Recently, there was a rainstorm so intense, it sounded like a thousand out-of-sync drummers. As our newly planted garden was being beaten down, a song by Bob Dylan came to mind: ‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’.
Recorded in 1963, the song is seven minutes long and in the form of verse/chorus. The chorus is short, only two lines: “And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, It’s a hard rain’s a-going to fall.”
Sometimes in verse/chorus songs, there will be a pre-chorus. That is, a line or two of music (possibly with words) at the end of each verse to help transition into the chorus. (An example would be the bauw, bauw, bauws in Help Me, Rhonda by the Beach Boys.)
Instead of a pre-chorus in A Hard Rain, the song flips the structure on its head by using, of all things, a pre-verse. In this case, it’s two lines (two questions, actually) that help introduce each verse.
Each pre-verse consists of a variation of these words: “Where have you been, my blue-eyed son? And where have you been, my darling young one?”
For the second verse, the question changes to ‘what did you see?’ For the third, it’s ‘what did you hear?’ For the fourth, it’s ‘who did you meet?’ And for the final verse, it’s ‘what will you do now?’
Each verse is a list of answers to the question asked in its pre-verse.
Even if the song were badly written and not worth a second listen, the use of a pre-verse would have won my heart. But, of course, the song is not badly written. It’s brilliant. Bob Dylan was only 21 when he wrote it.
The recent intense downpour made me think of this Dylan song, which made me think of Patti Smith, who back in the ’70s was the queen of punk rock.
In 2016, Bob Dylan was awarded a Nobel Prize for literature. At the ceremony, an elderly Patti Smith sang ‘A Hard Rain Is a-Gonna Fall’. In the middle of the second verse, she made a mistake in the words, then froze, unable to continue. The musicians accompanying her slowly stopped.
Patti put her face in her hands. Then, in one of the most humble and sweet moments in performance history, she looked at the audience and said, “I’m sorry. I apologize. I’m so nervous.” After a short pause, she started over.
At the end of the song, Patti received an extended and enthusiastic round of applause.
As I apologized to my plants for a hard rain that wasn’t my fault, I saw a teenage me, listening to Dylan’s song for the first time. And the moment years later when I realized the song had a pre-verse instead of a pre-chorus. And I could see an embarrassed Patti Smith. And the king and queen of Sweden, along with a room full of finely-dressed lords and ladies, smiling and clapping for her.
My plants survived the rain. And so did Patti.
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