WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
The Illustrated Desolation Row
byVanderleunonMarch 14, 2022
[WRITER’S NOTE: I made this nearly 13 years ago and yet, today, it seems more on the money than ever.]
Submitted for your approval the most enduringly prophetic Dylan song. I have juxtaposed the lyrics with images found in the Life Magazine Image Library, and supported by the extremely strange but somehow successful “Desolation Row – The Marionette Performance” by Vlamik. Created some 12 years ago, it only becomes more prophetic the deeper we go into the dying sigh of a botched civilization.
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
Here comes the blind commissioner
They’ve got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they’re restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row….
CINDERELLA, she seems so easy
“It takes one to know one,” she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
“You Belong to Me I Believe”
And someone says,” You’re in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave”
And the only sound that’s left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
NOW the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he’s dressing
He’s getting ready for the show
He’s going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
NOW 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
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
EINSTEIN, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
DOCTOR FILTH he keeps his world Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They’re trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She’s in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
“Have Mercy on His Soul”
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
ACROSS the street they’ve nailed the curtains
They’re getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They’re spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls
“Get Outa Here If You Don’t Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row”
NOWat midnight all the agents And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
PRAISE be to Nero’s Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody’s shouting
“Which Side Are You On?”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
YES, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the doorknob broke) When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name
How long did it take you to make that collage. Very impressive. I believe the ship that is pictured sinking was the Andrea Doria in the 1950’s.
TerryAugust 22, 2020, 6:57 PM
That grotesque video could be a visual record of today and then later as the democrats/communists fully steal control of the world. Sickening to me how stupid the citizens of our once great nation have become.
A blood bath is awaiting the go word for sure. No reconciliation is possible. When the ammunition runs out, the knives, swords, clubs, stones and ropes will finish the work.
LPSeptember 8, 2021, 5:23 PM
Terry,
So what can we do now?
TerrySeptember 8, 2021, 6:38 PM
LP,
After a year since my comment and your current question, I am still trying to maintain my sanity and at the same time, remain calm. Not an easy task for my aging bones.
The government of Australia is showing the world that Hitler is still alive. Along with Stalin, Mussolini and other world class sh*t bags. The worst Tyrant may be the resident of the White House at present. Too early to make that call I’m guessing.
I have totally lost all respect for the “medical practitioners” and their houses of death.
I had no idea how thick the world is with tyrants.
EndOfPatienceMarch 14, 2022, 4:37 AM
“When the ammunition runs out …”
That will take a while for some of us.
But we’re still training on knives and bare hands in case it happens.
ckAugust 22, 2020, 7:25 PM
Probably my favorite Dylan song. I liked the Grateful Dead’s live versions the best. Kind of funny, Weir never forgot a single word, but I saw him flub Truckin’ a couple of times.
A tribute to victims… and villains. Great job, Gerard. The black & white imagery holds so much gravity. I had to stop and ponder Nixon for a bit… and then Hillary… such greedy psychopaths. The mermaid deserved more dignity. We all do.
Roy LofquistAugust 23, 2020, 7:06 AM
“Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can’t read too good, don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row”
And therein lies the tale. The tale of a love affair gone lame. She was more into her circle of friends than into him. The “Blind Commissioner” and “Cinderella” and the rest are the sobriquets he bestowed upon them.
Frequent ReaderAugust 23, 2020, 7:44 AM
Sorry, but I found the vocals on that soundtrack to be utterly unintelligible.
timSeptember 9, 2021, 5:13 AM
I find ALL of Dylans vocals to be utterly unintelligible, like a worn-out chainsaw – eeeeeh eeehhh…
Though I did appreciate the written lyrics, and the accompanying pics, provided by Gerard.
Gordon ScottSeptember 9, 2021, 8:40 AM
As I have noted here before, my last wife saw Dylan and the Stones at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, famous for its soft surfaces that absorb sound. The acoustics were so bad, you could actually understand what Dylan was singing.
I used to wonder what the big appeal was. I’ve listened to some of his stuff since, looked into some of the lyrics. The guy has a talent for lyrics, and capturing a societal mood. And he did it without being political. That’s a freaking amazing thing in itself.
Dylan for the Nobel prize? Hell, he was modest and self-effacing. They’ve given it to a lot of genuine bums over the years. There might be better choices, but the committee wouldn’t even look at them nowadays.
Casey KlahnAugust 23, 2020, 9:38 AM
The top of ProTrumpNews this morning:
(Portland) Antifa rolls out guillotine.
YouTube takes down dislikes of Biden speech vid.
Van passes out shields to rioters.
Going to be interesting till November.
