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{{Infobox Song <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Songs -->
{{Chinese name|[[Wang (surname)|Wang (王)]]}}
| Name = A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall
Dr. '''An Wang''' ({{zh-cp|c=王安|p=Wáng Ān}}; [[February 7]], [[1920]] &ndash; [[March 24]], [[1990]]) was a [[Chinese American]] computer engineer and inventor, and co-founder of computer company [[Wang Laboratories]].
| Cover =Freewheelinbobdylan.jpg
| Artist = [[Bob Dylan]]
| Album = [[The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan]]
| Released = [[May 27]], [[1963]]
| track_no = 6
| Recorded = [[December 6]], [[1962]]
| Genre = [[Folk]]
| Length = 6:55
| Writer = [[Bob Dylan]]
| Label = [[Columbia Records]]
| Tracks =
#"[[Blowin' in the Wind]]"
#"[[Girl from the North Country]]"
#"[[Masters of War]]"
#"Down the Highway"
#"[[Bob Dylan's Blues]]"
#"[[A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall]]"
#"[[Don't Think Twice, It's All Right]]"
#"[[Bob Dylan's Dream]]"
#"Oxford Town"
#"Talkin' World War III Blues"
#"[[Corrina, Corrina (song)|Corrina, Corrina]]"
#"Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance"
#"I Shall Be Free"
}}"'''A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall'''" is a song written by [[Bob Dylan]] in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in [[Columbia Records]]' Studio A on [[6 December]] [[1962]] for his second album ''[[The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan]]''. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "[[Lord Randall]]", [[Child Ballad]] No. 12.


==Analysis==
==Early life and career==
A native of [[Kunshan]] County in [[Suzhou]] Prefecture, he was born in [[Shanghai]], [[China]], and graduated from [[Jiaotong University]] with a degree in [[electrical engineering]] in 1940. He emigrated to the [[United States]] in June 1945 to attend [[Harvard University]] for graduate school, earning a PhD in applied physics in 1948. After graduation, he worked at Harvard with Dr [[Howard Aiken]] on the design of the [[Mark IV]], Aiken's first fully electronic computer. Wang co-invented the pulse transfer controlling device with Way-Dong Woo, a schoolmate from China who fell ill before their patent was issued. The new device implemented ''write-after-read'' which made [[magnetic core memory]] possible. Harvard reduced its commitment to computer research in 1951, prompting Wang's departure{{Fact|date=February 2007}}.


On September 22, Dylan appeared for the first time at [[Carnegie Hall]], part of an all-star hootenanny. This show was his first public performance of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"<ref>Heylin, ''Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments'', 33</ref>, a complex and powerful song built upon the question and answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "[[Lord Randall]]", published by [[Francis Child]].
Wang founded Wang Laboratories in June 1951 as a [[sole proprietorship]]. The first years were lean and Wang raised $50,000 [[working capital]] by selling one third of the company to textile machinery manufacturer [[Warner & Swasey Company]]. In 1955 when the core memory patent was issued, Wang sold it to [[IBM]] for $500,000 and incorporated Wang Laboratories with Dr Ge-Yao Chu, another school mate. The company grew slowly and in 1964 sales reached $1,000,000. Wang began making desktop electronic calculators with digital displays, including a centralised calculator with remote terminals for group use. By 1970 the company had sales of $27 million and 1400 employees. They began manufacturing [[word processor]]s in 1976 based on the [[Wang 2200]], one of the first desktop computers with a large [[CRT]] display. The [[Wang VS]] system was a multiuser minicomputer supposedly based on the design of the [[System/370]].


One month later, on October 22, U.S. President [[John F. Kennedy]] appeared on national television to announce the discovery of [[Soviet]] missiles on the island of [[Cuba]], initiating the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]]. In the sleeve notes on the ''Freewheelin''' album, [[Nat Hentoff]] would quote Dylan as saying that he wrote "A Hard Rain" in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis: "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one."
In addition to calculators and word processors, Wang's company diversified into [[minicomputer]]s in the early 1970s. Wang Laboratories, which in 1989 employed over 30,000 people, was headquartered in [[Tewksbury, Massachusetts]] and later [[Lowell, Massachusetts]]. When Wang looked to retire from actively running his company in 1986, he insisted upon handing over the corporate reins to his son Fred Wang. Hard times ensued for the company and the elder Wang was eventually forced to remove his son in 1989.


