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

First performance: 08/11/2005

Coverinfo

Bruce performed the song 2 times as an introduction:  
 
2005-11-13 Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in the introduction to "Santa Ana".
 
Intro to "Santa Ana"

´´That´s right….thank you, love songs….there´s kind of only two kinds of love songs, really, there´s love ´we´re getting together´ songs and ´we´re infatuated,´ then there´s break-up songs….then, uh, I guess there´s ´fuck you´ songs but they´re usually in country music actually…and ´I´m gonna kill you´-songs….that´s usually in, uh, folk music and rap music…. so everybody takes their own approach to the whole thing but I, I kind of grew up, my mother grew up playing all the romantic songs on the radio and, uh, that´s what I heard every morning, in the 50´s was this whole generation of young men who were trying to sing like beautiful women and that was smart, that was very smart ´cause, you know, they´d, they´d sing like way, way up here, would be like, uh (sings the melody of ´Unchained Melody´ - without the words) I always thought that was, that was crafty because what they were, the seduction was ´I´m gonna come up and I´m gonna speak in your voice to you, uh, beautiful lady and I´m gonna be talking in your language, I´m coming up where you live and I´m a sensitive, understanding man and will you pull your pants down?´….that was, uh, that was that whole thing, you see, that is the subtext of all rock and roll music and, uh, I believe actually was the subtext of all classical music also but uh (chuckles) it is the great motivator for people to write music and, and you can tell because it works, it works well at the end of almost any, any rock song, it can be the last line also like, you know, ´It´s a town full of losers, we´re pulling out of here to win and will you pull your pants down?´…that works, ´Tramps like us, baby, we were born to run so will you pull your pants down?´….it works even like in the most kind of hardcore, sort of protest music, you know, that seems to be kind of aiming for something higher, it´s like ´It´s a hard rain gonna fall so you might as well pull your pants down´….so, uh, it is the motivation behind all, all great rock music is my, my humble opinion, one of the, one of the motivations, that´s why, I guess I didn´t write love songs for a long time, my father believed that they were all government, he was a post-pants down-guy (chuckles) he believed that you´re gonna get married, you´re gonna pay your taxes and work 9-to-5 and it was all government propaganda, uh, so I´ll leave it to the individual listener to decide but it explains why I wrote songs kind of like this next one, uh, of which I´m sure that line would fit in here somewhere but uh, uh, this is kind of, this is, I´ve only played this once before, this is kind of something, I don´t know, I suppose it was written for ´The Wild and the Innocent´ maybe but, uh….little on the obscure side, might be a love song but I´m not sure, you know….oh, let me see, I use….it´s this one, I think, well, I broke it, hold on, hold on, hold on a second, it´s almost there, yes, oh, hah, there goes Kevin´s job security (chuckles) alright, here we go….´´ 
 
 
2005-11-08 Wachovia Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA
"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in the introduction to "Incident On 57th Street". 
 
Intro to "Incident on 57th Street"

“Thank you (crowd cheers) thank you (crowd cheers) you can give me that (crowd cheers) yeah, thanks a lot, uh…love songs, I didn’t write a lot of love songs when I first started out because, uh…I kind of got some crossed signals at my house, my mom was kind of very romantic Italian-American, had on the AM-station in the morning with all the great doo-wop singers and all those, that was the era of romantic music, everything was, everything was romantic and the guys all sang like way, way high, they sang and it was kind of fascinating because you had a generation of young male singers who were trying to sound like beautiful women, you know, and, uh, it kind of made sense, they sang, I can’t do it but they sang up here (harmonizes to the tune of “Unchained Melody” for quite a while to demonstrate)(crowd cheers) so they sang way up in that high spot (crowd cheers) and I always thought (crowd cheers)(?) they were smart because they’re, they’re signaling to the woman like “I’m ready to come up to where you are, I’m ready to speak to you in your voice,” uh, you know, “and I’m, I’m here for you, baby, and will you take off your pants?” (laughs from the crowd) so that’s kind of, which is, is the subtext of, of all, uh, great popular music no matter what it was (laughs from the crowd) the, the message underneath is always, uh, “Will you take off your pants?” (laughs from the crowd) so don’t let anybody fool you about that (crowd cheers) and, uh, you even, uh (crowd cheers) yeah, you can even use it as the last line in any, any good pop song, like you can go like “It’s a town full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win – and will you please take off your pants?” (laughs from the crowd) so that’s like (crowd cheers) you know, it (crowd cheers) you know, “Tramps like us and baby, we were born to run – and will you please take off your pants?” (laughs from the crowd) see, it works because it’s in there already, that’s why it works (laughs from the crowd) it’s tricky, even, even, uh, all the great protest music, “It’s a hard rain gonna fall so will you take off your pants?” (laughs from the crowd) see, it, it’s all in there no matter what the song is saying, it’s actually saying that (laughs from the crowd) so, uh, uh …(?) at my point in my life, it’s, uh, “Will you please take off your pants just so I can look?” (laughs from the crowd) it’s changed a little bit for me but uh (crowd cheers) at any rate, love songs (crowd cheers) that’s right, now the idea is my father had the other point of view, he was into the post-taking your pants off-phase (laughs from the crowd) he believed that once the pants were off, then all love songs were simply government propaganda (laughs from the crowd) that were meant to get you like married and have babies and get your nose to the grindstone and, uh, uh, and, and, and slave your life away, uh, uh, that’s the post-pants off-phase, according to my Pop, you know, so, uh, I, I leave the individual listener up to decide who, who had that one right but, uh, anyway, this was, this was actually a love song, as I was telling someone earlier, this was one of my secret love songs in which the “take off your pants”-message is deeply embedded in the lyrics but it’s in there (laughs from the crowd) alright…” 
 