Auntie AnalogueAugust 23, 2020, 10:23 AM
The original album-release recording of “Desolation Row” has always been my favorite Dylan song, chiefly because it is densely crammed with nigh nightmarish vivid imagery, but also because its instrumental backing lays a formidable foundation for the lyrics.
The track’s insistent rhythmic strumming, accented frequently on the last two beats of a bar with an accelerated syncopation, garlanded with masterfully improvised riffs by ace Nashville session picker Charlie McCoy (who, in my understanding, had never heard the song before he stepped into the studio to record it), combine musically to lend the lyric imagery a gravity that reifies the words’ borderline baffling absurdity. (All of that, plus the original’s far finer vocal as commenter Frequent Reader astutely encapsulated, is sorely lacking in the live rendition in this post’s YouTube video.)
My dear Stargazer, your identification of the Andrea Doria is correct. Given that the photo montage is figurative and that no photos were taken of the stricken Titanic, let me suggest that using the photo of the doomed Italian liner is forgivable.
VanderleunAugust 23, 2020, 10:54 AM
I’m down with Auntie on all of that.
TonyAugust 23, 2020, 7:42 PM
Fuck Dylan. A plagiarist like slow joe. Voice of a generation: bullshit
He’s won the Nobel Prize. Before the Chinese Virus he was still touring at around 80 years old. His life has been very big and very full. He’s pretty much run the table.
.
Gordon ScottSeptember 9, 2021, 8:43 AM
I am not a Dylan worshipper. I was about ten years too young, I think. But I have come to appreciate that he is a phenomenon.
TonyAugust 24, 2020, 5:58 AM
Gerard, it is your blog and you do get the last word, however:
Nobel Prize, low bar see: Neville Chamberlain & Pres #44.
Personal Achievement: Five self supporting children, all love America, are tattoo free and each knows to keep the tires straight when stopped in traffic to make a left.
Blowing in the wind: I was raised Protestant and tend not to.
Love your blog, but can’t stand Mr. Zimmerman.
VanderleunAugust 24, 2020, 8:21 AM
I take your point, Tony. And withdraw my intemperate remark.
John A. FlemingSeptember 8, 2021, 3:34 PM
It’s been my observation that the folks that really like Dylan and think he’s profound are the older boomers. He just leaves me unmoved and I never got why my older contemporaries were and are so smitten. I’m not like Tony, for me he’s an i-don’t-care. I wonder, will there be anyone alive 30 years from now who gets Dylan?
It may be that the zeitgeist of a generation can only be truly known by those who lived it. Those who come after can only know it dispassionately.
Sorry GVDL, there are plenty of examples of famous literary persons who were big in their day but faded into obscurity afterwards. I should live so long to see what will happen to him.
ArtySeptember 9, 2021, 6:26 PM
I doubt there’ll be many Americans alive in 30 years who get anything more complicated than a three-word slogan.
Consider pop music circa 1965. Yes, there were The Beach Boys, Elvis, the Beatles, and the rest of the British invasion. There was a lot of pop music, sweetened up with strings, and background vocals but no one turned on the radio to listen to the lyrics of the songs.
I was thirteen when Highway 61 Revisited came out. “Like A Rolling Stone” was unlike anything on the radio, then. It most certainly wasn’t sweet, and those angry, mocking lyrics, in the second person, grabbed me like nothing I’d heard before. I often slept with the radio on.”Ballad of a Thin Man” would occasionally come up on late night broadcasts, wake me up, and just chill me to the bone. What could that song possibly mean? The lyrics simultaneously made no sense, and perfect sense in the fractured logic of a nightmare.
Desolation Row has long been one of my all-time favorite pieces. Back in another life I decided to use DR as a project for the 11th grade English class. You have to be reasonably well-read to know who all the characters, are, and get all the allusions. I listed all that stuff, and had the kids look it up. They had to go to the library and everything.
Once the assignments were in, and we had a class discussion on the who, what, and where, I brought in a CD of Highway 61 Revisited, talked a little about Dylan, and played “Desolation Row.”
Ever had the experience of introducing a beloved piece of music to someone, and then finding yourself sort of hearing it through your his ears?
And you can tell he really don’t like the music at all.
Yeah, that’s what it was like.
So I do get why some folks don’t care for Dylan.
(not really)
JWM
LPSeptember 9, 2021, 6:52 AM
I just want to take a moment to thank Gerard for creating and maintaining this site. I appreciate it!
JackSeptember 9, 2021, 7:42 AM
Absolutely…I do too. Great way to start the morning and thank you GVL for providing it. As for Dylan, I always enjoyed listening to him and I’ll admit, I scarcely understood a word he sang and I probably missed his messages completely.
