a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (1962)

On the evening of September 11th, 2001, as the initial shock of what had happened that day began to abate, my thoughts turned to what would happen next. Events were still very much in flux, but it was already clear that whatever happened after the dust settled in New York, it wasn’t going be pretty.

That evening I went to the pub for a drink with my friend. It was Slattery’s on Capel Street. On the television in the corner, Sky News was showing night vision pictures of the skyline over Kabul. I assume now that the Northern Alliance were shelling Taliban positions. But at the time no one, not even the Sky News people, was quite sure who was firing, or who was being fired upon. I just remember people – punters, barstaff, everyone – staring at the television screen in grim silence. And this ominous refrain playing over and over in my head… Read the rest of this entry »

A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA FALL (1962)

On the evening of September 11th, 2001, as the initial shock of what had happened that day began to abate, my thoughts turned to what would happen next. Events were still very much in flux, but it was already clear that whatever would transpire after the dust settled in New York, it wasn’t going be pretty.

I remember going for a drink in a pub that evening with some friends. It was Slattery’s on Capel Street. In the corner, Sky News was showing night vision pictures of the skyline over Kabul. The Northern Alliance were shelling Taliban positions. No one was quite sure what was going on exactly, but I remember people – punters, barstaff, everyone – staring at the television screen in grim silence. And this ominous refrain began playing over and over in my head… Read the rest of this entry »

A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA FALL (1962)

“I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of small children…”

Dylan wrote A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall when he was 21 years old. It was 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis was at its height. The world was on the brink of nuclear war. He later said that every line in the song was intended to be the first line of a song he wanted to compose one day. “But when I wrote it,” he explained “I thought I wouldn’t have enough time alive to write all those songs, so I put all I could into this one.”

For me, the song is inextricably associated with a world event of comparable magnitude that occurred when I was the same age Dylan was in 1962. Read the rest of this entry »

Published: Irish Times, March 6 2010

I’m a bit surprised to be referred to as “you people”… Isn’t that kind of condescending?

MAT FRASER
Star of Channel 4’s Cast-Offs, his one man show From Freak to Clique comes to Dublin this month.

When you walk out in front of an audience for the first time, how do you break the ice?
Well, obviously, I was born with phocomelia. That’s glaringly obvious and people want to know about it. So I deal with that straight away. You can’t lampoon others if you’re not willing to lampoon yourself. Read the rest of this entry »