In fact, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke.
==Later years==
However, the song has remained relevant through the years as it has a broader sweep; the dense imagery suggests injustice, suffering, pollution and warfare.
An Wang also founded the [[Wang Institute of Graduate Studies]] in [[Tyngsborough, Massachusetts]] which offered a graduate program in Software Engineering. He made substantial donations to this organization, including the proceeds of his autobiography, ''Lessons''. However, enrollment remained low, and in 1987, after nearly a decade of operation, Dr. Wang decided to discontinue funding the institution and transferred ownership of the campus to [[Boston University]].


Some have suggested that the refrain of the song refers to [[nuclear fallout]], however Dylan disputes that this was a specific reference. In a radio interview with [[Studs Terkel]] in 1963, Dylan said, <blockquote>"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."<ref>re-printed in Cott (ed.), ''Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews'', p.7-9</ref></blockquote>
An Wang also made a substantial contribution for the restoration of a Boston landmark, which was then called the Metropolitan Theatre. The "Met" was renamed in 1983 as [[The Wang Theatre]], and the Metropolitan Center became known as the [[Wang Center for the Performing Arts]].


When An Wang died of [[cancer]] in 1990 he left behind an impressive technical and philanthropic legacy. He was inducted into the [[National Inventors Hall of Fame]] in 1988. The "[http://wan.lowell.smartedu.net/ Dr. An Wang Middle School]" in Lowell, Massachusetts is named in his honor, as is the An Wang Professorship of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at [[Harvard University]], held by Prof. [[Roger W. Brockett]].


He and his second wife Loraine lived in [[Lincoln, Massachusetts]] where she still lives. Their three children are Fred, Courtney (who runs a [[Dallas, Texas|Dallas]]-area regional [[Internet service provider|ISP]], [http://www.onlinetoday.com/ont/ OnLine Today]), and Juliet (an [[Emergency medical technician|EMT]]).


==Live performance==
==Aphorisms==
An Wang is known for a number of pithy aphorisms summing up principles based on his experience in business and life. [http://www.famous-quotes.com/author.php?aid=7523] [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/an_wang.html] Examples include:


Although Dylan may have first played the song to friends, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was formally premiered at [[Carnegie Hall]] on [[22 September]] [[1962]] as part of a [[hootenanny]] organized by [[Pete Seeger]].
"Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius."


Seeger has recalled: "I had to announce to all the singers, 'Folks, you're gonna be limited to three songs. No more. 'Cause we each have ten minutes apiece.' And Bob raised his hand and said, 'What am I supposed to do? One of my songs is ten minutes long.'"<ref>Heylin, ''Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited'', p.102</ref>
"We must not contradict, but instruct him that contradicts us; for a madman is not cured by another running mad also."


Dylan has featured the song regularly in his concerts in the years since he wrote it, and there have been some dramatic performances. Dylan performed it in 1971 at [[The Concert for Bangladesh]], organised by [[George Harrison]] and [[Ravi Shankar]]. The concert was organized for the relief of refugees from [[East Pakistan]] (now independent [[Bangladesh]]) after the 1970 [[Bhola cyclone]] and during the 1971 [[Bangladesh Liberation War]].
==See also==
*[[The Wang Center for the Performing Arts]]
{{wikiquote}}


On May 23, 1994, Dylan performed the song at "The Great Music Experience" festival in Japan, backed by a 90 piece symphony orchestra conducted by [[Michael Kamen]].
==External links==
*[http://kerlins.net/bobbi/research/myresearch/timeline.html Bobbi's Timeline]
*[http://www.thocp.net/biographies/wang_an.html Short biography of An Wang]


