Today in Music (1963): Bob Dylan “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” released

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan (see lyrics here) Released (album cut): May 27, 1963 First Charted: -- Peak: 11 CL, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 18.9 video, 35.0 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” addressed “a very real fear laid out in very chilling terms.” DT The “Cuban missile crisis…brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.” SS News started circulated in August 1962 of the Soviet build-up of missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy declared them a threat to the United States and on October 22 he demanded they be dismantled. Six days later, Soviet Premier Khrushchev ageed, but “Armageddon had loomed…and Dylan used the experience as a point of departure for his surrealistic, searing masterpiece.” SS Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut album had flopped, but his follow-up, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, featured “five songs that have become standards of one sort or another,” HL one of which was “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” The song started life as a poem in September. That same month, Dylan started performing it at clubs in Greenwich Village with a lyrical cadence similar to “Lord Randal,” a traditional ballad traced back to 1629. SS The song may also owe a debt to “It’s Hard on We Po’ Farmers,” a 1936 field recording done by John Lomax of Lemuel Jones. Dylan may have learned the song from Waddy Watchtel, a New York folk revivalist who recorded the song in 1963 as “Ain’t It Hard.” SS “The dreamlike visions” SS described in the song have been compared stylistically to that of Arthur Rimbaud, a 19th century French poet. SS The song is framed as a series of questions from a mother to her son, his responses, and the chorus. The pattern repeats over five verses running nearly seven minutes. “Amazingly for such a long, lyrically complex song, he recorded it in a single take.” SS Dylan recorded it at the final session produced by John Hammond, the legendary talent scout who signed Dylan. SS It was first published in the magazine Sing Out! before the album was released. SS Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Dylan HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Pages 122-23. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 396-7. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 171. Related Links: First posted 5/23/2024.