Bob Dylan a jeho apokalyptický déšť – Portelli Alessandro (2025)

In 2016, Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the first time in history that the Swedish Academy has awarded this prestigious honor to a songwriter. It is no coincidence that among the hundreds of his songs, Patti Smith chose to sing one of Dylan's most famous pieces – 'A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall' – at the award ceremony in Stockholm, which Dylan did not attend in person. It is a visionary warning of an impending, or perhaps already ongoing, apocalypse – a warning that is just as relevant today as it was in 1962 when the song first saw the light of day, regardless of how we interpret that 'heavy,' deadly rain sung about in this somber-toned conversation between a mother and her 'blue-eyed' son. This iconic song, which emerged at the height of the folk revival in the 1960s during the period between the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Caribbean crisis, demonstrates the creative genius of Bob Dylan, as highlighted by prominent oral historian Alessandro Portelli: although his entry into the music scene appeared as a revelation, as the birth of a solitary star that emerged from nowhere and illuminated the starry sky, which still shines today, his work springs from traditional folk culture and shared memory, which he uniquely...