched much more closely than native Chinese bands," Nevin Domer, booking manager at D-22, one of Beijing’s major live-houses, told the LA Times. "Even when bands on our label play big festivals with hundreds or thousands of people, they don't need to submit lyrics [to censors]."

Some expected that Dylan, a protest singer, would go the Björk 2008 route when she shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of her song "Declare Independence." But in the midst of controversy surrounding figures like Ai Weiwei, and Dylan’s own last-minute visa which was approved a mere month before the show, it doesn't come as a huge surprise that he chose the path of least resistance.

"It would have been a total disaster if he had said anything, this was a really high-profile event," said Archie Hamilton, a music promoter.

Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-changin’ Lyrics



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 savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

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 fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.