Bob Dylan
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Whats the meanin of a hard rains gonna fall? i need it for a paper
>>By Tyler (Monday, 11 Nov 2002 17:39)
do you mean the song title or the song lyrics i think that the title refers to a post nuclear holocaust and i have books which could explain the lyrics in more detail --if you want this --leave a note ok bilbo
>>By bilbo (Tuesday, 12 Nov 2002 00:30)
I also need the meaning (for the lyrics) for a school project, our techer tells us that its in response to the 1962 cuban missle crisis. But I honestly don't see much connection, I see more reflection of protest against evils of all sorts (waste, destruction, despair, war etc.) Whats the book's name?
>>By madd (Wednesday, 12 Feb 2003 17:12)
the meaning of hard rain is much less complicated than people believe - this is dylan's genius - the enigma of the guy. hard rain as with almost all of dylan's more abstract works - blonde on blonde most noticeably, are entirely down to your own interpretation, and how nice is that, he is letting us do the work; anyway, hard rain is just life - wherever you've been, whatever you've seen or heard, whatever you think, beleive or dream of the only inevitability is that a hard rain will fall just as the sun will burn our cheeks - thats life, thats the game its damn hard (Friday, 14 Feb 2003 22:32)
can anyone please direct me to the best discussion on "Times they are a changing"
>>By david (Sunday, 16 Feb 2003 07:08)
Yea...i woud appreciate any guidance on "times they are a changin" for a paper as well..
and how else does he try to incorporate the culture into his music..anyone know any good websites than can provide this sort of info?
>>By Teah (Sunday, 20 Apr 2003 20:37)
I also (yeah I am like the third person) have to do a paper
on a protest sond of my choice. I want to do 'Hard Rains
Gonna Fall', but I have no idea what it means. Will someone
please help me???? I would really really apreiciae it!
>>By eowyn14 (Tuesday, 22 Apr 2003 01:11)
OH- and one more quick question! Where is a good place
to find the lyrics to Bob Dylan's songs...Maybe I am just
inept at searching the web- but i can't seem ot find a good
site.
>>By eowyn14 (Tuesday, 22 Apr 2003 01:13)
I too need help interpreting Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin"
I have looked everywhere on the internet and cant seem to find anything.
Thanks for any help
Amy
>>By By Amy (Monday, 28 Apr 2003 21:09)
try expectingrain.com - very good site :o)
>>By moo (Tuesday, 29 Apr 2003 22:12)
Bob might be old but he's still bomb.
>>By Dresden (Wednesday, 28 May 2003 01:31)
Hello. I have just started listening to Bob Dylan because my uncle sat me down and played me a song called "Desolation Row." I love it! It sure has more meaning than anything you hear on the radio! I wonder, though, can someone tell me what Mr. Dylan means when he says: "They're painting the passports brown"? What are brown passports? I asked this question at the official site, but the people over there basically said it's because "brown" rhymes with "town." That's just dumb, in my opinion, because he could have described anything as being brown, he didn't have to mention passports. The fact that he does specify passports means that he must have had a reason. Right?
>>By just starting (Thursday, 5 Jun 2003 19:04)
hey if anyone needs a good site on searching for dylan lyrics ive found that bobdylan.com is your best choice....
>>By idiotwind303 (Wednesday, 25 Jun 2003 04:34)
i have to agree with you dresden bob is the bomb!!! i just started listening to him about a year ago b/c my boyfriend was crazy about him. i was fortunate enough to see bob live and in person nearly a month ago and let me just say IT WAS AMAZING still live and kickin' lol ..but i would like to discuss some of his songs and there meanings.....if anyone has any good sites please let me know!!!
>>By idiotwind303 (Wednesday, 25 Jun 2003 04:38)
What's the meaning of "Like a Rolling Stone"?
>>By henry (Monday, 30 Jun 2003 16:46)
Dylan's overrated and oh so same-y
>>By Roberts (Saturday, 26 Jul 2003 06:54)
Hi, I recently saw Masked and Anonymous. I thought It was great. What was sad to me was nobody was in the theatre. I hope people view it, going in knowing it is a Bob Dylan song. Also I want to know if anyone knows if there is a full video recording of Bob Dylans 1965 interview. I have an audio recording of it already.
