Things Have Changed

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Things Have Changed" is a song from the film Wonder Boys, written and performed by Bob Dylan [1] and released as a single on May 1, 2000, that won both the Academy Award for Best Original Song [2] and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

Clinton Heylin, in his account of Dylan's songs between 1974 and 2008, believes the song was recorded at Sony Studios, New York, probably on July 25 and 26, 1999. Vozick-Levinson, Jon Dolan,Patrick Doyle,Andy Greene,Brian Hiatt,Angie Martoccio,Rob Sheffield,Hank Shteamer,Simon; Dolan, Jon; Doyle, Patrick; Greene, Andy; Hiatt, Brian; Martoccio, Angie; Sheffield, Rob; Shteamer, Hank; Vozick-Levinson, Simon (2020-06-18). Henley added: “I was driving around one day, and I’d never heard it before, and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, somebody is really doin’ a good Bob Dylan. Among the very first was country singer Waylon Jennings who made it a staple of his final live shows in 2000 and 2001.De Graaf notes the images of "the last train", "all hell may break loose", "standing on the gallows with my head in a noose", all contributing to a sense of impending Armageddon: "the last battle of the end times when all powers from hell will explode in one final outburst of violence".

As the song progresses it's as if the narrator is becoming too tired to finish a phrase, leaving a pregnant pause before dropping the final words—but, then again, Dylan may also be adopting a trick performed by Sinatra when stretching lines and hesitating before singing the final word or phrase". Many modern musicians still regard it as one of his best tracks, including Eagles’ very own Don Henley. Lynch referenced the song for a second time on his June 1, 2021, weather report: "Today I was thinking about Bob Dylan and his song 'Things Have Changed'". Dylan critic Kees de Graaf places "Things Have Changed" in the context of the Biblical teaching Dylan encountered when he studied with the Vineyard Fellowship in the late 1970s. In the end, therefore, ‘Things Have Changed’ stands as a testament to Dylan’s remarkable knack for swiftly creating art — a skill possessed by only a chosen few.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Sources agree the musicians who accompanied Dylan in the studio were his touring band at the time: Charlie Sexton and Larry Campbell on guitar, Tony Garnier on bass and David Kemper on drums and percussion.

Brian Hiatt, writing in Rolling Stone, where the song placed first on a 2020 list of "The 25 Best Bob Dylan Songs of the 21st Century", saw it as a stylistic about-face from 1997's Daniel Lanois-produced Time Out of Mind and the beginning of an important new chapter in Dylan's career: "The effortless feel of the playful-yet-ominous, hard-grooving, utterly dazzling 'Things Have Changed' was an early indication of the renewed friskiness of Dylan’s 21st-century work — and the vividly live-in-the studio creations he would achieve as his own producer, with the help of engineer Chris Shaw". Engineer Chris Shaw has confirmed there was another version, which "was really great, which had a kind of New Orleans shuffle to it". Dylan narrated and starred in the commercial, saying "When it's made here, it's made with the one thing you can't import from anywhere else—American pride . His original song for the film earned him an Academy Award and accrued acclaim on account of its lyrics, which combine poetry and introspection to explore themes of change, disillusionment, and uncertainty. And that was pretty funny, because the very last thing Bob did was raise the shaker up like 10db, making it ridiculously loud, and that was the mix he wanted to go with".

It was also anthologized on the compilation albums The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000, [4] The Best of Bob Dylan in 2005 [5] and Dylan in 2007. Numerous artists have ventured into the realm of film soundtracks, yet when Bob Dylan was tapped to compose for Wonder Boys, it was a real game changer.