Desolation Row

Introduction

This is for Annie Kapur's "Sing Us the Song of the Century" Challenge, which you can find here:

I don't normally make more than one entry to a Challenge, but I will have two in this one. Even Bob Dylan has so many "story songs" that take you somewhere else, and Jimi Hendrix's cover of "All Along The Watchtower" would be my choice if I were limited to a 7" single and we have Hedrix's guitar and full on vocals (apparently, he was embarrassed about his own lyrics but he lets loose on Dylan's words) but that is not for this story.

Desolation Row

The song closes the second side of "Highway 61 Revisited", although I still refer to the vinyl form, but it is the album closer if you listen on CD or stream.

I am listening to the song as I write this piece, and from the very first line, you are in some otherworldly western town as unseen observers.

Almost every line, for me, is memorable, bringing to life scenes of what is happening in Desolation Row.

They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown

The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, the circus is in town

I could quote so many lines from this that strike a chord in me. This is very much a movie for the ears, and Dylan is excellent at that.

I suppose this is a song critique, and I could listen to it several times (it clocks in at over eleven minutes), and it has provided me with lots of ideas for my Vocal stories.

I'll leave you with two couplets from the song that stay with me, though I could probably quote the whole song.

They are spoon feeding Casanova to get him to feel more assured

Then they'll kill him with self-confidence after poisoning him with words

Ophelia, she's 'neath the window for her I feel so afraid

On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic she wears an iron vest

Her profession's her religion, her sin is her lifelessness