Tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it

I know it seems as though a lot of my Friday earworms have been songs by Bob Dylan. But that’s because—in the dystopian hellscape that’s our world these days—it’s just a fact that there’s always a Dylan song that’s appropriate for the latest tsunami of general and specific fuckery going on.

So today let’s have “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. The melody is kind of uninspiring, as is typical with early Dylan. The imagery in the lyrics have always struck me as being a 1960s version of the Book of Revelation—pretty apocalyptic. But these days, they’re almost a model of restraint, given the reality around us.

I mean—a wave drowning the whole world? A dozen dead oceans? A young woman’s burning body? The well-hidden executioner’s face?

Yeah—we’re there.

Here’s Patti Smith singing it at the 2016 Nobel Prize Ceremony where Dylan was awarded the Prize for Literature. Smith famously lost the lyrics early in her performance, apologized and then carried on with grace. Which I hope we all can do.