IT’S A HARD RAIN GONNA FALL

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, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?” Oh where have you been Bob Dylan with the
anti-slavery thinking? “Oh, where have you been, my darling” one that is greatly liked and
preferred in America “young one?” “I've stumbled” I have fallen into evil ways “on the side of” on
the wrong side of “twelve misty mountains” a dozen obscured and blurred, as if by a mist arising
from a hidden source like Communism, major problems “I've walked” lived, worked “and I've
crawled” and I’ve advanced slowly, feebly, laboriously, with frequent stops “on six crooked” on
half a dozen dishonest, crooked, criminal “highways” public venues such as the Café Wha? “I've
stepped” I have taken one of a series of actions taken to achieve a goal “in the middle” in the
interior portion “of seven sad” of numerous deplorable; sorry “forests” cities “I've been out in
front of a dozen dead oceans” I have been the opening act for dozens of performers who were
not commercially productive; they were idle, dead capital “I've been ten thousand miles in the
mouth of a graveyard” I have composed and sung songs without conviction ‘mouthed empty
words’ and I have been almost swallowed up by a place where worn-out and obsolete objects
are kept; ‘a folk music graveyard’ “And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. “And it's a hard” it is a
resistant to persuasion and appeal, obdurate “rain gonna fall” hatred gonna fall on these people
that I met in my journey.

“Blue” as anti-slavery, the Civil War combatants, the Blues and Grays; Gypsy Davy 1992, “Well,
she pulled off them long blue gloves” Dylan rid himself of his militant anti-slavery pro-Civil Rights
boxing gloves “All made of the finest leather” whose composition was tantamount to inflicting
punishment on himself, “leather” as in Balzac’s Luck and Leather, a book about a man whose
luck ultimately brings punishment upon him (Dylan refers to it in Chronicles), “Gave to him her
lily-white hand” gave to the cause of the segregationists his racist, lily-White; Lily Rosemary and
the Jack of Hearts 1974, “Lily was a princess, she was fair-skinned and precious as a child”
“hand” style of writing “And said goodbye forever / Bid farewell forever” and Left the race mixin’
commies far behind.

“Eyes” as thoughts; In Gonna Change My Way of Thinking 1979, written during Dylan’s
Christian period, he had this to say about Judaism, “You can mislead a man / You can take a
hold of his heart with your eyes.”

“Stumble” as fall into evil ways; In She Belongs To Me 1965 (rather than I belong to her) Dylan
described the CPUSA sarcastically, “She never stumbles” she never falls into evil ways “She's
got no place to fall” because she is already evil “She's nobody's child” sarcastic; she isn’t a
puppet of the Soviet Union “The Law can't touch her at all” sarcastic; the law can’t come up to
her, reach her; in 1950 a Democratic Congress enacted the Internal Security Act that required
Communists to register with the attorney general as agents of a foreign power or else go to a
federal prison. Some Other Kinds of Songs 1964, to the Left “you speak of rats. / geese. a world
of peace / you stumble stammer / pound your fist an' i tell you there are no politics.” Heart of
Mine 1981, “Don't let yourself fall” give in to temptation; sin “Don't let yourself stumble.”

“Misty” as hidden, obscured; Chronicles, “Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want
to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain” you want to see for yourself what lies are
accepted as truth behind the closed society of the Iron Curtain countries.

“Crawl” as advance slowly, feebly, laboriously, with frequent stops; Eleven Outlined Epitaphs
1964, “i could make you crawl / if i was payin' attention’ / he said munchin' a sandwich / in
between chess moves / ‘what d' you wanna make me crawl for?’ / ‘i mean i just could’ / ‘could
make me crawl’ / “yeah, make you crawl!’ / ‘humm, funny guy you are’ ‘no, i just play t' win,
that's all.’”

“Highway” as performing in public; Standing on the Highway 1961, “Well, I'm standin' on the
highway” I am enduring this humiliating life in public “Tryin to hold up and be brave / One roads
goin' to the bright lights” one path in life is going to fame and fortune, the bright lights of
Broadway full of hope and promise “The others goin' down to my grave” and if I don’t succeed I
will voluntarily go to my grave by committing suicide. Let Me Die In My Footsteps Before I Go
Down Under the Ground 1962 “Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.”

“Bright” as hopeful, ‘Dylan has a bright future’ Death is Not the End 1998 “And the bright light of
salvation” Peggy Day 1969, “Peggy night” heroin in the present “makes my future look so
bright.”