At the end of 2007, Dylan recorded a new version of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" exclusively for Expo [[Zaragoza]] 2008 world fair, scheduled to open on June 8, 2008, to highlight the Expo theme of "water and sustainable development". As well as choosing local-band [[Amaral (music group)|Amaral]] to record a version of the song in Spanish, Dylan's new version ended with a few spoken words about his "being proud to be a part of the mission to make water safe and clean for every human being living in this world."<ref>{{cite news
=== Patents ===
| first = Howell
| second = Llewellyn
| url = http://www.reuters.com/article/musicNews/idUSN2358049520071123
| title = Dylan reworks "Hard Rain's" for Spanish expo
| accessdate = 2007-11-24
| publisher = Reuters
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
| url = http://www.expozaragoza2008.es/
| title = Expo Zaragoza 2008
| accessdate = 2007-12-02
| publisher = Expo web site
}}</ref>.


==Cultural references==
*{{US patent|2708722}} "Pulse transfer controlling device", filed [[October 21]], [[1949]], issued [[May 17]], [[1955]]

*{{US patent|3402285}} "Calculating Apparatus" (using logarithms for calculation), filed [[September 22]], [[1964]], issued [[September 17]], [[1968]]
[[Tony Hoagland]]'s poem "Hard Rain" uses this song as an example of commercialization of the revolutionary.
*{{US patent|4145739}} "Distributed data processing system", filed [[June 20]], [[1977]], issued [[March 20]], [[1979]].

*{{US patent|4,294,550}} Ideographic typewriter. [[October 13]], [[1981]]
==Covers==
*{{US patent|4,297,042}} Helical print head mechanism. [[October 27]], [[1981]]
*[[Aviv Geffen]] ''Geshem Kaved Omed Lipol'' (in [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]: גשם כבד עומד ליפול)
*{{US patent|4,386,864}} Selective paper insertion and feeding means for individual sheet printing apparatus. [[June 7]], [[1983]]
*[[Pete Seeger]]: ''[[We Shall Overcome]]'' (1963); ''[[World of Pete Seeger]]'' (1973); ''We Shall Overcome: Complete Carnegie Hall Concert'' (1989); ''The Best of Broadside 1962-1988'' (2000)
*{{US patent|4,489,419}} Data communication system. [[December 18]], [[1984]]
*[[Linda Mason]]: ''How Many Seas Must a White Dove Sail?'' (1964)
*{{US patent|4,508,463}} High density dot matrix printer. [[April 2]], [[1985]]
*[[Joan Baez]]: ''[[Farewell Angelina]]'' (1965); ''[[The First 10 Years]]'' (1970); '[[Live -Europe '83]]: Children of the Eighties'' (1983); ''[[Rare, Live & Classic]]'' (1993)
*{{US patent|4,514,063}} Scanner document positioning device. [[April 30]], [[1985]]
*[[Rod MacKinnon]]: ''Folk Concert Down Under'' (1965)
*{{US patent|4,587,633}} Management communication terminal system. [[May 6]], [[1986]]
*[[Per Dich]]: ''Surt og Soodt''(1966)
*{{US patent|4,595,921}} Method of polling to ascertain service needs. [[June 17]], [[1986]]
*[[Leon Russell]]: ''The Shelter People'' (1971); ''The Songs of Bob Dylan'' (1993); ''Retrospective'' (1997)
*{{US patent|4,638,118}} Writing pad. [[January 20]], [[1987]]
*Bob Gibson: ''Bob Gibson'' (1971)
*{{US patent|4,712,795}} Game racket. [[December 15]], [[1987]]
*[[John Schroder]]: ''Dylan's Vibrations'' (1971)
*{{US patent|5,129,061}} Composite document accessing and processing terminal with graphic and text data buffers. [[July 7]], [[1992]]
*[[The Tribes]]: ''Bangla Desh'' (1972)
*{{US patent|5,334,976}} Keyboard with finger-actuable and stylus-actuable keys. [[August 2]], [[1994]]
*[[Bryan Ferry]]: ''[[These Foolish Things (album)|These Foolish Things]]'' (1973); ''Street Life'' (1986); ''More Than This: The Best of Bryan Ferry'' (1999)
* [[Les Fradkin]] covered it as part of his 2007 release "12"
*[[The Staple Singers]]: ''Use What You Got'' (1973)
*[[Nana Mouskouri]]: ''À Paris'' (1979)
*[[The Texas Instruments]]: ''The Texas Instruments'' (1987)
*[[Ball (musical group)|Ball]]: ''Bird'' (1988)
*[[Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians]]: ''[[Born on the Fourth of July (film)|Born on the Fourth of July]]'' (soundtrack) (1989)
*[[Barbara Dickson]]: ''Don't Think Twice, It's Alright'' (1992)
*[[Vole]]: ''A Tribute to Bob Dylan'' (1992)
*[[Melanie Safka|Melanie]]: ''Silence Is King'' (1993)
*[[Hanne Boel]]: ''Misty Parade'' (1994)
*[[Gerard Quintana]] and [[Jordi Batiste]]: ''Els Miralls de Dylan'' (1999)
*[[Andy Hill]]: ''It Takes a Lot to Laugh'' (2000)
*[[Both]]: ''Duluth Does Dylan''
*[[Jason Mraz]]: ''Listen to Bob Dylan''
*[[Billy Mystic]]: ''Is it Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan'' (compilation) (2004)
*[[Faust (band)|Faust]]: "Nodutgang" (compilation) (2006)
*[[Ann Wilson]] (lead singer of [[Heart (band)|Heart]]): ''Hope & Glory'' (2007 solo release) (with [[Rufus Wainwright]] & [[Shawn Colvin]])
*Guitarist [[Bill Frisell]] plays an instrumental version on his live release "East/West"
*[[Kelsey Quigley]]: "Crystal and Ash" (2007)
*[[Twilight Dementia]] released a excerpted reinterpretation of this song on their 2007 debut album ''[[Twilight Dementia]]''
*[[Amaral]] made a Spanish version for EXPO [[Zaragoza 2008]] called ''Llegará la tormenta'' (The storm will arrive)
A version of the song by a local artist is currently being used to advertise Mitsubishi Sports Utility Vehicles in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

==Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
* {{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Cott (ed.)|title=Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton|year=2006|id= ISBN 0340923121}}
* {{cite book|first=Clinton|last=Heylin|title=Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments: Day by Day 1941-1995|year=1996|id=ISBN 0-7119-5669-3}}
* {{cite book|first=Todd|last=Harvey|title=The Formative Dylan: Transmission & Stylistic Influences, 1961–1963|publisher=The Scarecrow Press|year=2001|id= ISBN 0-8108-4115-0}}
* {{cite book|first=Clinton|last=Heylin|title=Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited|publisher=Perennial Currents|year=2003|id=ISBN 0-06-052569-X}}
* {{cite book|first=Howard|last=Sounes|title=Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan|publisher=Grove Press|year=2001|id=ISBN 0-8021-1686-8}}

==External links==
* [http://bobdylan.com/moderntimes/songs/hardrain.html Lyrics]


{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, An}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall, A}}
[[Category:1920 births]]
[[Category:1963 songs]]
[[Category:1990 deaths]]
[[Category:Bob Dylan songs]]
[[Category:Asian American businesspeople]]
[[Category:Joan Baez songs]]
[[Category:American inventors]]
[[Category:Pete Seeger songs]]
[[Category:Chinese Americans]]
[[Category:List songs]]
[[Category:Computer pioneers]]
[[Category:American engineers]]
[[Category:Chinese engineers]]
[[Category:Electrical engineers]]
[[Category:Businesspeople in software]]
[[Category:Harvard University alumni]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States]]
[[Category:Minicomputers]]
[[Category:Cancer deaths in Massachusetts]]


[[es:A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall]]
[[de:An Wang]]
[[gl:A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall]]
[[ml:ആന്‍ വാംഗ്]]
[[it:A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall]]
[[nl:An Wang]]
[[pl:A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall]]
[[ja:アン・ワング]]
[[fi:A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall]]
[[ru:Ван Ань]]
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[[sl:An Wang]]
[[zh:王安 (计算机科学家)]]

Revision as of 03:49, 10 October 2008

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
Song

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on 6 December 1962 for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyric structure is based on the question and answer form of the traditional ballad "Lord Randall", Child Ballad No. 12.

