Dylan, “Desire” and the (other) Story of Hurricane: A Lesson In Fatherhood

The time was the mid-late70’s (circa 1976-77) and my father had a new job working for the LEAA after years working as chief counsel of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee and later as a staff counsel for the full judiciary committee.  The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) was a short-lived U.S. federal agency within the Justice Department.  It administered federal funding to state and local law enforcement agencies, and funded educational programs, research, state planning agencies and local crime initiatives.  My father really had no qualifications for working for the LEAA other than being one of the principal authors of the Senate’s Amendment to the Omnibus Crime Control Act and needing a job.

At the time I was a long haired, anti-establishment teenager with a new favorite lp, Bob Dylan’s “Desire”.  My motivation for purchasing this album was the wordy but endearing protest song which was the album’s featured single, “Hurricane” written by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy: 

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 infirmary

And 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 jailhouse

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