Love him or hate him, that’s always a choice. And as I try to always remind my daughters: Make Good Choices.
gstaudSeptember 9, 2021, 7:39 AM
Regardless of how you feel about Dylan [I’m pretty ambivalent myself], an excellent piece GVL! The cuts to Bosch[?] in the piece by Vlamik are disturbing and prophetic, for those with the eyes and imagination to see. Well done!
VanderleunSeptember 9, 2021, 5:13 PM
Thanks folks for both the likes and the loves and the dislikes and the hate. This thread is very, very Dylan.
gwbnycMarch 14, 2022, 4:19 AM
Dressed for success& at the drop of a hat, he died a swinger en chapeau.
ghostsniperMarch 14, 2022, 4:22 AM
The huge manatee.
InezMarch 14, 2022, 9:40 AM
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After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble down the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
They’re trying to blow it up 
From Desolation Row…
![That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/welcometohell-150x150.jpg "That Was the Whopper Weekend That Was [Illustrated]")
![Allen Ginsberg: The Interview, <strong> ➡ 1972 ⬅ </strong> [Republished by unpopular demand]](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ginsbergnirvana-150x150.jpg "Allen Ginsberg: The Interview, <strong> ➡ 1972 ⬅ </strong> [Republished by unpopular demand]")
Comments on this entry are closed.
How long did it take you to make that collage. Very impressive. I believe the ship that is pictured sinking was the Andrea Doria in the 1950’s.
That grotesque video could be a visual record of today and then later as the democrats/communists fully steal control of the world. Sickening to me how stupid the citizens of our once great nation have become.
A blood bath is awaiting the go word for sure. No reconciliation is possible. When the ammunition runs out, the knives, swords, clubs, stones and ropes will finish the work.
Terry,
So what can we do now?
LP,
After a year since my comment and your current question, I am still trying to maintain my sanity and at the same time, remain calm. Not an easy task for my aging bones.
The government of Australia is showing the world that Hitler is still alive. Along with Stalin, Mussolini and other world class sh*t bags. The worst Tyrant may be the resident of the White House at present. Too early to make that call I’m guessing.
I have totally lost all respect for the “medical practitioners” and their houses of death.
I had no idea how thick the world is with tyrants.
“When the ammunition runs out …”
That will take a while for some of us.
But we’re still training on knives and bare hands in case it happens.
Probably my favorite Dylan song. I liked the Grateful Dead’s live versions the best. Kind of funny, Weir never forgot a single word, but I saw him flub Truckin’ a couple of times.
A tribute to victims… and villains. Great job, Gerard. The black & white imagery holds so much gravity. I had to stop and ponder Nixon for a bit… and then Hillary… such greedy psychopaths. The mermaid deserved more dignity. We all do.
“Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke
All these people that you mention, yes, I know them, they’re quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces and give them all another name
Right now, I can’t read too good, don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row”
And therein lies the tale. The tale of a love affair gone lame. She was more into her circle of friends than into him. The “Blind Commissioner” and “Cinderella” and the rest are the sobriquets he bestowed upon them.
Sorry, but I found the vocals on that soundtrack to be utterly unintelligible.
I find ALL of Dylans vocals to be utterly unintelligible, like a worn-out chainsaw – eeeeeh eeehhh…
Though I did appreciate the written lyrics, and the accompanying pics, provided by Gerard.
As I have noted here before, my last wife saw Dylan and the Stones at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, famous for its soft surfaces that absorb sound. The acoustics were so bad, you could actually understand what Dylan was singing.
I used to wonder what the big appeal was. I’ve listened to some of his stuff since, looked into some of the lyrics. The guy has a talent for lyrics, and capturing a societal mood. And he did it without being political. That’s a freaking amazing thing in itself.
Dylan for the Nobel prize? Hell, he was modest and self-effacing. They’ve given it to a lot of genuine bums over the years. There might be better choices, but the committee wouldn’t even look at them nowadays.
The top of ProTrumpNews this morning:
(Portland) Antifa rolls out guillotine.
YouTube takes down dislikes of Biden speech vid.
Van passes out shields to rioters.
Going to be interesting till November.
The original album-release recording of “Desolation Row” has always been my favorite Dylan song, chiefly because it is densely crammed with nigh nightmarish vivid imagery, but also because its instrumental backing lays a formidable foundation for the lyrics.