LuLu
>>By LuLu (Monday, 25 Aug 2003 23:19)
I know there are soo many people who have already asked this but I'm new and confused! I really need to know the meaning of Bob Dylan's 'The times They Are Changin'. I need to use it for my hsc but don't know bob dylans context well enough to analyse it properly. Help anyone pleeeaseee!!!!
>>By jane125 (Sunday, 19 Oct 2003 00:58)
i have him on video & i like the "Subterrian Blues" song & also the biography segment was a very informative one of his career
>>By star (Sunday, 19 Oct 2003 18:27)
Hey, does anyone have a website for a good interpertation of Bob Dylans " Desolation Row"? if not , anyone read it and has any ideas that they could throw at me? It would be great if anyone has any suggestions or ideas!
Thanks
Casanova
>>By Casanova (Tuesday, 4 Nov 2003 03:02)
speaking of bob...has anyone really delved into the man way back? take the album "Saved", and the accomponying songs, recorded in 1980; seemed to have found something more real then, and less 'abstract', but oh well...God bless him! :)
>>By troyboy (Tuesday, 4 Nov 2003 06:29)
YEAH, I LIKE BOB. i had a bf once named dylan after him....damn good music....hits thee soullllll........ahhhh!jk. peace out
>>By CALI2COLORADI (Tuesday, 4 Nov 2003 06:33)
First of all, folks it's so incredible and heartening to hear that so many young people are being exposed to Dylan and are being asked to write papers on his songs. At this time especially his songs, his thoughts are needed more than ever. With a fascist takeover going through the U.S. just like it did in Germany and the Brownshirts going through Italy in the 1930's, we all need to hear and think about the words that artists like Dylan have written for us. "Hard Rain"and "Times They Are A Changin' are not that hard to piece together. I know that kids want to just go online and have the work done for them, but you gain NOTHING by doing that. Once out of school you will have a work ethic for shit and noone's gonna do your work for you then. You gain so much more, especially self-worth, by doing the work yourselves.
"Hard Rain" is a reaction to th eCuban Missile Crisis, but like most of Dylan's Work, that is only one aspect of it. It's about the "hard rain"of responsibilities that are going to befall us because of the actions of a few people who are playing with our lives and futures. As another poster wrote, the hard rain is also life itself. Dylan used rain as a symbol a number of times to indicate a dark, evil, or foreobding quality. It's never a good thing. Like in 'Just Like A Woman' he stands "inside the rain".Unfortuantely, what some of you are no doubt being told is stuff from a textbook that says "hey, this is what this song is about". Those things are the work of con artists, even well-meaning ones, whom Dylan has little love for. It's like looking at a surrealist painting and saying it's ONE thing, as if it could be. Look at Dali or Magritte and you have a lot of Dylan. "Times..." is mostly about literaly times changing, meaning our social structures and mores, our economic structure and means of production. Changes in labor and job security. Changes in the thoughts and actions of young people. "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land. And don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly fadin'. And the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a changin'." He's saying that the old guard mentality and structure is breaking down and new ideas and social rules are being challenged and changed by the younger generations. The "first one now" is the adult, the first voice heard and the first in line. They will "later be last" as they age and are replaced by the next generations.
>>By exile103 (Tuesday, 16 Dec 2003 04:49)
Wow, so much scholarship on Dylan. It's like he is a dead poet or something.
If it is any help Tyler, I always considered "A hard rain..." to refer to consequences that befall reckless actions--the proverbial shit storm. Similar to how Shakespeare invokes a severe storm when something foreboding is coming, such as when it brews up a storm right before the king is killed in Hamlet.
I believe a comparison to Shakespeare is apt because, like him, Dylan places characters often in his songs who are led to a fate. The consequences of their actions are played out and their/our humanity or lack of it is glimpsed in the process. Furthermore, rather than complex metaphors being developed at the expense of the story, both Shakespeare and Dylan can be rather straight forward and matter-of-fact. In "Masters of War" it is quite plainly spoken that Dylan wishes to see those who profit in war industry dead and buried in the ground. No real poeticism there.
I heard once that Jerry Garcia enjoyed singing the songs of Bob Dylan because of the strength of the songs inner logic. It made the words easier to remember and the music flow more naturally. Similarly, it is possible that actors, once acquainted with the Elizabethan dialect, find those thirty-some plays relatively easy to navigate, because the path is so well laid.
I am certain that, with the heft of scholarship seemingly now being deployed, more and greater comparisons could be made between the two, but I will leave it to others to suss out.
