Desolation Row

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Desolation Row
Bob Dylan
publication July 1965
length 11:22
Genre (s) Folk
Author (s) Bob Dylan
Label Columbia Records
album Highway 61 Revisited

Desolation Row is a folk song by Bob Dylan that first appeared on his 1965 studio album Highway 61 Revisited .

The eleven-minute verse epic consists of ten stanzas of twelve verses each and is one of the longest songs that Dylan has written in his career (only Highlands on Time Out of Mind , Tempest on the album of the same name , Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands on Blonde on Blonde and Murder Most Foul have a longer duration). As with other pieces from Highway 61 Revisited , Dylan uses surrealist metaphors and employs historical, literary, biblical and fictional characters.

Emergence

Dylan first recorded Desolation Row on July 29, 1965 with Harvey Brooks on bass and Al Kooper on electric guitar . He himself played the acoustic guitar and harmonica . This first version did not appear until 2005 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home  : The Soundtrack .

Released on Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 , the version features guitar parts by Charles Ray McCoy and Russ Savakus (bass). Dylan played guitar and harmonica; the version again had a running time of over eleven minutes, but this time the song was an acoustic folk number.

content

Much has been speculated and written about the content of the long song. The title is possibly a mix of Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row . Much has been discussed about the metaphorical meaning of Desolation Row (in German, for example: Alley of Despair).

The most common interpretation connects the text with the Duluth lynching of June 15, 1920. Dylan was born and raised in this town and his father Abram Zimmerman was eight years old at the time; he had often reported the events of the night, as he had lived not far from the crime scene. The first verse of the piece refers to an execution: "They're selling postcards of the hanging" . The circus is in town also refers to the location of the Duluth murders. The line “They're painting the passports brown” refers to the division of people into two or more groups. In addition to racial segregation in the USA, the Star of David could also be meant during the Nazi era . The figure of this first scene is the blind commissioner (blind police chief), who lets everything happen in a trance and tied up without a word, while the lyrical self with a lady observes the whole thing from Desolation Row .

The second verse introduces Cinderella , who just lives and is content, while her poses are reminiscent of Bette Davis . Romeo unexpectedly enters her world and announces that she belongs to him; he is obviously not sure about this (“You belong to me I believe”) . He is expelled from the place by an anonymous person (And someone says, "You're in the wrong place my friend // You better leave") . Cinderella is left with the housework and returns to Desolation Row . A theme for this second stanza is salvation or hope. Cinderella has recently come to terms with her situation and no longer seems to have any hope of a change in her dreary everyday life. When a fairy-tale hero appears to save her with his love, he is thrown out of the scene with the words that he was wrong about the place. Salvation does not even get an opportunity to show itself or to work.

The third stanza describes the night. While the fortune teller admits her things, all citizens either expect rain or make love. Exceptions are Cain and Abel and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame . The Good Samaritan is getting ready to go to the carnival that is taking place on Desolation Row . This stanza introduces several motifs. At the beginning that of shame , when the stars and the moon hide (“Now the moon is almost hidden // The stars are beginning to hide”) . The previous event puts the heavenly stars ashamed and they refuse to participate. The fortune teller admits all of her things, which can be interpreted as the superfluity of any clairvoyance: the events are perfectly clear. Another motive is that of exclusion. Cain, Abel and Quasimodo are not allowed to share in expectations or in love. Both are thereby portrayed as something that is not available to everyone, which could be yet another reference to black rights in America in the 1950s and 1960s.

The fourth stanza introduces Shakespeare's second character, Ophelia . Her listlessness, her fear of ending up as an old maid , her growing suicidality and her lifelessness are portrayed, even when she looks at Noah's big rainbow, with which according to the Bible the flood ended. At the end, it is mentioned that she passes her time peeking into Desolation Row . The stanza describes melancholy and powerlessness using the example of a literary figure. The lyrical self admits that Ophelia's behavior worries him (“For her I feel so afraid”) and that death is something romantically transfigured for her, which is why she wears chain mail. Their sin is lifelessness; all of this alludes to Ophelia's suicide in the fourth act of Hamlet and the difficulties of her funeral in the fifth act. Then as now, people are threatened with melancholy, which can lead to suicidality. Within the song Desolation Row, Ophelia is the counterpart to Cinderella from the second verse, which ends with the hope of salvation and can also lead a bleak life. The chain mail can also be a reference to Joan of Arc . Carl Weissner , on the other hand, translates “Iron vest” as “chastity belt”.

