Only A Pawn In Their Game (track) by Bob Dylan
Year: 1964
From the album The Times They Are A-Changin' (track #6)
Only A Pawn In Their Game appears on the following album(s) by Bob Dylan:
- The Times They Are A-Changin' (track #6) (this album) (1964)
- The Original Mono Recordings (track #32) (compilation) (2010)
Upcoming concerts
Listen to Only A Pawn In Their Game on YouTube
Only A Pawn In Their Game ratings
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av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
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| Rating | Date updated | Member | Track ratings | Avg. track rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
80/100  | 02/16/2025 22:50 | SD100852 | | 77/100 |
85/100 | 02/10/2025 12:15 | AndyLish79 | | 84/100 |
90/100 | 01/16/2025 17:53 |  seb7 | | 91/100 |
95/100 | 01/06/2025 19:33 | Jaygold28 | | 93/100 |
80/100 | 12/29/2024 15:30 | mjp11 | | 84/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some tracks can have several thousand ratings)
This track is rated in the top 3% of all tracks on BestEverAlbums.com. This track has a Bayesian average rating of 83.5/100, a mean average of 83.6/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 83.8/100. The standard deviation for this track is 9.8.
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I’m going again because this is the most important song of Dylan’s early cannon. And that’s saying something.
The final verse moves from despair to hope through patience. Dylan knows that history will be kind to Medgar Evans, but not to his killer. It is an article of faith presaging his conversion to Christianity, a reward in the afterlife.
This is also the starting point of future Dylan, no longer accepting the easy answer and in the process creating some of the greatest music ever made.
Timeless is an overused word in music appreciation circles.
In this case though, as an explanation of Trump’s Machiavellian racism nearly 60 years before the fact Only a Pawn is both depressing and enlightening.
Depressing because we never seem to learn, enlightening because great artists are able to focus our gaze on our own unchanging natures.
hereforashortime 03/08/2017 17:14
One of Dylan's best
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