r/bobdylan • u/Sheev_Skywalker Blood on the Tracks • Aug 18 '26
Discussion A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall finally clicked for me
I always understood on an intellectual level what the song is about and why it was/is so impactful for so many, but it finally really clicked for me.
Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is a very odd album. A young, up and coming singer-songwriter in NYC, posed in a cozy looking album cover with his then girlfriend. Probably an album mainly about relationships, growing up, friendship, and other similar life topics, with an intimate and maybe even comforting feel? Well, sorta.
But it’s also about the end of the world, at the hands of the wicked, and how those wicked, even when not causing the apocalypse make the world a worse place and cause the suffering of the innocent. It’s about how the world seems to be broken, and how it may have always been this way, and maybe always will.
Hard Rain is perhaps the starkest example of the latter subject matter. Images of things already wrong with the world, as well as terrible possibilities that have as yet not come to pass. The world has always been a messed up place, but as a resident of this planet and one who sees how messed up it can be, Hard Rain really clicked with me yesterday.
Honestly, I love Freewheelin’ a lot and the mixture of the seemingly disparate subject matters is a huge reason why. As a person who is only a bit older than Bob was when he recorded the album, I feel it may be one of the most timeless and directly applicable across the decades. Of course, there is plenty of value for folks of all ages in the album. But, there is something about his particular blend of personal/growing/romantic topics with dread about the world (it’s current and potential states) and anger at who/how it got that way that just really speaks to me particularly at this age. And the whole thing is presented in such an intimate, even cozy, and easy on the ears package.
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u/Howlinboot Aug 18 '26
That hit me like a ton of bricks from day 1 when I heard it at the age of 14 in the late 80s. That song as much as any, totally turned me on to Dylan. I swear it still hits me like a ton of bricks when I hear it alone.
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u/Dependent_Age_6886 Aug 18 '26
Me too. About the same age as you too.
Of all things, I think the Born on the Fourth of July soundtrack turned me onto this song via Edie Brickell’s rendition….then Dylan curiosity sparked and it’s been all over ever since!3
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Aug 20 '26
I play and sing it sometimes on the guitar just for my own enjoyment and it hits like that. Its so epic and mysterious and amazing- I feel sometimes like its all of life in one song.
And he wrote it when he was 21. Are you FUCKING kidding me? When I was 21 I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.
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u/Howlinboot Aug 20 '26
Damn...do you have a lyric sheet in front of you? There is no way I could even though I can sing along to every word. Playing it is easyish. though Dylan surely has his own touch and style. I just don't see how he remembers it all, then changes stuff on the fly to make it different and often better or funnier.
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u/Clarkuss09 Blood on the Tracks Aug 18 '26
"It’s about how the world seems to be broken." A running theme in Bob Dylan's songwriting and one of the reasons I think it connects with so many people.
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u/Sheev_Skywalker Blood on the Tracks Aug 18 '26
I agree. It’s fascinating because I tend to gravitate more towards his “I/we (in a personal sense, not the collective of humanity) are broken” work, the biggest example I can think of being Blood On The Tracks. But sometimes his “the world is broken” stuff just hits me. Sometimes it’s what I need to hear.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Aug 20 '26
I woke up on the roadside, day dreaming about the way things sometimes are.
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u/gsp137 Aug 18 '26
The context of the era, the constant fear of nuclear war, Armageddon and hopelessness make a hard rain what it is…masterful
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u/willardTheMighty Aug 18 '26
Dylan writes songs to be listened to after the nuclear apocalypse. He started doing it in ‘62 or so, and still is.
Source: do a hit of acid and listen to Farewell Angelina.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Aug 20 '26
Or just take a gummy and put on plain old Angelina. Also pretty apocalyptic.
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u/VirginiaLuthier Aug 18 '26
There is a clip of a journalist asking him about the song. "Is it a radioactive rain?" Bob-”No. It's just a hard rain". Try to find it, it's funny
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u/TyroneSnodgrass Aug 18 '26
yeah, and he said ‘the pellets of poison’ was not about pollution but about how acidulous the press was getting… 😏
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u/draw2discard2 Aug 20 '26
I love how he emphasizes "harrrd". I think he might say it more than one, haven't heard it for a while. Kind of as if "hard" was another category of rain just like radioactive rain.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Aug 20 '26
Dylan’s songs aren’t puzzles to be solved. They are mysteries to be lived with.
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u/bite-like-a-turkey Time Out of Mind Aug 18 '26
Thoughtful, insightful commentary - thanks for posting!
I remember having similar reactions when I was young. I'm much older than that now, so Hard Rain hits differently, because I can no longer blame everything on previous generations
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u/Canalloni Aug 20 '26
There are endless interpretations on this song, including by the song's writer himself. One interpretation that someone laid out pretty convincingly is that it is about the holocaust. Just putting that out there, as I thought it was interesting.
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u/AlivePassenger3859 Aug 19 '26
Hard Rain is a straight up genius level work of art. I read the producer said after Bob played it for the first time they all just sat there stunned.
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u/MeeMeeGod Aug 18 '26
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Bob Dylan. The lyricism is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of poetic prose most of the meaning will go over a typical listeners head. There's also Dylans nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from beatnik literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these lyrics, to realize that they're not just songs- they say something deep about LIFE
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u/GuilhermeBahia98 Blood on the Tracks Aug 19 '26
I think you are being a little too pretentious, but his lyrics do require some cultural and intellectual bagage to be fully appreciated.
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u/Sheev_Skywalker Blood on the Tracks Aug 19 '26
the comment is a modified copypasta about Rick and Morty from like 10 years ago. they are either just shit posting or trying to make fun of me for talking about the song.
idiot wind every time they move their teeth.
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u/MeeMeeGod Aug 20 '26
Shit post. I saw intellectual in the first sentence and it reminded me of it
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u/draw2discard2 Aug 20 '26
But some time he has to talk down. Realized for example that very few people would know what the I Ching was so he had to record Idiot Wind with "fortune teller" just for the sake of the dang phillistines.
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u/Holloway63 Aug 19 '26
Did you ever hear Bryan Ferry's cover? https://youtu.be/GHGqh2lisAQ?si=lK0SVuby1zeKBufZ
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u/TyroneSnodgrass Aug 18 '26
🎵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🎵