“Crooked highway” as public venues leading to nowhere; Tomorrow is a Long Time 1962, “If
today was not an endless highway” if I didn’t have to perform every day “If tonight was not a
crooked trail” and if the performances didn’t have to be at a place run by a part time criminal ‘If
tomorrow wasn't such a long time” if my success was not still such a long ways off “Then
lonesome would mean nothing to me at all” then I wouldn’t give a rats ass if my true love was no
longer with me. Poem to Woody 1961, “And it ain't in the fifty - star generals” it is not in Fred
Neil, who was in charge of numerous performers at the Café Wha? “and flipped - out phonies”
and the crazy people he books “Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny” who are informants for
the cops Chronicles, “I'd heard stuff about Fred Neil, that he was an errant sailor, harbored a
skiff in Florida, was an underground cop, had hooker friends and a shadowy past.”

“Forest” as a city; something that resembles a large, dense growth of trees, as in density,
quantity and profusion ‘a forest of skyscrapers.’ Tarantula, “the opera singers will sing of YOUR
forest & YOUR cities” Tarantula, “I sang in a forest one day & someone said it was three O'clock
- that nite when i read the newspaper, i saw that tenement had been set aflame.”
“Ocean” as profuse fame; Tarantula, “annette & frankie avalon found in pacific ocean”
Tarantula, “spent hours & hours carving his name in the sand. when all of a sudden, a wave's
commotion washed him & his name right into the ocean (ho ho ho).”

“Rain” as hatred; Eleven Outlined Epitaphs 1964, “it was as though the rains of wartime had left
the land” North Hibbing, Minnesota, “bombed-out an' shattered” and divided from South
Hibbing. Tarantula, “you are in the rainstorm now where your cousins seek raw glory.”
Desolation Row 1965 “Everybody’s either making love or else expecting rain.” Father of Night
1970, “Father of love and Father of rain / Father of day, Father of night / Father of black, Father
of white.”

And what did you see my blue eyed son,

And 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 takers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

“I saw a newborn baby” I saw a new born White American Protestant child “with wild wolves all
around it” surrounded by a wolf pack of vicious niggers “I saw a highway of diamonds” I saw an
open public space the size of a baseball diamond “with nobody on it” with no one willing to
follow in the tradition of poets like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot and compose racially conscious
poetry to awaken the Whites “I saw a black branch” a Black branch of humanity “with blood that
kept drippin'” still taking human life like bloodthirsty savages “Blood” as death; Long Ago Far
Away 1962, “The war guns they went off wild” freely “The whole world bled its blood” “I saw a
room full of men” I saw a Congress which was composed of almost all White men “with their
hammers a-bleedin'” trying to pass bleeding heart Civil Rights legislation “I saw a white ladder
all covered with water” I saw the upward ladder of economic mobility for Whites covered in
sorrow, in tears “I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken” I saw a bunch of
niggers who spoke in dialect that sounded like a different language, in broken English “I saw
guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children” I saw guns and knives in the hands of
these genetically and intellectually inferior people “And it's a hard” it is a resistant to persuasion
and appeal; obdurate “rain gonna fall” hatred gonna fall on the niggers.

“Hammer” as legislation; Eleven Outlined Epitaphs 1964, “where state lines” the borders of the
Soviet State “don't stand” do not endure “an' knowledge don't count” and Leftwing propaganda
is dismissed “when feelings are hurt” when people are oppressed “an' I am on the side a them
hurt feelings” I am on the side of dissidents living in the Soviet Union “plunged on” cast
suddenly, violently, and deeply into a given state or situation “by unsensitive hammers” by
insensitive heartless legislation “an' made t' bleed by rusty nails” and made to suffer by
antiquated, gangrenous laws.
“Water” as trouble, sorrow; ‘above water’ idiomatic expression for out of trouble. Poem to
Woody 1961, “And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air” Precious Angel
1979, “You were drawing water for your husband, you were suffering under the law” Gonna
Change My Way of Thinking 1979, “Blood and water flowing through the land” death and sorrow
happening in a land that should be flowing with milk and honey.

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'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I 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, 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” I heard the sound of the Soviets testing a hydrogen bomb “it
roared out a warnin'” the loud hostile sound of the explosion warned me of the danger it posed “I
heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world” I heard danger coming from a wave
of Communism that was sweeping the world and could destroy freedom “I heard one hundred
drummers whose hands were a-blazin'” I heard a small minority trying to drum up support for a
revolution by throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks “I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody
listenin'” I heard numerous Hungarians and Czechs privately, secretly express discontent with
the Russian Communist totalitarian regime “I heard one person starve” I heard one person die in
a Siberian Gulag, “starve” archaic: to suffer and die from cold “I heard many people laughin’” I
heard many Communists express derision and contempt for dissidence “Heard the song of a
poet who died in the gutter” in 1952 fifteen Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish poets,
were secretly tried and convicted of treason by Stalin’s puppet judiciary; multiple executions
soon followed in the basement of Moscow's filthy Lubyanka prison “Heard the sound of a clown”
heard the sound of President Eisenhower, a former General “who cried in the alley” who was
more worried about the niggers in the ghetto than the oppressed in the Soviet Union and its
slave states and as a result appointed the race traitor Earl Warren to the Supreme Court “And
it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall” and someone is going to pay for all of this.

