Desolation Row: Difference between revisions
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==Covers== |
==Covers== |
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{{Infobox Single |
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| Name = Desolation Row |
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| Cover = |
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| Artist = [[My Chemical Romance]] |
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| from Album = Watchmen: Music From the Motion Picture |
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| Released = January 26, 2009 (digital)<br>January 27, 2009 (12" vinyl) |
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| Format = [[Gramophone record|12" vinyl]]<br>[[Digital distribution|Digital download]] |
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| Recorded = [[2008 in music|2008]] |
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| Genre = [[Alternative rock]]<br>[[My Chemical Romance#Musical style and influences|Disputed subgenres]]<!--DO NOT CHANGE THE GENRE WITHOUT FIRST DISCUSSING IN MAIN ARTICLE TALK PAGE--> |
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| Length = 2:59 |
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| Label = [[Reprise Records]]<br>[[Warner Sunset Records]] |
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| Writer = [[Bob Dylan]] |
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| Producer = |
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| Certification = |
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| Last single = "[[Teenagers (song)|Teenagers]]"<br>(2007) |
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| This single = "'''Desolation Row'''"<br>(2007) |
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| Misc = |
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}} |
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According to the [[Grateful Dead]] website, the Dead have performed a cover version of "Desolation Row" since the mid-1980's. 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." |
According to the [[Grateful Dead]] website, the Dead have performed a cover version of "Desolation Row" since the mid-1980's. 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." |
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Revision as of 06:46, 27 January 2009
| "Desolation Row" | |
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| Song |
"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. Rolling Stone ranked the song as number 185 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time[1]
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."
Origins and influences
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2008) |
The title "Desolation Row" is likely a reference both to Jack Kerouac's novel Desolation Angels and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and wrote The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels based on his experiences. Steinbeck's Cannery Row is a place where the outcasts of society found a home (as in "Skid Row"). In a television press conference on December 3, 1965, Dylan responded to an interviewer's question about the location of Desolation Row by saying it was "someplace in Mexico."[2]
Al Kooper, who played organ and piano on the album, claimed in his autobiography that "Desolation Row" was Eighth Avenue in New York City.
The opening lines of the song, "They're selling postcards of the hanging... The circus is in town," appear to have been drawn from the Duluth lynchings, which occurred in Dylan's hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, located at the northern end of Highway 61.
T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land also appears to have influenced "Desolation Row."
Dylan spoke to Edna Gundersen of USA Today about the song on September 10, 2001, the day before the release of his album Love and Theft. Dylan is quoted as saying 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."[3]
The song's lyric "At midnight all the agents" was used by Alan Moore as the title of Chapter 1 of his 12-part graphic novel Watchmen. An expanded version of the lyrics – "At midnight all the agents and their superhuman crew, go out and round up anybody who knows more than they do" – appears as the chapter's last panel.
Covers
| "Desolation Row" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
According to the Grateful Dead website, the Dead have performed a cover version of "Desolation Row" since the mid-1980's. 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 performed the song on his 2003 album Train Home with Bonnie Raitt backup on vocals and slide guitar.[4]
My Chemical Romance covered the song for the end credits of Watchmen, the soundtrack from which is expected to be released in 2009.[5]
References
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Retrieved 2008-08-08.
- ^ Dylan on Dylan, page 61. Wenner Media, 2006
- ^ http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/2001-09-10-bob-dylan.htm#more
- ^ Choates, Rick (2003). "Chris Smither's Long Train Home". Northern Express. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ http://www2.kerrang.com/2009/01/my_chemical_romance_release_bo.html