Bob Dylan and the Hero’s Journey

You’ve probably heard that Thursday, it was announced that Bob Dylan is this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. And you may also have read that a lot of novelists weren’t too happy about it. To those naysayers, I offer up this comment:

Bull shit!

Bob Dylan is a transformational figure. He is like no other and no one else is like him. Dylan transcends definition. In fact, the idea he receives an accolade for ‘literature’ does not begin to approximate the influence this figure has had on the world’s culture for the last 50 years.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with musician Richie Havens when Myers & O’Flynn opened for him in Aspen, Colorado in 1979. He said this about Bob Dylan [paraphrased]: “I believe that at any given moment, somebody… somewhere… is singing a Bob Dylan song. Coffee house. Street corner. Subway station. Nightclub. Dylan’s music is a continuous thread which binds all humanity together. We may not understand what his songs mean… but we know them to be true.”

I was thinking about that today as I walked the streets of Chicago, ruminating about Dylan. Suddenly one of his songs sprang to mind: “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”. Check out this live performance by Dylan in 1963:

Here are the lyrics:

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all 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’
I saw 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, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

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

Oh, what did you 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 woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

Listening to the song on a bracing October afternoon, it occurred to me, this is the perfect song for the All Is Lost moment in the Hero’s Journey, where the Protagonist, who has been through an arduous adventure, has a choice: Go forward… decidedly against the odds… having suffered a major reversal… or return to the safe life they’ve once known.

Listen to the song and pay special attention to the last verse. “What’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?” The Hero has gone through a world of grief as described in previous verses. They’re worn down. Broken. Spirit crushed.

And yet…

They choose to go forward. Knowing they will confront much of the same travails they’ve already faced. Aware that they’re going to be slapped and pounded by a mighty hard rain.

And I’ll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing

Through their adventure, they have come to know their Authentic Self, their True Nature, their Core Of Being. So despite the enormous odds against them, in the face of the shit-storm hard rain they’re about to confront, they plunge ahead. Through their journey, they have learned their “song” even before they “start singing”. And it’s that knowledge, that Inner Truth which will inspire them into and through the Final Struggle.

Of course, Dylan would say all of this is a bunch of claptrap. He’s a songwriter, a minstrel. For those of us who are devoted fans, he’s also a trickster. But he’s also said, we bring whatever meaning to his songs that we do.

So I bring my interpretation to “Hard Rain”. It’s a song of the Hero’s Journey. That existential crisis at the end of Act Two wherein the Protagonist must ask themselves: “Who am I? What will I become?”

And because the Protagonist has learned their ‘song’, they have found their identity… and the courage to move forward.

Congratulations, Mr. Zimmerman. I know you don’t care one whit about the Nobel Prize. But you sure as hell deserve it.