Songs About Sports - "Hurricane"

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There are just three tunes left in this little Songs About Sports series, and today, we make our first visit to the Sweet Science, boxing. In this case, a specific fighter - “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (1937 - 2014) was a middleweight boxer (the most entertaining of all the weight classes, as far as I’m concerned) who was wrongly convicted of a triple-murder in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1966. He was imprisoned until 1985 before his conviction was overturned. Prior to his arrest, Rubin Carter was the 5th-ranked middleweight in the world with a record of 27-12-1 with 19 total knockouts. He is in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame. One of the world’s premier protest songwriters, Bob Dylan, took notice of the conviction, and in 1975, his ire penned “Hurricane,” basically telling Carter’s story in an angry fashion. “Hurricane” rocks - this isn’t “Dust in the Wind” folk, this is Dylan in all his electric-era glory. The song reached #33 on the Billboard Hot 100, but did really well in Australia, where it peaked at #7. After his release, Carter became a Canadian citizen, and director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted. He also was a motivational speaker and activist up until his death from prostate cancer in 2014. Link is to a “lyric” video of “Hurricane:”