It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS OF 60 GUSTING TO 90 KM/H HAVE DEVELOPED.
AN INTENSE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM MOVED EASTWARD THROUGH CENTRAL ALBERTA OVERNIGHT. IN THE WAKE OF THE SYSTEM GUSTY WESTERLY WINDS HAVE DEVELOPED AND WINDS OF 60 GUSTING TO 90 KM/H ARE EXPECTED ACROSS THE WARNING REGIONS UNTIL MID AFTERNOON.
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One of my favorite Dylan songs for its William Burroughs like poetic imagery. And it still influences folks today, see here and here.
"Desolation Row" is the ninth and final song of Bob Dylan's sixth album, Highway 61 Revisited. This eleven minute song contains lyrics full of evocative imagery, poetry, and cultural references. It is the album's only purely acoustic track, in contrast to the thunderous electric rock and roll sound that Dylan was completely embracing for the first time with the album. It was recorded in New York City, New York on August 2, 1965; the take on the album was the second time Dylan had sung the song. Charlie McCoy plays the lyrical acoustic guitar passages throughout the song.
The songs of this period received wide critical acclaim. In the New Oxford Companion to Music, Gammond used Desolation as an example of Dylan's work of the mid-60s that achieved a "high level of poetical lyricism." In 1969, Dylan told ROLLING STONE he wrote this song in the back of a New York cab. Since it is 659 words and clocks in at more than eleven minutes, that's a long cab ride. It was spliced together from two consecutive takes during the last sessions for Highway 61.
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
Dr. 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 door knob 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
In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan is warning people that society is heading for destruction, an apocalype, if it continues in its then direction. With the US locked in a deadly embrace with Russia, teetering on a knife-edge of mutually assured nuclear destruction, it was reasonable for people to be concerned (more like scared half to death), but governments of the time characterised anyone who spoke out against the Cold War as unpatriotic, even traitorous. When we read the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it is horrifying to realise just how close the world came to letting the generals on both sides unleash a nuclear holocaust that would have likely destroyed much of the world as we know it.
In this song, Desolation Row, Dylan uses cultural and religious stereotypes as metaphors to describe this lunacy of main stream 1960's American society. Desolation Row is the name he gives to the place where people have gone to opt out of the lunacy, and who are being punished by society for not wanting to participate in the lunacy. For example, the lines "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"
Desolation Row is a counter-culture destination, though more a state of mind than an actual place. In this example he is referring to the average wage slave who is made to work long hours doing dehumanising work until they have a heart attack and die: Now at midnight all the agents, and the superhuman crew (the FBI and other covert agencies looking for un-American activists), come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do (and who are therefore dangerous). Then they bring them to the factory where the heart-attack machine is strapped across their shoulders (the yoke of dehumanising work) and then the kerosene (to burn the midnight oil, to work long hours) is brought down from the castles (capitalist corporations) by insurance men (Actuaries who calculate how long someone is likely to live under these circumstances) who go check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row (no-one is opting out of the system)
The name Desolation Row may have been derived by combining the best of Desolation Angels (Kerouac) with Cannery Row (Steinbeck).
Jack Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, and wrote The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels from his life transforming experiences on the peak. On the other hand, John Steinbeck'sCannery Row is a place where the outcasts of society found a home. Cannery Row is an actual place in Monterey California. It refers to the derelect sardine cannery whose close environs was occupied in the book by homeless men and the town brothel. The cannery was derelect because the sardines had disappeared through a combination of over-fishing, agricultural run-off and unspecified pollutants from a nearby army base. For Steinbeck, what happened to the sardines was symbolic of the ruthlessly exploit until exhausted attitude that society and the military-industrial complex had for the environment and ordinary people. Wring all the goodness out of something, then when it worthless, toss on the rubbish-heap and give it to the worthless people who are no use to us.
