Desolation Row
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Desolation Row" | |||||
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| Song by Bob Dylan | |||||
| Album | Highway 61 Revisited | ||||
| Released | August 30, 1965 | ||||
| Recorded | Columbia Studios, New York, August 4, 1965 | ||||
| Genre | Rock Folk rock |
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| Length | 11:21 | ||||
| Label | Columbia | ||||
| Writer | Bob Dylan | ||||
| Producer | Bob Johnston | ||||
| Highway 61 Revisited track listing | |||||
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"Desolation Row" is the closing track of Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. It is noted for its length (11:21) and surreal lyrics. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, in Columbia's Studio A in New York City. The two takes spliced for the album were the second and third time Dylan had sung the song. Charlie McCoy played acoustic guitar for the record, making it the album's only track not to feature an electric guitar. An alternate version was also recorded with electric guitar and a prominent bass that was eventually released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack. Rolling Stone ranked the song as number 185 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time[1] Joe Strummer makes a reference to Desolation Row in his song "Coma Girl" released on Streetcore. It's also referenced in Laura Branigan's "Spanish Eddie" (David Palmer/Chuck Cochran), Atlantic, 1985.
In the New Oxford Companion to Music, Gammond described "Desolation Row" as an example of Dylan's work that achieved a "high level of poetical lyricism."
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[edit] Inspiration and composition
In an interview with USA Today on September 10, 2001, the day before the release of his album Love and Theft, Dylan claimed that the song "is a minstrel song through and through. I saw some ragtag minstrel show in blackface at the carnivals when I was growing up, and it had an effect on me, just as much as seeing the lady with four legs."[2]
In Desolation Row, Dylan is warning people that society is heading for destruction, an apocalypse, if it continues in its then direction. With the US locked in a deadly embrace with Russia, teetering on a knife-edge of mutually assured nuclear destruction, it was reasonable for people to be concerned (more like scared half to death), but governments of the time characterized anyone who spoke out against the Cold War as unpatriotic, even traitorous. When we read the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it is horrifying to realize just how close the world came to letting the generals on both sides unleash a nuclear holocaust that would have likely destroyed much of the world as we know it.
In Desolation Row, Dylan uses a rich set of cultural and religious stereotypes as metaphors to describe this lunacy of main stream 1960's American society. Dylan probably wants us to take it as a whole and not deconstruct it too much. There is a harmony between the layers of his work, a consistency of theme in which he seems to be saying, this is the distilled truth as I see it, and these are the symbols that I have assembled to tell it as I see it.
[edit] Where is Desolation Row?
Desolation Row is a counter-culture destination, though more a state of mind than an actual place. The name probably comes from combining Jack Kerouac's novel Desolation Angels and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.[citation needed]. Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and wrote The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels from his life transforming experiences on the peak. It has also been suggested that TS Eliot's poem The Wasteland was an influence on Desolation Row. Musician Al Kooper asserts Desolation Row is in Greenwich Village in New York City, based on personal contact with Dylan.
So Desolation Row represents a variety of counter-culture destinations; Skid Row, Cannery Row, Greenwich Village, Desolation Peak, TS Eliot's The Wasteland and others, because each of them represents an essential truth, the same truth, differently told. Its all of them, and none of them in particular.
[edit] Covers and translations
Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André wrote "Via della Povertà", an Italian translation of "Desolation Row", and included it in his 1974 album Canzoni. In Norway, Åge Aleksandersen recorded his version called "Nederst på Karl Johan" (on Fredløs: Dylan på norsk, 1997).
According to the Grateful Dead website, the Dead have performed a cover version of "Desolation Row" since the mid-1980s. The song is included on their 2002 release Postcards of the Hanging, which features a recording from March 24, 1990, at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, New York. The song was frequently included in Dead set lists and is often abbreviated as "D-Row."
Chris Smither recorded the song on his 2003 album Train Home with Bonnie Raitt providing backup on vocals and slide guitar.[3]
Dan Tillberg made a Swedish cover version called "Hopplöshetens gränd" on the "Kärlek minus noll" ("Love Minus Zero") cover album.
[edit] My Chemical Romance version
| "Desolation Row" | |||||
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| Single by My Chemical Romance | |||||
| from the album Watchmen: Music from the Motion Picture | |||||
| Released | January 26, 2009 (digital) January 27, 2009 (12" vinyl) |
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| Format | 12" vinyl Digital download |
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| Recorded | 2008 | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock, Punk rock, Post-hardcore | ||||
| Length | 3:01 | ||||
| Label | Reprise Records Warner Sunset Records |
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| Writer(s) | Bob Dylan | ||||
| My Chemical Romance singles chronology | |||||
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My Chemical Romance covered "Desolation Row"[4], for the 2009 soundtrack of Watchmen.[5] The song peaked at #20 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks in March, 2009.[6] The first chapter of Watchmen ("At Midnight All the Agents") is also named in one of the lines of the song.
[edit] References
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/500songs/page/2. Retrieved on 2008-08-08.
- ^ Gundersen, Edna Dylan is positively on top of his game, USA Today 2001-09-10
- ^ Choates, Rick (2003). "Chris Smither's Long Train Home". Northern Express. http://www.northernexpress.com/editorial/music.asp?id=174. Retrieved on 2009-01-01.
- ^ "My Chemical Romance video for Desolation Row". Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9VaVukLtfg. Retrieved on 2009-06-28.
- ^ "My Chemical Romance Release Bob Dylan Cover Next Month". Kerrang. http://www2.kerrang.com/2009/01/my_chemical_romance_release_bo.html. Retrieved on 2009-06-16.
- ^ "Artist Chart History - My Chemical Romance". Billboard. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=489806&model.vnuAlbumId=1144893. Retrieved on 2009-06-16.
[edit] External links
- "Desolation Row", complete song lyrics
- Rolling Stone article on "Desolation Row" as the 185th Greatest Song of All Time
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