The most enduringly prophetic Dylan song juxtaposed 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.
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”
NOW at 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
Right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row….
Related Posts:
The Illustrated Desolation Row
Boomer Anthems: "Jump" with bonus interview of David…- Long Read of the Day: Amendment 2: A Legal…
"And the state of our nation is... greatness or…
The Man Who Loved Not Wisely But At Least Twice
What I Saw: Notes Made on September 11, 2001 from…
TRUMP SPARES NO ONE: 10 Best Lines from the Gridiron Dinner
America's Anchorman Interviews President Trump
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.
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.
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.
.
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.