WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
The Illustrated Desolation Row
byVanderleunonAugust 22, 2020
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”
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.
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.
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.
.
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.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
NEW Real World Address for Complaints, Brickbats, and Donations
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
“From a student radical/hippie/leftist of the Free Speech Movement/Vietnam Day Commitee era and a full-on Democratic Liberal in the decades after, I think I’ve evolved a politics that is neither right nor left but is, in its elemental nature, draconian. In the last 20 years, I’ve taken apart my beliefs with a sledgehammer. Now I’ve got to put the surviving parts back together with tweezers and other ‘shabby equipment, always deteriorating’.”
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
They’re trying to blow it up 
From Desolation Row….
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
Gerard Van der Leun
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
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.