Bob Dylan Hurricane (part 1) Lyrics

Hurricane (part 1) Lyrics

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.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named
Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws
up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I
saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the
cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with
their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

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 shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of
the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson
that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up
on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

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."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a
minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmaryAnd
though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the
guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to
the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through
his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the
guy!"
Yes, here's 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.

Four months later,
the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his
name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops
are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that
murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway
car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a
been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you
are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops
said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job
and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back
to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That
sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in
stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman
Jim.

"Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did
like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for
pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some
paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a
horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jail house
Where they
try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in
advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made
Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he
was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy
nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could
not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And
the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.The crime was
murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly
lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the
life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him
obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a
land
Where justice is a game.

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.