Sara Collantes: Bob Dylan's "Hurricane"

What’s music for? What’s its aim? Does it have a particular purpose? Can a single song change someone’s life? Many people would say that music is only there for our amusement and for the sheer pleasure of listening to it. Music itself is filled with emotions and feelings but when good lyrics are added the meaning is perfectly conveyed.

A legendary duet: Dylan & Baez

During the 60s and 70s a new wave of singer-songwriters made social problems and contemporary events known through their music. Those songs dealt with the current social situation of the time. They had a strong content of civil disobedience and were characterized by their political and social commitment. Those are the bases of the so-called protest song. It presented common issues such as women’s and civil rights, politics, or the anti-war movement. Its messages of non-conformity were spread by the likes of John Lennon, Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, The Clash, Bob Marley, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Bob Dylan as well as many other less renowned. They are some of the best exponents of this kind of music, which came to a climax in the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1969. Woodstock quickly became the symbol of a young generation of Americans who were weary of politics and war and claiming for peace and love as a way of life while showing their rejection of the “Establishment”.

This opportunity of giving a voice to those who didn’t have one was seized by Bob Dylan many times but particularly, on one very specific occasion, in 1975. Some songs simply tell us a story and while others become part of history.

“Here comes the story of the Hurricane …”

Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a black American boxer who, accused of the triple murder of white people in 1966, was imprisoned for 19 years. Almost ten years later, during the mid-70s, Bob Dylan read The Sixteenth Round, the autobiography Carter had written in prison, in which he claimed his condition of a wrongly convicted innocent man. After visiting him in Rahway State Prison, Dylan started writing the song “Hurricane”, where the unfair story of Carter is told, and organizing benefit concerts in order to raise money and help him pay his lawyers’ fees. 

Dylan meets "the Hurricane"

After the release of the song in 1976, the case came to light and Carter had a second chance of proving his innocence on a new trial. But once again he was found guilty. Both trials were a bit obscure and misleading and in the subsequent years a huge controversy emerged both over the case and the song. The two trials, full of irregularities and racial prejudice by a jury consisting only of white people, were based on the testimony of two burglars who later on retracted their allegations. Thanks to the song, Carter’s case was known worldwide, aired in all newscasts. And so it was how black people took to the streets to denounce this gross injustice and how important leaders of the black community gave their support to the former boxer.

Finally, in 1985, Rubin Carter was freed and all charges against him were dismissed by a Federal Judge, who said that the punishment was “based on racism rather than reason”. After his release he worked as director of the AIDWC (Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted) for twelve years. Hurricane died last Sunday 20th April at the age of 76.

So, is music useful? Of course it is! Not only is it nourishment for the soul and a pleasure for the ears, but also a way of knowledge and possibly the most powerful way of communication. Music is indeed one of the most influential factors in the creation of a culture. There’s no need for it to be so specific or direct as Dylan’s “Hurricane”, but it is always great when a song gives us food for thought. Zack de la Rocha, the lead singer of Rage Against the Machine, once said, quote: “Music has the power to cross borders, to break military sieges and to establish real dialogue”.

You can’t touch music, but music sometimes can touch you.

Another fantastic post, so thanks a lot, dear Sara! Hurricane is not my fave Dylan song but it’s great anyway, isn’t it? I do love its committed lyrics and I can only say that I’m really proud of the way the blog looks right now.

You know, I’d been thinking of writing something myself , and it’s only coincidence that it also deals with Mr Dylan - yet in a completely different light.

I guess you guys might have seen an advert for ING which is being shown on television these days. It features the legendary singer-songwriter in London in the mid-60s and at the end of the commercial you can hear the familiar tune of arguably Dylan’s most iconic song, “Like a Rolling Stone”. Actually, the scene where Bob does the funny, nutty play on words is part of a famous 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary called “No Direction Home” (in fact, a well-known phrase among Dylan’s fans, as it is is part of the lyrics of “Like a Rolling Stone”, which you can read here)

The thing is this campaign, designed with the consent of Mr Bob Dylan (once, as Sara mentions above, the archetypical anti-establishment singer-songwriter) has caused quite a stir among his followers here in Spain, so much so that many of Dylan’s staunch fans have bitterly criticized, to say the least, his approval for allowing the popular Dutch bank to use both the funny scene and his most famous song in order to promote the corporation’s image in Spain. The slogan reads like this (let me translate it into English to kind of “honour” Mr Dylan):

TO THOSE WHO RECONSIDER THINGS. We broke ties, we broke the ground. We improved everyone’s conditions. We created the new banking. We have turned 15. It’s only the beginning. ING Direct. PEOPLE IN PROGRESS.

A rather witty, intelligent message, ain’t it?

Well, some of you guys could know this is not the first time that Mr Robert Zimmerman, who’ll turn 73 in barely a month, has sort of “sold his soul” for the “easy buck”, as it were. Back in 2004, Bob briefly yet strangely appeared in an ad for American lingerie company Victoria’s Secret featuring supermodel Adriana Lima to the tune of his 1997 song “Love Sick”.

More recently, barely three months ago, the iconic American singer infamously used his public image - and own voice! - to shoot another commercial which was aired during the celebration of possibly the most popular sports event in the USA, the Superbowl. There was huge commotion across the Atlantic as this campaign triggered wide criticism among his home fans too, especially since Dylan was advertising a car make, Chrysler, which is now in foreign hands, namely Italian motor giant FIAT.

When I saw the ING advert, I myself thought: Poor old devil, Dylan’s succumbed for good to the charms of mindless, greedy capitalism. Long gone are those days back in the 60s when he used to write the lyrics below in his fantastic 1963 song “Masters of war", where he heavily panned both the US government and military, financed by big banking corporations during the Cold War:

Let me ask you one question / Is your money that good? / Will it buy you forgiveness? / Do you think that it could?

But Dylan is complex and multi-layered, both musically and as a public figure, as you will find if you read an interesting article by American libertarian magazine Reason.com on this link, dealing with the controversy around his recent endorsement of Chrysler. Incidentally, “Hurricane” is mentioned too.

I couldn't agree more: whatever the reason, music certainly touches people, as Sara says above. And advertisers know, don't they!