In the fifth stanza, Dylan lets a historical figure appear, namely Albert Einstein , who disguised himself as Robin Hood and left the place an hour ago with his memories in a suitcase (original verse : "With his memories in a trunk") . With him was his friend, the jealous monk, who looked terrifying and who was smoking a cigarette. They did strange things like sniffing gutters and reciting the alphabet . The lyric self suggests that you don't think about it, but Einstein was once famous for playing an electric violin on Desolation Row . This combines classic and modern; in relation to Einstein, it serves as a metaphor for his work in physics, in which he reconsidered classical worldviews and transferred them to modernity. Reality and fiction are also mixed up when Einstein appears as Robin Hood, a person whose historical existence has not been proven. Einstein leaves Desolation Row under a different name and strange gestures ; the upcoming event ensures that intellectual figures leave the place. Some interpretations connect the stanza with Einstein's escape from the National Socialists (as a Jew).

On the next dozen verses, Dr. Filth (in German: Dr. Schmutz), which he holds together with a testicle protection (leather cup - known from sport). His patients are sexless and so play with protection and try to inflate it. His sister is a well-known failure who is responsible for the potassium cyanide and writes cards that read: Have Mercy on His Soul (be mercy on his soul!). They, presumably the patients, play the flutes and you can hear them playing if you keep your head far enough out of Desolation Row . What Dylan means by this verse has been discussed and interpreted many times. What is certain is that insanity and death are described when patients try to inflate the testicle protection, which is not possible. The cards the nurse writes indicate the death of some or all of the patients. Important for the interpretation is the fact that the doctor and his sister are raging outside of Desolation Row , but their work can be heard there. Analyzes of the lyrics, which see a work on the Holocaust in Desolation Row , often relate this verse to concentration camps and Josef Mengele . In fact, this interpretation approach is possible from a literary perspective due to the ambiguity of the text.

The seventh stanza features a fictional character and a historically documented but often transfigured person: the Phantom of the Opera and Casanova . A party is prepared by hanging curtains over the streets. The phantom is the perfect imitation of a priest and they feed Casanova with spoons to make him feel safe, but then they kill him confidently after poisoning him with words. Meanwhile, the phantom scares away girls who have come for Casanova by saying that they'd better get out of the way because they don't know anything. Casanova has just been punished for going to Desolation Row . Dylan uses a clear literary quote here. The verses The Phantom of the Opera // A perfect image of a priest are based on a sentence from Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels , where the sentence a perfect image of a priest appears. This verse brings up issues such as hypocrisy and false friends . The Phantom of the Opera appears unusually self-confident and casual and betrays Casanova, who blindly trusts him. Casanova falls victim to his trust. Some critics and fans associate this verse with the Reichspogromnacht of 1938; the mentioned festival is therefore the pogrom.

The eighth stanza describes a scenario and an action and does not require directly named persons. The supermen come out at midnight and know more than they say they do. They bring them to the factory, where the heart-attack machine (in German , the heart attack machine) they will be tied behind their backs and then kerosene brought down from the castles and insurance employees make sure that no one in the Desolation Row refuge. It is possible that Dylan is actually describing the Holocaust here (although the rest of the song does not refer to it directly). The main theme of the song is people in modern times; human experiences and their suffering in the modern age. The Holocaust seems to be portrayed as part of modernity in this stanza and cannot be denied . The kerosene could be an allusion and metaphor for the Zyklon B used by the Nazis . The reference to the superhuman crew (Übermenschengruppe) is possibly an allusion to the National Socialist racial doctrine, which classified the Germans as Aryans and also as Übermenschen.

