the prophetic tradition

My thinking about Dylan and Springsteen goes as follows: There is a long and ancient tradition in many cultures and faith traditions of prophets whose function is to articulate the human condition of the time, to predict what is to come, to critique and deconstruct the times in which the prophet lives. I think an argument can be made that Dyland and Springsteen are both in this broad tradition. It's interesting that in one of Dylan's most well known songs, "The times, they are a'changin'" is essentially a "propehsying" song, one in which Dylan warns "adults" (in a broad sense) that the "children" are rising up and brining forth a new day (referencing the "children"s" march in Birmingham, Ala. which was a key moment in the civil rights movement). Indeed, the word "prophysing" occurs in the song as in "come writers who prophesy with your pen" that "these times won't come around again". I will argue later that Dylan in his acoustic phase is a direct prophesier where electric Dylan moves into a more nuanced poetry in which social criticism is made more metaphorically complex and less accessible but (I believe) still as possible.