“Clown” as soldier; Queen Jane Approximately 1965, “When all the clowns that you have
commissioned / Have died in battle and in vain / And you’re sick of the this repetition” war after
war “Won’t you come see me Queen Jane” register and vote Republican Conservative
Tarantula, “the apprentice clown, Tomboy, at her feet - he's known professionally as Rabbit
Rough” Tarantula, “she peeks from tanks & repeats herself - - she stays away from the merry-
go-round & you must love her too / she lives in armor & prejudice ... she is frightened of the
clowns.”

“Alley” as slum, ghetto; Poem to Woody 1961, “And yer sun decked desert and evergreen
valleys / Turn to broken down slums and trash can alleys” Some Other Kinds of Songs 1964,
“little children / shoot craps / in the alley garbage pot” For Dave Glover 1962, “An the dirt in the
alley's risin’” Tarantula, “praying for her purse to be stolen up gunpowder alley!”

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
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

“I met a young child” same as “young children” in the previous verse; a person from an
immature race “beside a dead” beside a consumed; as in ‘another dead soldier’ “pony” bottle of
alcohol, I met a drunken nigger “I met a white man” I met a true American named Ray Gooch
who, in Chronicles, Dylan described a “non-integrationist” “who walked a black dog” who knew
that the drunken nigger shiftless bums had to be kept on a short leash “I met a young woman
whose body” I met a young woman whose posse “body” a number of persons regarded as a
group “was burning” was into burning crosses at meetings or on uppity niggers’ lawns. This was
Chloe Kiel Ray Gooch’s room-mate who had been in the Ku Klux Klan. Dylan implied this in
Chronicles, “Chloe, a Southern girl with Northern blood, was skilled in the use of bathroom
clotheslines and sometimes I'd find one of my shirts hanging in there” “I met a young girl, she
gave me a rainbow” Joan Baez, who was into the Civil Rights Movement and gave Dylan an
illusory hope that the Negroes were deserving of equal rights “I met one man who was wounded
in love” I met one man who was diseased, impotent; Chronicles regarding Ray Gooch and
Chloe Kiel, “They lived as husband and wife, or brother and sister, or cousins, it was hard to tell,
they just lived here, that's all.” “I met another man who was wounded with hatred” I met another
part of that same man that was hurt in life just as a soldier is wounded in battle simply because
of his views on Negroes; Chronicles, “Ray had an elite background, even studied at Camden
Military Academy in South Carolina, which he had left with ‘sincere and utter hatred.’” “Rainbow”
as illusory hope connected with the then popular Joan Baez who was Queen of Folk while Dylan
was King; Tarantula, “somewhere over the rainbow & blinding my married lover into the ovation
maniacs.” Beyond the Horizon 2006 “Beyond the horizon” beyond the range of one's knowledge
“behind the sun” in a place or time that has been passed or left by the luminaries of medicine “At
the end of the rainbow” at the end of the search for an illusory hope, a cure “life has only
begun.”

“Wounded” as diseased; Jack-A-Roe 1993, “And sent for her physician to quickly heal his
wounds / Oh, to quickly heal his wounds” Tarantula, “Claudette, the sandman's pupil, wounded
in her fifth year in the business & she's only 15 & go ahead ask her what she thinks of married
men & governors & shriner conventions go ahead ask her” Chronicles, “Even the horrifying
news items of the day, the gunning down of the Kennedys, King, Malcolm X... I didn't see them
as leaders being shot down, but rather as fathers whose families had been left wounded” whose
families had been exposed to the disease of the Left.

And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?

And 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 a 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 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 songs well before I start singin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

“And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son? And what'll you do now my darling young one? I'm
a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'” I am going back out before race riots destroy
America “I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest” I will go to the same depths the
Germans did in destroying the Jews when it comes to getting rid of the niggers. “Black Forest”
as in Bavaria, Germany, where Hitler began his rise to power “Where the people are a many”
where the Whites outnumber the mud people “and their hands are all empty” and they are poor
Whites with future fates that offer no promise, lacks substance, nor can they express this in
writing “Where the pellets” the shotgun pellet “of poison” of something that destroys, murders, of
illegal weapons “are flooding their waters” are overwhelming the decent White folk with trouble.
“Where the home in the valley” where the clean White neighborhoods “meets the damp dirty
prison” turns into the ghetto when the niggers move in “Where the executioner's face is always
well hidden” where these primitive tribal people break down civilization with a code of silence
when someone is murdered, if the murderer is of their race “Where hunger is ugly” where their
‘human’ desires like reproduction turn into animalistic rape “where souls are forgotten” and they
act in a psychopathic manner “Where black is the color” where a bunch of porch monkeys live
“where none is the number” and no Whites want to live because it is a jungle where there is no
respect for human life “And I'll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it” and live it “And reflect
it from the mountain so all souls can see it” and reflect on this problem so all souls can realize
that it exists “Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'” but I would be sunk as a superstar
if I took this sort of stand “But I'll know my songs well before I start singin'” so I will hide these
thoughts in sophisticated poetry before I start singing them “It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall” the
niggers are gonna get what’s coming to them!

