Henry's Songbook

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 hard and it's hard and it's hard and it's hard
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 new-born babe 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 dripping
I saw a roomful of men with their hammers a-bleeding
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 hard and it's hard and it's hard and it's 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 as it roared out a warning
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazing
I heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening
I heard one person starve I heard many people laughing
I heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
I heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's hard and it's hard and it's hard and it's hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

And who did you meet my blue eyed son
And 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 in hatred
And it's hard and it's hard and it's hard and it's 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 going back out before the rain starts a-falling
Where I'll walk to the depth of the deepest dark 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 colour and none is the number
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I'll know my song well before I start singing
And it's hard and it's hard and it's hard and it's hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall

As sung by Joan Baez

 [1964:] This song speaks for itself. Bob Dylan, born in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in a hundred windy places, wrote it in New York City, 1962. (Seeger, Rhymney 112f)

 [1967:] [This] represents to Dylan a maturation of his feelings on this subject since the earlier and almost as powerful Let Me Die In My Footsteps [...]. Unlike most of his song-writing contemporaries among city singers, Dylan doesn't simply make a polemical point in his compositions. As in this song about the psychopathology of peace-through-balance-of-terror, Dylan's images are multiply (and sometimes horrifyingly) evocative. As a result, by transmuting his fierce convictions into what can only be called art, Dylan reaches basic emotions which few political statements or extrapolations of statistics have so far been able to touch. Whether a song or a singer can then convert others is something else again. "Hard Rain", adds Dylan, "is a desperate kind of song. It was written during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962 when those who allowed themselves to think of the possible results of the Kennedy-Khrushchev confrontation were chilled by the imminence of oblivion. "Every line in it", says Dylan, "is actually the start of a whole 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." (Nat Hentoff, notes 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan')

 [1979:] Bob Dylan schrieb dieses Lied, als er während der Kuba-Krise an einen atomaren Krieg glaubte und der Meinung war, keine Zeit zum Liederschreiben mehr zu haben. Der "schwere Regen", der in der letzten Strophe genannt ist, bezieht sich allerdings nach seiner eigenen Aussage auf die Flut von Informationen aus Radio, Fernsehen und Zeitungen, die den Leuten den Verstand nehmen sollen und insofern Gift sind. (Bursch 60)