Bob Dylan's Hard Rain updated for 2024
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Bob Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain" back in 1962, and the question/answer form was based on a British poem of much earlier. Dylan said of sitting in the library and reading about politics (part of the inspriration): "After a while you become aware of nothing but a culture of feeling, of black days, of schism, evil for evil, the common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course. It’s all one long funeral song"
That's how I feel about 2024, so I updated his lyrics. I hope he doesn't mind of course:
Oh what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw truth tellers doxed, and their addresses listed
I saw images on my cellphone put on by the twisted
I saw a prophet wailing as he was dragged to the madhouse
I saw madmen gaining all the levers of power
I saw wolves out of jail while their victims cower
I saw fools arm in arm with those who would kill them
I saw indoctrination vultures above me turning
Know-it-alls told me what to think, but I wasn't learning
I saw a meteor of old glory barely burning
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 what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard desperate fathers called domestic terrorists
I heard speech is violence and violence is speech
I heard the fury of a woman scorned
I heard a prediction of vengeance, a new weapon borned
I strained my ears in the eye of the hurricane
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 what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'll hike through the garden with high rising fountains
I'll go off into the forest, and up the mountains
I'll swim cross the ocean, and glide on the river
I'll raft the white water, before the oncoming slaughter
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...
Copyright © Gideon Oknin | Year Posted 2024
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