“Poison” as something murderous, something fatal; Tombstone Blues 1966, “The hysterical
bride in the penny arcade” the White girl in the worthless Black school “Screaming she moans,
I've just been made” I missed my period and I am pregnant “Then sends out for the doctor who
pulls down the shade” then sends out for the family doctor who tells her she is pregnant with a
child that she knows will be partially dark; “shade” “Says, ‘My advice is to not let the boys in’”
and he refuses to give her an abortion and advices her to have sex with White men not with
Blacks “boys” “Now the medicine man comes and he shuffles inside” the nigger who has
impregnated a White girl shuffles inside, just like Step N’ Fetch-it shuffled and he is gonna
remedy things “He walks with a swagger” he is either drunk or proud of himself or both for
having impregnated a White bitch “and he says to the bride” and he says to his victim “Stop all
this weeping, swallow your pride” stop all of this regret, swallow your racial pride, your
arrogance Tarantula, “tragedy, the broken pride” “You will not die, it's not poison” having a Black
baby is not fatal, at least for me. Desolation Row 1965; “Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
/ After poisoning him with words” Mississippi 1997, “I'm drowning in the poison, got no future,
got no past.”
Dylan and Hitler: In Chronicles, Dylan put Hitler on the same level with Churchill and FDR,
“Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt - towering figures that the world would never see
the likes of again, men who relied on their own resolve, for better or worse, every one of them
prepared to act alone, indifferent to approval-indifferent to wealth or love, all presiding over the
destiny of mankind and reducing the world to rubble.” Tarantula, “down with you sam. down with
your answers too. Hitler did not change history. Hitler WAS history” Tarantula, “we must be
willing to die for freedom (end of fact) now what I wanna know about the fact is this: could Hitler
have said it?” Eleven Outlined Epitaphs 1964, “I talked with one of the sons of Germany” I
spoke with a Nazi “while walkin' once on foreign ground” while visiting East Germany “an' I
learned that he regards Adolf Hitler as we here in the states regard Robert E. Lee.” Never a bad
word about Nazis from Bob Dylan!

“Face” as race; in regard to James Meredith enrollment at the University of Mississippi; Oxford
Town 1963, “Guns and clubs followed him down / All because his face was brown.” When The
Ship Comes In 1963, “the sun” a person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the
course of events “will respect” avoid violation of, and interference with, “every face on the deck”
every racial group that exists “the hour that the ship comes in” after the revolution. “Deck of
cards” as a racial group; Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power) 1978; “There's a wicked” evil by
nature and in practice “wind still blowing” destructive force spreading “on that upper deck” on
the superior White racial group “There's an iron cross still hanging down from around her neck”
and so Dylan continues to embrace Nazi thought. Tight Connection To My Heart 1985, “Never
could learn to drink that blood and call it wine” I never could accept, drink in, the patently false
myths of Christianity, I never could even get them straight “Never could learn to look at your
face and call it mine” I never could learn to look at your race and call it mine as I always
regarded myself as Jewish. Some Other Kinds of Songs 1964, “man in borrowed stomach” a
man pretending he can stomach Blacks “slams wife in the face” reproves his wife about inter-
racial relationships “an' rushes off t' civil rights meeting.” Some Other Kinds of Songs 1964,
“orchard street through all those people on orchard street “pants” embarrassing “legs” one of the
branches of a forked object such as a family tree “in my face” in my race “‘comere! comere!’
‘comere! comere!’ i don't need no clothes” I don’t need no Hassidic dress such as a yarmulke
“an' cross the street” and leave that section of Manhattan, none-the-less “skull caps climb by
themselves out of manholes” my Jewish heritage is revealed by the media as if it were sewage.

“Pants” as embarrassment; Tarantula, “we wear choking” suppressed “pants” embarrassment

“& are slaves to appetite” because we are hungry for success. Off the Top of My Head 1965,
“But then his pants fall down” Tarantula “compared to the big day when you discover lord byron
shooting craps in the morgue with his pants off.” Lenny Bruce 1981, “They stamped him and
they labeled him like they do with pants” as they do with something that is embarrassing “and
shirts” and popular at the same time “Shirts” as popular Tarantula, “Flower Lady lost her shirt &
went to the bushes” the bush leagues. Tarantula “unbuttons his shirt & shows her his name
signed on his stomach.” Dylan sang the next song at the March on Washington with a straight
face!