>>By obelus (Wednesday, 17 Dec 2003 01:36)
I saw Bob Dylan in concert, opening for the Dead in Summer of 2003 and I got to say, Bob Dylan looked, sang like he was in his twenties... it was an impressive classic rock experience!!! Dylan pulls no punches when he tours... everyone should try hard to go to one of his concerts!!!
>>By SulfurFury (Thursday, 18 Dec 2003 20:16)
(Highway 61)
Highway 61 runs through a dark nightmare America, a brutal de Chirico
landscape of long shadows and vanishing point perspectives, where hustlers
and con men prowl and anything-for-a-buck is the rule. Starts way back.
A bullying God arranges a murder, setting the stage for a history of
victims and victimizers. Georgia Sam is screwed by the Welfare Department.
He's the poor, the naked (can't get no clothes), the powerless.
Mack the Finger, a gangster, cozies up to the King, trying to capitalize
on a shitheap of useless junk (corrupt business and government, hand in
hand) and the King helps him out (relax these horrible restrictions,
puh-leez...think Third Man, Catch 22, other stories of bad medicine and
chocolate covered cottonballs, maybe even Phillip Morris...how about those
dangerous carseats for babies the companies won't recall?)
And the family, for our last bastion of moral strength and values, we
get a nice lethal dose of incest. Ignore the mathematics. For our hell
to be complete, the second mother is sleeping with the seventh son, and
boy these pallid offspring just don't feel so good. Yeah. Step into
the light, my dear. Closer.
The Big Bang. Of course, the song starts with the Old Testament, the
beginning, and must run through to the end of the world. The destruction
and decay must be complete. World War III, and this bored roving gambler
is setting up bleachers for the conflagration. Maybe Ted Turner will
even colorize it, who knows? People will sell anything, why not a war
(happens all the time, actually; watch the news).
Yeah, I think it can be very easily done. Flick on the tube. The image
sizzles to life. You recognize them?
>>By kinglizard3 (Sunday, 21 Dec 2003 00:20)
dead - not
poet - yes
good to see both old(er) and young discussing bob so extensively. 'Robert' earlier remarked he thought B.D. was overrated and same-y. You're entitled to your opinion of course, as are we all, but I think you're in the minority worldwide. Some people have said the same thing about The Beatles or The Stones, even Elvis, but I've never heard choruses of others agreeing. Aside from that ... the thing about Dylan is he might have made passports brown in order just to rhyme with ?town (what was it); he might have had a reason, but he'd not be able to tell you precisely now and besides, would be most upset, as another said earlier, to see all this overanalysis of his work going on. "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" has been well explained; also thinking in the most dire scenario, I imagine there MIGHt have been a connection with fallout per se, the ultimate shit storm that we were all in the shadow of then - Dylan wrote and said so much - if you're doing this school stuff, try listening to as much as you can of his stuff - forget about the singing, just listen to it - check out what's been covered - that car commercial was written by him, that diaper commerical was written by him, that song Guns 'n Roses were screaming were all ... written by him, NOT by Axl Rose, for God's sake, or any ad agency! Finally, Bob Dylan talking about Woody Guthrie on the boxed set, name of which I cannot remember now, in ?Carnegie Hall - check the details - is utterly, utterly awesome. Prepare to be moved by the use of language. Bob Dylan - a human god, I saw him pre-electric era and since then 30 times over 35 years. We almost lost him, but he remains a really important American institution. Listen to what he has to say; there are no Cliff notes, nor should there be. It is up to you to interpret him for yourself and your own life. It is all perfectly accessible, if you just listen. If you can decipher what rappers are saying, you can understand The Man. OK, that's my lecture for today.
>>By suzukibeane (Tuesday, 30 Dec 2003 11:42)
I'm wondering if anybody has the correct lyrics for thesong "SataFe"??
>>By Big Jim (Sunday, 23 May 2004 00:40)
I am writing something about a young bob dylan fan in a movie, and I wanted to get in contact via e-mail with any of the younger fans who are just getting into him and discovering him for the first time. I want to see how they got into him and if they are alone among their peers in their intestest in him.
you can e-mail me at jwrobes@hotmail.com
>>By Jwrobes (Thursday, 27 May 2004 21:10)
Anyone else noticed the Dylan music clips as the TV series "crosing jordon" fades at end.
Kind of nice to know that his music is still played and appreciated!
>>By billbuff (Monday, 26 Jul 2004 22:14)
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