Then the flight of intellectuals is described again, but this time also in the course of a mass flight. Thanks are due to Neptune because the Titanic can set sail unhindered. Everyone on board asks the lyric self which side it is on. Ezra Pound and TS Eliot fight on the navigating bridge and calypso singers laugh at them as the fishermen hold bouquets of flowers. The windows facing the ocean show lovely mermaids and nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row . The escape described here is doomed and the audience knows this immediately when it is mentioned that the ship is the Titanic . In the struggle for survival that follows, even the best friendship turns into bitter rivalry when Dylan lets Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot fight each other. The Calypso singers amuse themselves because they seem to have accepted death or do not believe in it. The rhetorical question Which side are you on? seems to refer to the fact that in modern times one always has to have an attitude and is not accepted without confession. Dylan may be referring to his own experiences when he broke with the folk protest movement, which demanded a clear political stance from him, the same year Desolation Row was written.

Before and after the last verse, Dylan inserts a harmonica passage. In this point Desolation Row is no different from the other songs on the Highway 61 Revisited album . In this tenth stanza, the lyric self is now the acting person. She reports that she received the letter (Yes, I received your letter yesterday) , but did not take the question of how she was doing seriously, and asked if it was some kind of joke. She remembered all these people who were mentioned, even if they were extremely lame and she had to rearrange all the faces and give them a new name. She asks not to receive any new letters because she can no longer read too well; the only exception if the letters are postmarked on Desolation Row . These last verses raise the question of what Desolation Row is all about. What kind of place is it? Literally translated, it is an alley in which despair reigns. In the last stanza, the lyric self seems to be so mentally ill that the question of wellbeing appears as a bad joke, since its condition, possibly depression, is obvious. Further letters will only be accepted if they come from the (spiritual) place where the I is currently located, Desolation Row . What kind of people live there has been described above. There is an urban chaos that modernity is unable to resolve. Lifelessness, depression, genocide, or loneliness; all of this comes together in the modern world.

reception

Dylan often played the song live, including his controversial appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 , when he first went on stage with an electrically amplified band. His performance was split in half. During the first half he played the songs in the familiar way, acoustically and alone; Desolation Row was one of the pieces performed in this way . In the second half he picked up the electric guitar, which the folk community acknowledged with boos. His performance on May 17, 1966 at the Royal Albert Hall was also legendary . There, too, Dylan played songs acoustically and with a band and again Desolation Row was one of the first mentioned. Another live version, with shortened text, appeared on MTV Unplugged in 1995 .

Much has been written about him since the song appeared on Highway 61 Revisited . It is widely regarded as one of the best pieces by Dylan and a classic in modern music history. When Rolling Stone magazine published its list of the 500 best songs of all time in 2005 , Desolation Row landed at number 187, and then at number 185 in a revised version.

Uncut magazine published a list of Dylan's best songs in 2002, placing Desolation Row 7th and Mojo placing the track 4th on their list.

Mick Jagger moved in 2011 in an interview with Rolling Stone comparing to The Waste Land ( The Waste Land ) approach, one in 1922 by TS Eliot written poem that caused as "ambiguous and eloquent Versdichtung" about "the upheavals of a new century, together with the resulting Horror ”speaks.

Cover versions

My Chemical Romance recorded Desolation Row for the soundtrack of the movie Watchmen . The single was very successful in the American charts. Also Grateful Dead have tried on that song. From the 1980s they play him at concerts. Fabrizio De André recorded an Italian version of the piece. Chris Smither and Robyn Hitchcock recorded other versions of the song. Desolation Row appeared in 1993 with Swiss-German lyrics on the album BOB DYLAN SONGS - Mundart by Toni Vescoli , he recorded an earlier English cover version in 1966 with his band Les Sauterelles .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bob Dylan: Texts and Drawings .
  2. ↑ Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels, Flamingo Modern Classics, p. 215, 3rd line
  3. ^ Archives of the Rolling Stone site on Web.Archive ( Memento from June 22, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Uncur Magazine, June 2002 - accessed February 22, 2013
  5. ↑ Mojo Magazine September 2005 - accessed February 22, 2013.
  6. ↑ Mick Jagger in Rolling Stone about the song Desolation Row : "Someone said that 'Desolation Row' is Dylan's version of The Waste Land." (May 20, 2011, accessed February 23, 2013)
  7. ↑ Eberhard Falcke: Not even loneliness. Book of the week: "The desolate land" by TS Eliot. In: Deutschlandradio Kultur. December 21, 2008, accessed February 23, 2013 .
  8. ↑ [1] "Les Saterelles" at discogs.com