A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

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"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
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"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by American musician and Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962 and recorded later that year for his second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Its lyrical structure is based on the question-and-answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "Lord Randall", published by Francis Child.

The song is characterized by

microfiche newspapers in the New York Public Library: "After a while you become aware of nothing but a culture of feeling, of black days, of schism, evil for evil, the common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course. It’s all one long funeral song."[3]

History

Dylan originally wrote "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" in the form of a poem. The first iteration of the lyrics was written on a typewriter in the shared apartment of Dylan's friends Wavy Gravy and singer Tom Paxton, within Greenwich Village, New York City.[4] Significant edits occurred after this time, for instance, an earlier draft which appeared in both Sing Out and Broadside folk magazines contained "a highway of golden with nobody on it" rather than the final lyric "a highway of diamonds".

On September 22, 1962, Dylan appeared for the first time at Carnegie Hall as part of an all-star hootenanny.[5][6] His three-song set marked the first public performance of "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall,"[7] One month later, on October 22, U.S. President John F. Kennedy appeared on national television to announce the discovery of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, initiating the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the sleeve notes on the Freewheelin' album, Nat Hentoff would quote Dylan as saying that he wrote "A Hard Rain" in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis:[2] "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one." In actuality, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke.

The song was recorded in a single take at Columbia Records' Studio A on December 6, 1962.[8]

Analysis and reception

Folk singer Pete Seeger interpreted the line "Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison" as referring to when a young person suddenly wants to leave his home but then qualified that by saying, "People are wrong when they say 'I know what he means.'"[9]

While some have suggested

Bolinas — played me a record of this new young folk singer. And I heard "Hard Rain," I think. And wept. 'Cause it seemed that the torch had been passed to another generation. From earlier bohemian, or Beat illumination. And self-empowerment.[12]

Author Ian MacDonald described the song as one of the most idiosyncratic protest songs ever written.[13]

Live performance

Although Dylan may have first played the song to friends, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was formally premiered at Carnegie Hall on September 22, 1962, as part of a hootenanny organized by Pete Seeger. Seeger recalled: "I had to announce to all the singers, 'Folks, you're gonna be limited to three songs. No more. 'Cause we each have ten minutes apiece.' And Bob raised his hand and said, 'What am I supposed to do? One of my songs is ten minutes long.'"[14]

Dylan featured the song regularly in concerts in the years since he premiered it, and there have been several dramatic performances. An October 1963 performance at Carnegie Hall was released on

Amaral to record a version of the song in Spanish, Dylan's new version ended with a few spoken words about his "being proud to be a part of the mission to make water safe and clean for every human being living in this world."[17][18]

Patti Smith performed the song with orchestral accompaniment at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony on December 10, 2016, to commemorate Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. During the rendition, Smith was overcome with emotion and missed several key lines. She apologized and explained to the audience that she was nervous about performing the iconic song. [19]

Covers

Other media

Photographer Mark Edwards took a series of photographs illustrating the lyrics of the song which were exhibited in many locations such as the

United Nations headquarters. These were published in a book in 2006.[23][24] The song is also mentioned prominently at the end of Haruki Murakami's novel Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.[25]

See also

Notes

  1. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  2. ^ .
  3. .
  4. ^ "100 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs". Rolling Stone. May 24, 2016. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  5. .
  6. .
  7. Peter LaFarge
    , recounting the US government's violation of its longstanding treaty with the Seneca nation in upstate New York.
  8. ^ "Bob Dylan's Never-Before-Seen Draft for A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall". ArtDependence Magazine. August 25, 2015.
  9. ^ Gilliland 1969, show 31, track 4, 9:20.
  10. ^ "'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall...'". This Day in Quotes. May 27, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  11. ^ Reprinted in Cott (ed.), Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews, pp. 7–9.
  12. ^ Ginsberg, Allen (2005). No Direction Home (DVD). Paramount Pictures.
  13. .
  14. ^ Heylin 2003, p. 102.
  15. ^ Set Lists:Forum de Montreal Archived April 10, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Bobdylan.com
  16. ^ Vigoda, Arlene (May 24, 1994). "Born To Be Wilde". USA Today. Retrieved July 24, 2013.[permanent dead link]
  17. ^ Llewellyn, Howell (November 23, 2007). "Dylan reworks "Hard Rain's" for Spanish expo". Reuters. Retrieved November 24, 2007.
  18. ^ "Expo Zaragoza 2008". Expo web site. Archived from the original on December 3, 2007. Retrieved December 2, 2007.
  19. ^ "Patti Smith stumbles then delivers at Bob Dylan-less Nobel ceremony". USA Today. December 10, 2016.
  20. ^ "BRYAN FERRY | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". www.officialcharts.com.
  21. YouTube
  22. ^ Schatz, Lake (December 21, 2017). "Laura Marling covers Bob Dylan's 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall'". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
  23. .
  24. ^ "Hard Rain proves tough to weather", Rocky Mountain News, January 16, 1998
  25. ^ "They missed the Nobel, but Murakami fans seek solace in novelist's affection for Dylan". The Japan Times. Kyodo. October 14, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2023.

References

External links

  • Lyrics at Bob Dylan's official website