Breedloves's Folk Songs

HARD RAINS GONNA FALL

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  • HARD RAINS GONNA FALL
    “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. The
    lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad “Lord
    Randall“, Child Ballad No. 12. On September 22, Dylan appeared for the first time at
    Carnegie Hall, part of an all-star hootenanny. This show was his first public performance
    of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, a complex and powerful song built upon the question
    and answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad “Lord Randall“, published by
    Francis Child.
    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: “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 fact, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke. However,
    the song has remained relevant through the years as it has a broader sweep; the dense
    imagery suggests injustice, suffering, pollution and warfare.
    Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
    Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
    I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
    I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways,
    I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
    I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
    I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
    And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard,
    And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
    Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
    Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
    I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
    I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
    I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’,
    I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
    I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
    I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
    I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
    And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
    And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
    And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
    And what did you hear, my darling young one?
    I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’,
    Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
    Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’,
    Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’,
    Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’,
    Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
    Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
    And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
    And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
    Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
    Who did you meet, my darling young one?
    I met a young child beside a dead pony,
    I met a white man who walked a black dog,
    I met a young woman whose body was burning,
    I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
    I met one man who was wounded in love,
    I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
    And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
    It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
    Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
    And, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
    I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’,
    I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest dark forest,
    Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
    Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
    Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
    Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden,
    Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
    Where black is the color, where none is the number,
    And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it,
    And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
    Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’,
    But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’,
    And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
    It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.