Thanks to Brucebase 
 

Songinfo

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Although it has been mischaracterized, even by Dylan, as a response to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, it was actually written in June of 1962 and debuted publicly that September. Its first released recording appeared on Dylan’s The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963).
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. 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" became "a highway of diamonds".
 
  

Other cover versions

Bruce on the artist

 
1988-01-20 - WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY 
"The first time that I heard Bob Dylan I was in the car with my mother, and we were listening to, I think, maybe WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind, from ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ And my mother, who was – she was no stiff with rock and roll, she liked the music, she listened – she sat there for a minute, she looked at me, and she said, ‘That guy can’t sing.’ But I knew she was wrong. I sat there, I didn’t say nothin’, but I knew that I was listening to the toughest voice that I had ever heard. It was lean, and it sounded somehow simultaneously young and adult, and I ran out and I bought the single. And I came home, I ran home, and I put it on my 45, and they must have made a mistake at the factory, because a Lenny Welch song came on. And the label was wrong, so I ran back, and I got it, and I played it, then I went out and I got Highway 61, and it was all I played for weeks. I looked at the cover, with Bob, with that satin blue jacket and the Triumph Motorcycle shirt. And when I was a kid, Bob’s voice somehow – it thrilled and scared me. It made me feel kind of irresponsibly innocent. And it still does. But it reached down and touched what little worldliness I think a 15-year-old kid, in high school, in New Jersey had in him at the time. Dylan was – he was a revolutionary, man, the way that Elvis freed your body, Bob freed your mind. And he showed us that just because the music was innately physical, it did not mean that it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and the talent to expand a pop song until it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound. He broke through the limitations of what a recording artist could achieve, and he changed the face of rock and roll forever and ever. Without Bob, the Beatles wouldn’t have made Sergeant Pepper, maybe the Beach Boys wouldn’t have made Pet Sounds, the Sex Pistols wouldn’t have made ‘God Save the Queen,’ U2 wouldn’t have done ‘Pride in the Name of Love,’ Marvin Gaye wouldn’t have done ‘What’s Goin’On,’ Grandmaster Flash might not have done ‘The Message,’ and the Count Five could not have done ‘Psychotic Reaction.’ And there never would have been a group named the Electric Prunes, that’s for sure. But the fact is that, to this day, where great rock music is being made, there is the shadow of Bob Dylan over and over and over again. And Bob’s own modern work has gone unjustly under-appreciated for having to stand in that shadow. If a young songwriter – if there was a young guy out there writing ‘Sweetheart Like Me,’ writing the Empire Burlesque album, writing ‘Every Grain of Sand,’ they’d be calling him the new Bob Dylan. That’s all the nice stuff that I wrote out to say about him. Now it’s about three months ago, I was watching TV, and the Rolling Stones special came on, and Bob came on, and he was in a real cranky mood, it seemed like, and he was kind of bitchin’ and moaning about how his fans don’t know him, and nobody knows him. And they come up to him on the street, and kind of treat him like a long-lost brother or something. And speaking as fan, I guess when I was 15, and I heard ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ I heard a guy that, like I’ve never heard before or since. A guy that had the guts to take on the whole world, and made me feel like I had ’em too. And maybe some people mistook that voice to be saying somehow that you were gonna do the job for ’em. And as we know, as we grow older, that there isn’t anybody out there that can do that job for anybody else. So I’m just here tonight to say thanks, to say that I wouldn’t be here without you, to say that there isn’t a soul in this room who does not owe you their thanks. And to steal a line from one of your songs, whether you like it or not, ‘you was the brother that I never had.’ Congratulations."
 
 
 

Lyrics


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?
Oh, 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
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 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