Bob Dylan – Rock’s Poet, Philosopher and Master Lyricist

Poet, prophet, preacher, philosopher, master lyricist, word man and walking Americana musicologist, Bob Dylan exemplified the thinking man with a brain, a heart and most of all a soul. His early life is draped in mystery and exudes the Jack Kerouac beat poet lifestyle as being a traveling troubadour.

He is one of the most important, if not the most important figure in Rock music, up there with Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. No one individual has come even close to the impact that he had on popular music except for maybe Elvis or Lennon.

He ultimately would go on to achieve selling over 100 million records worldwide, winning countless awards including Grammys, Golden Globes and Academy awards etc., making him one of the best selling artists of all time.

After the release of his first album (which flopped commercially), Bob Dylan would immediately start work for the next album. He would spend the next year profusely listening and absorbing as much music and lyrical styles as he could for new material for his second album.

 

“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

On September 22, 1962, Dylan played Carnegie Hall as part of an all-star hootenanny where he unveiled his masterpiece “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” musically based on the traditional British ballad “Lord Randall”.  It was said by Bob Dylan that each line of the song could have been a title and a topic of new song but that Dylan thought they couldn’t all be written down and perfected in one lifetime.

On May 27, 1963, Dylan released “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, a very deep and telling song, it re-emphasizes just how ahead of his time and how advanced Bob Dylan had become since his last album. Many of Bob Dylan’s songs, like this one, would be in many ways therapeutic to the masses. One could find the truth, justice, gentle therapy, the questions of life in the many songs Bob Dylan wrote in the decade of the 60’s, in particular, his first four acoustic albums.

“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Many thought the title referred to nuclear fallout after a nuclear explosion. Dylan has said it refers to anything that might befall a person, a group of people, a nation or even the whole world. This just goes back to the contention that the songs have many layers and it is up to the listener to grasp the meanings according to their points of views. They depend on what kind of goggles you are looking through.