The album consists mostly of stark, sparsely arranged ballads concerning issues such as racism, poverty, and social change.

The title track is one of Dylan's most famous; many feel that it captures the spirit of social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960s.

Dylan began work on his third album on August 6, 1963, at Columbia's Studio A, located at 799 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

Another session at Studio A was held the following day, this time yielding master takes for four songs: "Ballad of Hollis Brown", "With God on Our Side", "Only a Pawn in Their Game", and "Boots of Spanish Leather", all of which were later included on the final album sequence.

During the interim, Dylan toured briefly with Joan Baez, performing a number of key concerts that raised his profile in the media.

An alternate take on "Percy's Song," a "That's All Right" (Arthur Crudup)/"Sally Free and Easy" (Cyril Tawney) medley and "East Laredo Blues" were released in 2013 on the 1963 entry of The 50th Anniversary Collection 1963.

A master take for "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" was also recorded, but ultimately left out of the final album; it was eventually released on Biograph.

Two more outtakes, "Eternal Circle" and "Suze (The Cough Song)", were later issued on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.

After reading the words "come senators, congressmen, please heed the call", Glover reportedly asked Dylan: "What is this shit, man?

"[9] A self-conscious protest song, it is often viewed as a reflection of the generation gap and of the political divide marking American culture in the 1960s.

Described by Clinton Heylin as a "'tragic tale of independence and free will' culled from the folk idiom", it is a grim, rural Gothic story of a father killing his starving family ("There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm").

[10] "With God on Our Side" was first performed at New York's Town Hall on April 12, 1963 (which also happened to be Dylan's debut appearance at that venue).

'"[11] Music critic Tim Riley writes: "'With God on Our Side" manages to voice political savvy mixed with generational naiveté" as it "draws the line for those born long enough after World War I to find its issues blurry ('the reasons for fightin'/I never did get') and who view the forgiveness of the World War II Germans as a farce.

[13] One of the more celebrated songs on The Times They Are a-Changin', Dylan would dramatically rearrange it on his legendary 1966 concert tour for a full electric band.

The song marks the first time Dylan wrote a narrative from the point of view of a woman: the ex-wife of a miner whose work has disappeared.

"[21] "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" tells the story of a hotel barmaid who died after being struck by a wealthy white man.

The song was inspired by Dylan's reading a newspaper account of the incident which took place in a hotel in Maryland, in February 1963.

Stung by these untrue allegations, Dylan composed a song about the pain of having "the dust of rumor" flung in his eyes.

"It is the all-important link between the clipped symbolism of 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall' and the more self-conscious efforts to come the following year.

The song is also rich in natural imagery, often in surreal, musical terms ("The cryin' rain like a trumpet sang/And asked for no applause").

[25] The Byrds released their own celebrated version of "Lay Down Your Weary Tune" in 1965 on their critically acclaimed second album, Turn!

"Percy's Song" is sung from the point of view of a man who visits a judge in a futile, last-ditch attempt to save his friend from a severe prison sentence.

Described by Heylin as "a superior reworking of [Dylan's earlier composition] 'Man on the Street' that took as its source the 'Poor Miner's Lament'",[26] the song is sung from the point of view of a sympathetic narrator who stumbles upon a homeless man lying dead in a gutter.

[27] On October 26, 1963, three days after recording the final song for The Times They Are a-Changin', Dylan held a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall.

Dylan later claimed that Kennedy's death did not directly inspire any of his songs, but in a manuscript written shortly after the assassination, he wrote: "it is useless to recall the day once more."

[38] Clinton Heylin wrote: "in less than six months [Dylan] had turned full circle from the protest singer who baited Paul Nelson into someone determined to write only songs that 'speak for me' [...] Dylan's ambitions as a writer for the page [...] may have been further fed at the end of December when he met renowned beat poet Allen Ginsberg, author of Howl and Kaddish."

In an interview taken in 1985, Dylan said that he didn't start writing poetry until he was out of high school: "I was eighteen or so when I discovered Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Frank O'Hara and those guys.

"[39] Many critics took note of the stark pessimism on The Times They Are a-Changin', which NPR's Tim Riley later described as "'Masters of War' stretched out into a concept album" due to its "social preening and black-and-white moralism".

[40] By the time the album was released in February 1964,[1] Dylan was already entering a new phase in his career, pulling further away from his popular image as a protest singer.

[41] In 1994, Dylan licensed "The Times They Are a-Changin'" to be used in an advertisement for the auditing and accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand, as performed by Richie Havens.