A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" is a song written by Bob Dylan in the summer of 1962. It was first recorded in Columbia Records' Studio A on December 6, 1962, for his second album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The lyrical structure is based on the question and answer form of traditional ballads such as Lord Randall. Dylan has stated that all of the lyrics were taken from the initial lines of songs that "he thought he would never have time to write."