The Real-Life Injustice Behind “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan

“Hurricane” opens Bob Dylan’s 1976 album Desire. The LP, his 17th studio release, follows Blood On The Tracks, his masterpiece from the prior year. And in the opening track, Dylan recycles his rage from “Masters Of War” to tell the story of a Black man in America handed three life sentences for a crime he didn’t commit.

Story of the Hurricane

Co-written by Dylan and Jacques Levy, “Hurricane” begins with the high drama of Levy’s theatrical work. Dylan, with verses that read like a script, sets the murder scene as he introduces the man who’d be falsely blamed for the grisly scene.

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night,
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, “My God, they killed them all!”

Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame.
For somethin’ that he never done,
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been,
The champion of the world.

The story follows the conviction of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the middleweight boxer arrested for a triple homicide in 1966. Here, the boxer has no idea his life will change. His dreams are soon crushed as the botched investigation leads police to him.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town,
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin’ around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown,
Had no idea what kinda sh*t was about to go down.

He Had a Rap for the Cops

Dylan’s protest song highlights the persistent racism of the 1960s and the racial profiling that ended with Carter’s life sentence.

Alfred Bello had a partner, and he had a rap for the cops,
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin’ around.
He said, “I saw two men runnin’ out, they looked like middleweights,
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates.”

Carter, an innocent man, served nearly 19 years before his sentence was overturned in 1985.

Yes, here’s the story of the Hurricane.
The man the authorities came to blame,
For somethin’ that he never done.

Moreover, the civil rights movement was nearing the end of a chapter. But Carter’s story and the injustice that persisted in the United States prove the struggle was far from complete.

An innocent man in a living hell,
That’s the story of the Hurricane.

Photo by Vince Maggiora/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images