Contemporary protest songs can only stay that way while the issue is relevant. Some tracks are superfluous in their meaning and can be adapted from generation to generation. Tramp Down the Dirt from Elvis Costello or the classic Cunts are Still Running the World by Jarvis Cocker are transcendent of the time they were written because the message can apply whatever the cause. A song like Hurricane, that is a song that only makes sense to perform when it has relevancy to the case written out. The last-ever Hurricane performance from Bob Dylan came the same year it was released, the final outing of it should be no surprise. It would make no sense if Dylan sang of Rubin Carter in the years after the protest had ended, because it was no longer relevant. But hearing him perform it that one last time, nobody will have known it was the final time, but what a time it is. An all-time great song from Dylan whose wordplay is as staggering as the story itself.
That much is translated well into the live show here. A performance in Houston, Texas, has the double bill thrill of being part of The Rolling Thunder Revue and also backed by some incredible instrumentation. Dylan’s return to the stage following his extensive tour with The Band is nothing short of magnificent. It feels like one last hurrah before his slip into projects which served, rightly or wrongly, himself. He has written that way ever since with a varying degree of success, but each a respectable experience which is at least written with honesty at the heart of it. The same goes for Hurricane but doesn’t have an ounce of Dylan’s personal life in it, beyond his clear support for the clearing of Carter’s name. Getting that message in front of people is what matters, and that’s what this performance, like all those preceding gigs, is all about.
But there’s an off-kilter feeling to this one. An annoyance reigns in Dylan’s voice as he toys with the tempo of the track. Erratic, thrilling, and ultimately an example of just how volatile The Rolling Thunder Revue was as a tour. Repeating the more controversial line of the song is done, it seems, to hammer home the point of how Carter was treated by his peers, the police, and everyone involved in the case. Those involved include the public. They are the judgemental eye overseeing all of this and that’s a fantastic addition made to the song not through the performance, but through the context of hearing it performed so often on this tour. Hurricane depends on the interest of a crowd, it doesn’t matter all that much what instrumental changes are made.
Instrumentally, the song is as upbeat as expected; the quickened tempo gives it a more urgent sound than it has on Desire, though. Inevitably so. Where the record is a considered call to arms against an unjust moment, the rage heard in the last-ever performance of Hurricane is not one of fatigue, but one of flailing hope. That chance to change the world is still on Dylan’s mind, or at least to change the world of a person whose life had been turned around. The last-ever Hurricane is as impactful as the first, that much is clear. Such is the point of the protest song, which serves its purpose and, as enjoyable as it is to hear, has lost its contemporary relevance. It’s a crucial time capsule experience, one of the best songs Dylan would write during that decade, but its specifics mean this being the last version is inevitable. What a version it is, though.
