Barack Obama surprised YouTube twins while they listened to Bob Dylan for the first time

Barack Obama dropped in on Fred and Tim Williams, the YouTube duo who have found fame reviewing classic songs, via videolink.

The 22 year-old twins from Gary, Indiana have gone viral multiple times for their hilarious and heartwarming reactions to songs like Phil Collins’s ‘In the Air Tonight’.

They were listening to Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ for the first time when the former POTUS joined them.

The song features on Obama’s playlist in his new book, A Promised Land, so they asked him what its significance was to him.

Obama replied:

I’ve been a Bob Dylan fan for a long time, partly because I’m just older. He was part of that kind of social conscience that was in rock music then later in hip hop music. 

I’m like everybody else, I like music about girls and cars and rock n’ roll and hip hop. But when you can find some musicians that have a message about how America might be, the world might be, that is something I pay attention to. 

Obama also praised the twins for the success of their YouTube channel, TwinsTheNewTrend, and for being open to “new ideas [and] experiences”.

One of the most important things we can do as people, but especially young people, is opening our minds to how other people feel, what their traditions are, trying to make common cause with folks even if they don’t look like us or come from the same neighbourhood. 

The country’s so divided right now. On the internet, a lot of times, everyone’s mad. What you guys are doing, which is being open to new ideas, new experiences and reaching out to different traditions, that’s America at its best. 

Obama’s A Promised Land playlists features hits by Eminem, Beyonce and Jay-Z, as well as older classics by Aretha Franklin and and Stevie Wonder.

He also chose ‘Michelle’ by The Beatles in honour of his wife.