Book Excerpt: Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs

95. “Hurricane” (from Desire, 1976)

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As this is the first song from Desire to make the countdown, it’s a good time to bring up the contributions of Jacques Levy. Levy was credited as the co-writer for the majority of the songs on the album, including “Hurricane,” and, until Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter co-wrote most of Together Through Life, he was the only person really to ever have worked with Dylan in this manner.

This is also the first time that we bump up against a song in which Dylan tells a story based on real-life events. Typically in these songs, Bob fudges the facts a little bit, and “Hurricane” is no different. In the case of this song, he left out crucial elements of Rubin Carter’s backstory and toyed with the events in the investigation of the murder of which Carter was famously accused and convicted before eventually winning his freedom after many years in prison.

With this song, and other true-life tales that will appear in the subsequent pages, that discussion is ultimately irrelevant. Bob Dylan is not a documentarian, and as such, is not beholden to the facts of the story. (For that matter, nor were the makers of the film Hurricane, for which Denzel Washington was nominated for an Academy Award.) All Dylan and Levy had to worry about was the effectiveness of the song that they were creating, and they came through well enough to warrant this lofty spot in Bob’s catalog.

It’s important to remember how far out on a limb Dylan was with “Hurricane,” more so in a lot of ways than he had ever been with any of his ’60s protest material. Rubin Carter was eventually released from prison, and so Bob was ultimately on the verdict’s side, although it took a while for that verdict to get there. There is no doubt, however, that there are some people who will always wince when they hear the song and think that Bob Dylan made a stand for a murderer.

Levy helped Dylan to build the story, framing it almost as if the lyrics were stage directions (“Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night / Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall”). From the murder scene, the listener is carried along by the sway of Scarlet Rivera’s violin through the murky world of double-dealing criminals and cops with shady motivations before eventually winding up in Carter’s jail cell.

Dylan certainly could have been a lawyer based on the meticulousness with which he lays out his case. He also embellishes his position, like any grandstanding attorney would do, with colorful flourishes. Consider the way he mimics a ring announcer when he contrasts Carter’s fate with what could have been his ultimate destination: “Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been / The champion of the world.” He also knows how to play to the jury’s emotions concerning the culprits who escape justice every day: “Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties / Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise.”

The songwriters also don’t shy away from the racial elements that hung over the case. Whether or not the police actually went so far as to intimidate a witness by saying, “Don’t forget that you are white” isn’t the point. Dylan had a different measuring stick when writing this song than with others in his catalog. Whereas he wouldn’t be so blunt in most other songs, he realized that subtleties had no place here. He was, after all, attempting to sway public opinion to Carter’s side. As a result, it was all about the impact that he and Levy could create, and there is no doubting that “Hurricane” is impactful.

And yet it never fails at being an enjoyable song. Until the movie created such a high profile for the case, it’s likely that there were many listeners who didn’t have a clue about who Carter was or who even might not have realized that it was a true story, so “Hurricane” had to enthrall listeners who didn’t know the backstory.

Ultimately, there may not be a lot of people who can listen to this song unburdened by any connection with or opinion about the people depicted in it. For those who can, “Hurricane” is a persuasive tale told by someone stating his case without any cross-examination. Dylan’s guts in presenting this argument to his audience are noteworthy, as he risked the alienation of potentially thousands in that audience on behalf of a single man in whose innocence he believed.

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