I think this song is about how people don't think about the bigger picture. They fail to see the forest through the trees. People think about themselves. Not intentionally though, not because that's how people are, but because we choose to ignore the flaws of society. People at some point adopt this philosophy that ignorance is bliss, we choose to ignore whats wrong with the rest of the world and just look out for ourselves. We think that by being concerned only with ourselves that we will have a better life, but eventually our greed and self-loathing comes back to bite each of us. By being selfish we are hurting ourselves and the rest of the world. The young boy was born with a good heart. Eventually he will mature and become like the rest of us. Becoming concerned only with his own well being and nobody else. Ignoring his true emotions, he will abandon his concern and love for others and in exchange adopt the life of self-centeredness and greed that most people live by.

I believe this song is about their experience with members of the music. But not only is it meant to be relevant to the music industry, but of society as a whole. They speak of their dreams to become huge a revolutionize music. The big players in the music industry didn't care about their progressive ideas and dreams. But Pink Floyd wanted to truly be different and to create their own unique sound. The industry just wanted them to conform and to sound like popular mainstream musicians before them. That's why they said "What did you dream? It's Alright we told you what to dream." This is representative of society as a whole. The machine is the political-social-economic systems that are in place and accepted by society. Rather then promoting peoples personal goals and global ideals, the machine teaches people to be submissive and subservient. Just accept the system that was established in the past, we don't need to change anything, just ignore all the shortcomings- that's what society teaches people, or what it tells them to dream.

I think its about the change that hippie movement was attempting to bring about. He was urging people(politicians, parents, the media) to not judge the ideals of the youth. Some people(the media, parents) saw the hippies as troublemakers and were fearful of how big this counter-culture was growing. The government saw them as socialist-pacifists that were becoming the biggest cultural phenomenon ever and feared they could become a threat to oppressive capitalist society and states such as the us and uk; much like the British saw meetings of revolutionaries during pre-revolution America as a threat to British control over the colonies. Dylan begging for people not to fear the change.