The track’s insistent rhythmic strumming, accented frequently on the last two beats of a bar with an accelerated syncopation, garlanded with masterfully improvised riffs by ace Nashville session picker Charlie McCoy (who, in my understanding, had never heard the song before he stepped into the studio to record it), combine musically to lend the lyric imagery a gravity that reifies the words’ borderline baffling absurdity. (All of that, plus the original’s far finer vocal as commenter Frequent Reader astutely encapsulated, is sorely lacking in the live rendition in this post’s YouTube video.)
My dear Stargazer, your identification of the Andrea Doria is correct. Given that the photo montage is figurative and that no photos were taken of the stricken Titanic, let me suggest that using the photo of the doomed Italian liner is forgivable.
I’m down with Auntie on all of that.
Fuck Dylan. A plagiarist like slow joe. Voice of a generation: bullshit
He’s won the Nobel Prize. Before the Chinese Virus he was still touring at around 80 years old. His life has been very big and very full. He’s pretty much run the table.
.
I am not a Dylan worshipper. I was about ten years too young, I think. But I have come to appreciate that he is a phenomenon.
Gerard, it is your blog and you do get the last word, however:
Nobel Prize, low bar see: Neville Chamberlain & Pres #44.
Personal Achievement: Five self supporting children, all love America, are tattoo free and each knows to keep the tires straight when stopped in traffic to make a left.
Blowing in the wind: I was raised Protestant and tend not to.
Love your blog, but can’t stand Mr. Zimmerman.
I take your point, Tony. And withdraw my intemperate remark.
It’s been my observation that the folks that really like Dylan and think he’s profound are the older boomers. He just leaves me unmoved and I never got why my older contemporaries were and are so smitten. I’m not like Tony, for me he’s an i-don’t-care. I wonder, will there be anyone alive 30 years from now who gets Dylan?
It may be that the zeitgeist of a generation can only be truly known by those who lived it. Those who come after can only know it dispassionately.
Sorry GVDL, there are plenty of examples of famous literary persons who were big in their day but faded into obscurity afterwards. I should live so long to see what will happen to him.
I doubt there’ll be many Americans alive in 30 years who get anything more complicated than a three-word slogan.
Consider pop music circa 1965. Yes, there were The Beach Boys, Elvis, the Beatles, and the rest of the British invasion. There was a lot of pop music, sweetened up with strings, and background vocals but no one turned on the radio to listen to the lyrics of the songs.
I was thirteen when Highway 61 Revisited came out. “Like A Rolling Stone” was unlike anything on the radio, then. It most certainly wasn’t sweet, and those angry, mocking lyrics, in the second person, grabbed me like nothing I’d heard before. I often slept with the radio on.”Ballad of a Thin Man” would occasionally come up on late night broadcasts, wake me up, and just chill me to the bone. What could that song possibly mean? The lyrics simultaneously made no sense, and perfect sense in the fractured logic of a nightmare.
Desolation Row has long been one of my all-time favorite pieces. Back in another life I decided to use DR as a project for the 11th grade English class. You have to be reasonably well-read to know who all the characters, are, and get all the allusions. I listed all that stuff, and had the kids look it up. They had to go to the library and everything.
Once the assignments were in, and we had a class discussion on the who, what, and where, I brought in a CD of Highway 61 Revisited, talked a little about Dylan, and played “Desolation Row.”
Ever had the experience of introducing a beloved piece of music to someone, and then finding yourself sort of hearing it through your his ears?
And you can tell he really don’t like the music at all.
Yeah, that’s what it was like.
So I do get why some folks don’t care for Dylan.
(not really)
JWM
I just want to take a moment to thank Gerard for creating and maintaining this site. I appreciate it!
Absolutely…I do too. Great way to start the morning and thank you GVL for providing it. As for Dylan, I always enjoyed listening to him and I’ll admit, I scarcely understood a word he sang and I probably missed his messages completely.
Love him or hate him, that’s always a choice. And as I try to always remind my daughters: Make Good Choices.
Regardless of how you feel about Dylan [I’m pretty ambivalent myself], an excellent piece GVL! The cuts to Bosch[?] in the piece by Vlamik are disturbing and prophetic, for those with the eyes and imagination to see. Well done!
Thanks folks for both the likes and the loves and the dislikes and the hate. This thread is very, very Dylan.
Dressed for success& at the drop of a hat, he died a swinger en chapeau.
The huge manatee.
Dollars earning easy job to work and earn online. start now making every day more than $500 simply working from home. Last month my earning from this are $16205 and i gave this job only 2 hours from my whole day. Easiest way to earn more income online and it doesn’t needs any kind of special experience. Go to this website right now and follow details to get started right now……. https://monthlyincome2.blogspot.com/
They love him real good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S5NnGZRCMA