Bob Dylan

I first saw Bob Dylan when Joan Baez brought him onstage during her solo performance at the Monterey Fairgrounds in September, 1964. I was 15 and my mother had taken me to the Joan Baez concert there, just Joan and her guitar. Dylan played his guitar andsang several songs and they sang "It Ain't Me Babe" together as a duet.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan on stage at the Monterey Fairgrounds in 1964.

Andrea and I saw Bob Dylan in a great performance at the Blaisdell Arena in August 2014. He stood after the performance, looking at the audience, for quite awhile before acknowledging the applause and standing ovation.

Bob Dylan plays chess. Place and time unknown.

Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in December, 2016.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Oh where have you been, my blue eyed son?
Where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
Walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
Stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
Been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in a mouth of a graveyard

It's a hard and it's a hard and it's a hard and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall

Oh what did you see, my blue eyed son?
What did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves 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'
A white ladder all covered with water
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 a hard and it's a hard and it's a hard hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue eyed son?
What did you hear, my darling young one
I heard the sound of thunder that roared out a warning
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a blazin'
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
Heard one person starve, 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 and it's a hard and it's a hard hard hard hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall

Oh who you did 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 girl whose body was burning
A young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
Another man who was wounded with hatred

And it's a hard and it's a hard and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall

Oh what'll you do now, my blue eyed son?
What'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm goin' back out 'fore the rain starts fallin'
Walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where people are many and their hands are all empty
Where pellets of poison are flooding the 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, and none is the number
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountains so all souls can see it
Then I'll stand in the ocean until I start sinking
But I'll know my song well before I start singing

And it's a hard it's a hard and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
And it's a hard and it's a hard and it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall
And it's a hard and it's a hard and it's a so hard
And it's a hard rain's a gonna fall

Songwriter: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan in a more recent photo.

Richard dot J dot Wagner at gmail dot com