Hurricane By Bob Dylan

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Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night

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enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall

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She sees the bartender in a pool of blood

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Cries out "My God they killed them all!"

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Here comes the story of the Hurricane,

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The man the authorities came to blame

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for something that he never done

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Put in a prison cell but one time

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he could have been the champion of the world

Three bodied lying there does Patty see

and another man named Bello moving 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 the cops

so Patty calls the cops

and they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin

in the hot New Jersey night

Meanwhile somewhere in another part of town

Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are driving around

number one contender for the middleweight crown

had no idea what kind of shit was about to go down

when a cop pulled him over on the side of the road

just like the time before and the time before that

in Paterson that just the ways things go

If you black you might as well not show up on the streets

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 although this man could hardly see

they told him that he could identify the guilty men

Four in the morning and they haul Rubin in

Take him to the hospital and bring him upstairs

the wounded man looks up though his one dying eye

says "why'd you bring him here for? he ain't the guy!"

Yes, here the story of the Hurricane

The man the authorities came to blame

for something that he never done

put in a prison cell but one time he could've been

the champion of the world

Four months later the ghetto's 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 screw to him looking 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 have been that fighter that you saw running 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 really use a break

We got you for the motel job and were talking to your friend Bello

Now you don't want to ave to go back to jail, be a nice fellow

You'll be doin' society a favor

That son of a bitch is brave and getting braver

We want to put his ass in the stir

We want to pin this trip murder on him

He ain't ne Gentleman Jim"

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch

he never did like to talk about it all that much

It's my work he'd say, 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 make a man into a mouse

All of Rubin's card 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

but to the black folks he was 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 the both badly lied

and the newspapers 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 be ashamed to live in a land

where justice is a game

Now all the criminal 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

and innocent man in a living hell

that's the story of the Hurricane

but it won't be over till they clear him name

and give him back the time he's done

put in a prison cell but one time he could've been

the champion of the world