2009: The Year of Hard Rain
By Pat Racimora on January 1, 2010 at 8:15 AM in Current Affairs
bumped up for New Year’s Morning!
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
It’s hard to believe that Bob Dylan wrote the lyrics to this mind-blowing song 46 years ago. He might as well have penned it in 2009, a disaster year pretty much across the board. Or maybe things just haven’t changed as much as we think.
Still, nothing describes 2009 better than this classic Dylan masterpiece. And, he also understands what we can try to do about it.
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.
So what are we to do next year?
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.
And so it will be. You can count on the writers and our loyal readers here at No Quarter to keep thinking it and breathing it and singing it and taking it wherever it leads us, regardless of how hard the rain falls.
Here’s to a better 2010! Happy New Year Everyone.
See complete lyrics of this song on the official Bob Dylan Website here.
h/t to Dr. Ken for reminding me about this song and its lyrics.
by Ronald Scott
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