Romney, later to become Wavy Gravy of Woodstock and Merry Pranksters fame, lived above The Gaslight Cafe on MacDougal Street, where he worked as entertainment director.
[7] Dylan frequently hung out upstairs in Romney's apartment and wrote one of his most significant songs there, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall", in August 1962 .
[6][9] A differing account, by biographer and critic Robert Shelton, posits that the song concerns the lost innocence of Dylan's adolescence in Hibbing, Minnesota.
"Lady Franklin's Lament" concludes on a similar note: Ten thousand pounds would I freely give To know on earth, that my Franklin do live.Within a short time, Dylan made the song a regular part of his repertoire, performing it for his first major New York concert at Town Hall on April 12, 1963.
Less than two weeks later, on April 24, he recorded two takes of the song at Columbia's Studio A, one of which was selected for the album Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.