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Hurricane English Medium

by Bob Dylan

Fill In the blanks, then press Score to check your answers
Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, 'My God, they've killed them all!'
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' he done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

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
a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's the way go.
If you're black you as not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

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 like middleweights
They jumped 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 him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and haul in,
Take him to the hospital and 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 of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities to blame
For somethin' 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
Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for to blame.
'Remember that murder 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 Bradley said, 'I'm really not sure.'
Cops said, 'A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the 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 to pin this triple 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 it's over I'd just as 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 took him to the jail house
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 folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted 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 tried.
The crime was murder 'one,' guess who testified?
and Bradley and they both lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the 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 sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over they clear his name
And him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The of the world.
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