| Bob Dylan – Desolation Row Lyrics | 13 years ago |
| Desolation Row was written in 1965, a crucial year in Dylan's career. He'd made a break from the folk scene that has brought him his early success. He'd broken up with Suze Roloto and had an affair with Joan Baez that had recently ended. He'd met Allen Ginsburg the previous year and made a personal connection to the original Beats. He'd taken hallucinogens. And the success of the Beatles had revived his childhood love of rock music. If you look at the themes of other songs he'd written in the year past, he made a lot of direct references to the changes going on in him and him relationships and his art: "Positively 4th Street," "My back Pages," etc. I think this is another. Desolation Row is a place outside of normal society. It's where the Beats live. (Two lines are lifted from Kerouac's "Desolation Angels.") It's Bohemia. And he's writing about the world as he sees it from there. The song isn't overtly political, though there are images that could be government agents and politicians (Nero, the commissioner). The characters are given names from literature or history -- a technique he used widely at the time. I would say that he had people in mind when he wrote the characters, although, in their depiction, the primary consideration is probably writing a good lyric rather than accuracy of any kind. It was Ginsberg's favorite Dylan song, so something tells be that Ginsberg saw himself in it somewhere. I think Ophelia bares a sharp resemblance to Baez, peeking into the Row but outside of it, an old maid in spirit at 22, the age Dylan met her. The "iron vest" possibly a reference to Joan of Arc's armor; a zealous devotion to her profession, looking for (political) salvation, but "lifeless" in the sense that she wouldn't cut loose and enjoy herself. Watch some footage of the super-serious Baez in the mid sixties, and you'll see what I mean. But resemblance to real people is secondary to their role as archetypes -- characters who will always be a part of life, in any era. And likely Dylan himself is in there, or previous incarnations of him. Cassanova certainly sounds like a rock star who's being tightly managed, punished for dabbling in the freedom of the Beats. Einstein/Robin Hood sounds like someone from an older generation, but the "electric violin" seems a reference to Dylan's adopting electric instruments. So it's probably part experience part people he's observed, and, in the end, a collection of universal images that will outlive the people who may have inspired them. | |
| Bob Dylan – Ballad of a Thin Man Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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I haven't read every post, but the song is clearly about someone who comes upon a strange scene and doesn't understand it, and the narrator is sort of taunting him for it. Dylan uses sideshow freaks to represent the strange scene, and he's mentioned in many places that he was fascinated by side shows as a child and identified with the performers. Whether the song has a direct correlation to any real scene is anyone's guess, but judging by what Dylan was doing in 1965, I'd say he could have been thinking of the tourists who came to Greenwich Village to check out the folk/beatnik scene, or he could be thinking of hallucinogens and Mr. Jones is encountering people who are high or have had their minds expanded. It could be the freaks are artists and Mr. Jones is a journalist or academic trying to understand their art. (Their dialogue with him is similar to the way Dylan talked to the press in 1965.) And it could be yet another barb at Dylan's old folkie friends who didn't understand his new artistic direction. Probably it's a little of all these things. As far as homosexuality goes, the Village was a place where there were gay bars, and the whole scene was still very underground in 1965. I'm sure Dylan knew about it. When he met Allen Ginsburg in 1964, Ginsburg supposedly came on to him -- entirely plausible -- and Dylan was neither receptive nor freaked out about it. So I don't think it's about a gay encounter that Dylan had. |
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