Notes

This and the following lines form the chorus of the song, integrated into the verses. It draws the real life events as a dramatic arc, a pastiche of a real event, as if the murder and trial were a fictional creation for an audience. The second instance of the chorus comes just as Carter is taken in to be identified by one of his alleged victims; the last repetition concludes the song, as if it were the final credits to a movie, the curtain call after a performance. This dramatization is not uncommon for Dylan. “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” (“Lonesome Death” from here on) and “Oxford Town” do the same, and they are both also based on real instances of racially motivated violence. As Jacques Levy, lyrical collaborator on the “Desire” album, put it: “He can write these movies that take place in eight to ten minutes, yet seem as full or fuller than regular movies”. Much of “Hurricane” is actually direct speech, with Dylan assuming every character, as if he were pitching the story to producers, and in many ways, to the public. To this comes that in all but one instance of giving voice to a character, Dylan limits himself to “he says” or a variation thereof, as if he was simply reading the lines from a script rather than a novel.