45 Years Ago: Bob Dylan Recorded “Hurricane”
Today in 1975, the ex-folkie returned to his protest song roots
In 1966, boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was accused of a triple murder in Paterson, NJ. Eight years later, while in prison, the former middleweight contender sent his autobiography, The Sixteenth Round, to Bob Dylan. After visiting him in jail, Dylan — 45 years ago today — recorded “Hurricane,” an impassioned chronicle of how the police framed Carter.
Defying pop sensibility, the protest song had no chorus, and contained 11 long verses, the last of which concluded:
Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell
That's the story of the Hurricane
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world
The song would be a hit on Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue (the tour where he mysteriously wore white face). After 19 years in prison, a judge formally exonerated Carter in 1988. The story became a Denzel Washington movie in 1999.
MORE ANNIVERSARIES
15 Years Ago Today: American civil rights activist Rosa Parks died at age 92.
75 Years Ago Today: The United Nations officially came into existence in 1945. Happy United Nations Day!
80 Years Ago Today: The 40-hour work week officially went into effect. You can thank a critical part of the New Deal, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.