A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

When the Nobel Prize organizers asked Patti Smith to sing at the official awards ceremony, and she agreed back in September, neither had the American election been held nor had the Nobel Committee announced that Bob Dylan would be winning the award for Literature. Smith had initially intended to sing one of her own songs, but after both events took place, she felt that the only performance that would be appropriate would be to sing one of Dylan's songs, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." (I highly recommend the YouTube video of her performance. The link is below.) In the middle of her performance she pauses and tells the audience she is having trouble singing because she is nervous, but I'm convinced that what was really going on was that she was overcome by emotion at the tragically, shockingly appropriate meaning of the words and their frightening, frankly terrifying, relevance now that Donald Trump has been elected President by the people of the United States.

The song is fitting. The words are relevant--and moving. And all the more disturbing in the light of recent events. They are even more true, and more frightening, now than on the day they were written. Welcome to America! Welcome to the verdict of just a hair less than half of the American people! The imperceptive, gullible, suspicious, selfish, stupid, self-destructive American people! What does the outcome of the election tell you about the country we live in and the people we are? Bob Dylan is telling us what it tells him. He sent us a message in a bottle fifty years ago scarier than a horror movie, and it washed up on shore today. This is, of course, one of the reasons that art exists. To show us ourselves--our real selves, not our PR selves, not our ideas of who we think we are, who we claim to be, want to be, or ought to be--to reveal who we are, no matter how painful the picture. Thank you for your truth-telling, Bob Dylan. Thank you for your courage and your sensitivity, Patti Smith. -- R.C.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall by Bob Dylan

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son
And 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
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son
And 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
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 that 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
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what 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.

And 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 black 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
And 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 think it and speak 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.

 
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.


Click here to watch and listen to her performance