Analysis

On September 22, Dylan appeared for the first time at Carnegie Hall, part of an all-star hootenanny. This show was his first public performance of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"[1], a complex and powerful song built upon the question and answer refrain pattern of the traditional British ballad "Lord Randall", published by Francis Child.

One month later, on October 22, U.S. President John F. Kennedy appeared on national television to announce the discovery of Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba, initiating the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the sleeve notes on the Freewheelin' album, Nat Hentoff would quote Dylan as saying that he wrote "A Hard Rain" in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis: "Every line in it is actually the start of a whole new song. But when I wrote it, I thought I wouldn't have enough time alive to write all those songs so I put all I could into this one."

In fact, Dylan had written the song more than a month before the crisis broke. However, the song has remained relevant through the years as it has a broader sweep; the dense imagery suggests injustice, suffering, pollution and warfare.

Some have suggested that the refrain of the song refers to nuclear fallout, however Dylan disputes that this was a specific reference. In a radio interview with Studs Terkel in 1963, Dylan said,

"No, it's not atomic rain, it's just a hard rain. It isn't the fallout rain. I mean some sort of end that's just gotta happen... In the last verse, when I say, 'the pellets of poison are flooding the waters', that means all the lies that people get told on their radios and in their newspapers."[2]


Live performance

Although Dylan may have first played the song to friends, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" was formally premiered at Carnegie Hall on 22 September 1962 as part of a hootenanny organized by Pete Seeger.

Seeger has recalled: "I had to announce to all the singers, 'Folks, you're gonna be limited to three songs. No more. 'Cause we each have ten minutes apiece.' And Bob raised his hand and said, 'What am I supposed to do? One of my songs is ten minutes long.'"[3]

Dylan has featured the song regularly in his concerts in the years since he wrote it, and there have been some dramatic performances. Dylan performed it in 1971 at The Concert for Bangladesh, organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar. The concert was organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

On May 23, 1994, Dylan performed the song at "The Great Music Experience" festival in Japan, backed by a 90 piece symphony orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen.

At the end of 2007, Dylan recorded a new version of "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" exclusively for Expo Zaragoza 2008 world fair, scheduled to open on June 8, 2008, to highlight the Expo theme of "water and sustainable development". As well as choosing local-band Amaral to record a version of the song in Spanish, Dylan's new version ended with a few spoken words about his "being proud to be a part of the mission to make water safe and clean for every human being living in this world."[4][5].

Cultural references

Tony Hoagland's poem "Hard Rain" uses this song as an example of commercialization of the revolutionary.

Covers

A version of the song by a local artist is currently being used to advertise Mitsubishi Sports Utility Vehicles in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Notes

  1. ^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments, 33
  2. ^ re-printed in Cott (ed.), Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews, p.7-9
  3. ^ Heylin, Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, p.102
  4. ^ "Dylan reworks "Hard Rain's" for Spanish expo". Reuters. Retrieved 2007-11-24. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Unknown parameter |second= ignored (help)
  5. ^ "Expo Zaragoza 2008". Expo web site. Retrieved 2007-12-02.

References

  • Cott (ed.), Jonathan (2006). Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0340923121. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  • Heylin, Clinton (1996). Bob Dylan: A Life In Stolen Moments: Day by Day 1941-1995. ISBN 0-7119-5669-3.
  • Harvey, Todd (2001). The Formative Dylan: Transmission & Stylistic Influences, 1961–1963. The Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4115-0.
  • Heylin, Clinton (2003). Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited. Perennial Currents. ISBN 0-06-052569-X.
  • Sounes, Howard (2001). Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-1686-8.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=An_Wang&oldid=244294826"