A hard rain’s a-gonna fall

A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

By Bob dylan

Comparison with Lord Randal

Iolanda Visconti

Index

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Comparison between "A hard rain's a gonna fall" and "Lord Randal"

What does the expression "hard rain" refer to?

The ballad 'A hard rain's a gonna fall'

The ballad "A hard rain's a gonna fall"

Bob Dylan made a famous version of Lord Randal called "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". He wrote this song in the 1962 at the time of the missile crisis in Cuba ,under the threat of a nuclear war between Russia and the USA. Each stanza opens with a question; Dylan questions his son on where he has been, what he has seen and heard, who he has met, what he is going to do. His answer are full of words which recall death, blood, suffering.

The expression 'hard rain'

In the title and chorus of the song we find the expression 'hard rain'. This expression is a metaphor and according to many it refers to the atomic fall out, the fall as rain of radioactive waste, during Cuban Missile Crisis.

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Comparison between "A hard rain's a gonna fall" and "Lord Randal"

-Written in 1962 by Bob Dylan -Protest in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis -Lyrical structure based on Lord Randal •Dialogue between mother and son •Use of multiple refrains •Technique of Incremental Repetition.

A hard rain's a gonna fall

Lord Randal

-Composed in the Middle Ages -Dialogue between Lord Randal and is mother -Great manifesto of the Middle Ages society •Lords' habits: haunting and falconery • Women's status: either subdued by a man or considered as a witch

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Comparison between "A hard rain's a gonna fall" and "Lord Randal"

They are both ballads and they have a similar structure made of questions and answers ending with a refrain. Both ballads are accompanied by music and have a colloquial language. In Lord Randal we find a handsome young man poisoned by his false "true-love" who is probably going to die, while in Dylan's version we find a radioactive dust in the air after a nuclear explosion.

The texts compared

The message of the song

In the fourth stanza we talk about meetings. The boy says he met a little girl who gave him a rainbow. It's the first verse of the song where we start to see a light. The last stanza, instead, represents the message of hope: wherever he finds himself, the child won't go away, he will accept the fate of finding himself even in the most difficult conditions, always presenting himself as the reflection of something beautiful that he himself has received.

Fabrizio De Andrè's version of Geordie

Comparison with Geordie

The ballad "Geordie"

It is an anonymous, famous English ballad dated to the late Middle Ages. It is a dramatic story of love and death told by the narrator. The main character is a young woman who is riding on her pony with her children to London's Court of Justice where her lover, Geordie, is being tried for poaching. But it is too late: Geordie has already been sentenced. He has been hanged because he stole sixteen of the king's deer. The girl proclaims her devotion to her lover and she is ready to kill with her sword and pistol and to die for him. The atmosphere of this ballad is one of death and violence but the element of mystery is less marked than in other ballads.

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The ballad "Geordie"

Rhyme scheme;The rhymes are not perfect ( slant or inexact rhyme is widely used here) but it is possible to identify a dominant rhyme scheme:a-b-c-b. Verse form; Stanzas are quatrains. Four-stress and three-stress lines alternate in each quatrain. Narrative mode; The story is told through narration and dialogue. Refrain / repetitions “the life of Geordie” / “for the life of Geordie” Alliteration “misty / morning” (l.2); “me / my / milk-white” (l.5); “me / my” (l.6); “ Language used It is colloquial, simple and direct.

Comparison between "Geordie" and "Fabrizio De Andrè's version

The folk singer and poet Fabrizio De Andrè made a faithful version of the original ballad "Geordie" even if he changed the order of the images. The only difference is in the number of deer stolen by Geordie that in the original version are sixteen, while for De Andrè are six, but this difference is only due to a metrycal problem.

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Comparison between "Geordie" and "Fabrizio De Andrè's version

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Another meaning

Bob Dylan confirms this interpretation, but for him it has a more universal meaning and refers to the bible. There are, in fact, many numberings typical of the Bible such as TWELVE, SIX, SEVEN.

Basically the song had more to do with the biblical apocalypse than with the bombings.