The Fire and the Furnace

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
Have you been to the cells in El Salvador country?
Have you been to the cages in Everglades swamplands?
Have you been on the sidewalks where Pretti lay dying?
Have you been on the fish boats blown high by the drone-bombs?
Have you been in the tunnels where Hamas lay seething?
Have you been in the rubble where children lay wasting?
Have you been with the brass who draft carnage in war memes?
Have you been with the God Squad who sentenced the quail bird?
Have you been with the poet who said he was weary?
Did you sit by the furnace with no fire burning?
Yes, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

“I don’t know how I got to write those songs . . . ‘Darkness at the break of noon shadows even the silver spoon, the handmade blade, the child’s balloon eclipses both the sun and moon to understand you know too soon there is no sense in trying.’ Try to sit down and write something like that . . . I did it once and I can do other things now, but I can’t do that.”
Bob Dylan, January 15, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CObJEUSvv9o&list=PLfVlpJOZOP0nuSd2VHzl6DFBTKMqQ4FsI&index=3

(Added June 16, 2026.)