A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
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| “A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall” | ||
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| Song by Bob Dylan | ||
| Album | The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan | |
| Released | May 27, 1963 | |
| Recorded | December 6, 1962 | |
| Genre | Folk | |
| Length | 6:55 | |
| Label | Columbia Records | |
| Writer | Bob Dylan | |
| The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan track listing | ||
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"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord Randall", Child Ballad No. 12.
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[edit] Analysis
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"[1], 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.
Some have suggested that the refrain of the song refers to nuclear fallout, however Dylan disputes that this was a specific reference. In a radio interview with Studs Terkel in 1963, Dylan said,
"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."[2]
[edit] 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 22 September 1962 as part of a hootenanny organized by Pete Seeger.
Seeger has 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.'"[3]
Dylan has featured the song regularly in his concerts in the years since he wrote it, and there have been some dramatic performances. Dylan performed it in 1971 at The Concert for Bangladesh, organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar. The concert was organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
On May 23, 1994, Dylan performed the song at "The Great Music Experience" festival in Japan, backed by a 90 piece symphony orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.
At the end of 2007, Dylan recorded a new version of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" exclusively for Expo Zaragoza 2008 world fair, scheduled to open on June 8, 2008, to highlight the Expo theme of "water and sustainable development". As well as choosing local-band 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."[4][5].
[edit] Cultural references
Tony Hoagland's poem "Hard Rain" uses this song as an example of commercialization of the revolutionary.
[edit] Covers
- Aviv Geffen Geshem Kaved Omed Lipol (in Hebrew: גשם כבד עומד ליפול)
- Pete Seeger: We Shall Overcome (1963); World of Pete Seeger (1973); We Shall Overcome: Complete Carnegie Hall Concert (1989); The Best of Broadside 1962-1988 (2000)
- Linda Mason: How Many Seas Must a White Dove Sail? (1964)
- Joan Baez: Farewell Angelina (1965); The First 10 Years (1970); 'Live -Europe '83: Children of the Eighties (1983); Rare, Live & Classic (1993)
- Rod MacKinnon: Folk Concert Down Under (1965)
- Per Dich: Surt og Soodt(1966)
- Leon Russell: The Shelter People (1971); The Songs of Bob Dylan (1993); Retrospective (1997)
- Bob Gibson: Bob Gibson (1971)
- John Schroder: Dylan's Vibrations (1971)
- The Tribes: Bangla Desh (1972)
- Bryan Ferry: These Foolish Things (1973); Street Life (1986); More Than This: The Best of Bryan Ferry (1999)
- The Staple Singers: Use What You Got (1973)
- Nana Mouskouri: À Paris (1979)
- The Texas Instruments: The Texas Instruments (1987)
- Ball: Bird (1988)
- Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians: Born on the Fourth of July (soundtrack) (1989)
- Barbara Dickson: Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (1992)
- Vole: A Tribute to Bob Dylan (1992)
- Melanie: Silence Is King (1993)
- Hanne Boel: Misty Parade (1994)
- Gerard Quintana and Jordi Batiste: Els Miralls de Dylan (1999)
- Andy Hill: It Takes a Lot to Laugh (2000)
- Both: Duluth Does Dylan
- Jason Mraz: Listen to Bob Dylan
- Billy Mystic: Is it Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan (compilation) (2004)
- Faust: "Nodutgang" (compilation) (2006)
- Ann Wilson (lead singer of Heart): Hope & Glory (2007 solo release) (with Rufus Wainwright & Shawn Colvin)
- Guitarist Bill Frisell plays an instrumental version on his live release "East/West"
- Kelsey Quigley: "Crystal and Ash" (2007)
- Twilight Dementia released a excerpted reinterpretation of this song on their 2007 debut album Twilight Dementia
A version of the song by a local artist is currently being used to advertise Mitsubishi Sports Utility Vehicles in the Australian and New Zealand markets.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments, 33
- ^ re-printed in Cott (ed.), Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews, p.7-9
- ^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, p.102
- ^ "Dylan reworks "Hard Rain's" for Spanish expo", Reuters. Retrieved on 2007-11-24.
- ^ Expo Zaragoza 2008. Expo web site. Retrieved on 2007-12-02.
[edit] References
- Cott (ed.), Jonathan (2006). Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340923121.
- Heylin, Clinton (1996). Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments: Day by Day 1941-1995. ISBN 0-7119-5669-3.
- Harvey, Todd (2001). The Formative Dylan: Transmission & Stylistic Influences, 1961–1963. The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4115-0.
- Heylin, Clinton (2003). Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. Perennial Currents. ISBN 0-06-052569-X.
- Sounes, Howard (2001). Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-1686-8.
