This Song Is Brilliant!! | Bob Dylan - Desolation Row | REACTION/REVIEW

[@a2zme]

Charlie McCoy on guitar .. takes Dylan's Apocalyptic imagery to ANOTHER level. #masterpiece

[@zenhaelcero8481]

It's hard for me to pick a favorite Dylan song, but this one would be up there!

[@kenkaplan3654]

Me too, Top 5 depending on the day. Visions of Johanna, It's All Right Ma, Stuck Inside of Mobile. Tangled Up in Blue. Mississippi is growing on me. So many classic songs.

[@michaelwalker5257]

For me, Desolation Row is perhaps his magnum opus: his Great Work!

[@michaelbeckwith6177]

The writer Allen Ginsburg concurred !!

[@babylonian.captivity]

The contrapuntal guitar is just sublime. Worthy of Bach.

[@mikecaetano]

"I had to rearrange their faces \ And give them all another name" -- Dylan was influenced by the John Steinbeck novel Cannery Row. The name drops could be nicknames given to ordinary people for some likeness they bare to the originals. T.S. Eliot died in 1965, but Ezra Pound was still alive when the song dropped. "Between the windows of the sea \ Where lovely mermaids flow \ And nobody has to think too much \ About Desolation Row" Check out "Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues". It's funky in contrast.

[@alphajava761]

Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues, with an electric and grand piano as the lead instruments ❤. I believe Highway 61 Revisited was the first album to feature two keyboard players on songs. I'm listening to Dylan's Oh Mercy and bootlegs of Time Out Of Mind albums today as I do some house cleaning.

[@kenkaplan3654]

"Rearrange their faces and give them all another name." Dylan is taking great icons from culture, literature, religion, history and using them in the context for his own purposes of exposing the depravity of mid 60's America.

[@alphajava761]

Great reaction! Masterpiece. I could write a thesis about Desolation Row, as just about anybody could. So excited you're going to buy this album! Congratulations. This album changed music. Dylan's mid 60s trilogy of albums forever changed music: Bring It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Blonde on Blonde was also the first double LP ever created. Dylan was first in so many ways it's hard to wrap your head around how one musical artist could be such a rainmaker.

[@simontemplar3359]

Oh man, you made my day checking this tune out. I think this album is Dylan's best work, but this song especially draws from such a deep well of western literary tradition. I also think this was a nod to Jack Kerouac (who is absolutely my favorite writer). Thanks for digging it! It's before my time too, but my Lord it's a stunning piece of writing!

[@johnharkness7114]

Bob was from a town near Duluth, which HW 61 ran through. There had been a lynching ("hanging") in Duluth in the 30's, I think, and there were postcards made of the event. That covers the first line. The rest is your best guess

[@MrNormaltoo]

lady and i look out tonight (Lady was his dog, made famous a little later)

[@jimwilcox2964]

Hibbing is northwest in the Iron range Highway 61 runs from Canada along the lakeshor to Duluth and all the way down to New Orleans Louisiana . Another song set along the highway is Walls of Red Wing. Still a correlational facility located there

[@hibbingnow]

The first verse of the 1965 song "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan, references the lynchings in Duluth: 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.[18] Dylan's grandparents immigrated from Odessa to Duluth and Dylan was born in Duluth, and grew up in Hibbing, 60 miles (97 km) northwest of Duluth. His father, Abram Zimmerman, was 9 years old in June 1920 and lived two blocks from the site of the lynchings In 1920, McGhie, Clayton, and Jackson worked with the John Robinson Circus as cooks or laborers. On the morning of June 15, James Sullivan called the police. He told them that one night earlier his eighteen-year-old son and his son’s nineteen-year-old companion Irene Tusken had been held at gunpoint. Sullivan reported that his son told him that Tusken had been raped. Six African-American men were arrested - including McGhie, Clayton, and Jackson. Then, tensions rose in the community. Newspapers reported on the arrests and rumors spread around town. Newspapers printed articles about the alleged rape; rumors spread in the white community about it, including that Tusken was dying from her injuries. That evening, a mob of between 1,000 and 10,000 men formed outside the Duluth city jail. A Catholic priest reportedly tried to deter them, but to no avail Eventually, a mob of 6,000-10,000 stormed into the jail. They met little or no resistance from the police. They broke into the cells where they could, and they took McGhie, Clayton, and Jackson. First, the mob beat and hanged Isaac McGhie from a lamp post, despite the objections of a priest. Then, they similarly beat and hanged Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton. The Minnesota National Guard arrived the next day to protect the three remaining prisoners. But they were too late to help McGhie, Clayton, and Jackson. Further, eventually it came out that Sullivan’s teen-aged son had made up the story of the rape that had set everything in motion. As was the case with many lynchings of African-Americans during the early twentieth century, photos of the lynching were taken and sent as postcards. The photo features Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie, both shirtless, hanging from the street light with Elias Clayton’s body on the sidewalk,. Members of the mob lean in to be part of the photo. Bob Dylan was born only 21 years after the lynching, and so he may have seen the photo postcards that circulated in the area. The song continues, perhaps with “the blind commissioner” being a reference to the failures of the police to protect the three men. Of course, it is generally impossible to interpret every line of a Dylan song. An article in the Minneapolis Journal accused the lynch mob of putting a "stain on the name of Minnesota", stating: "The sudden flaming up of racial passion, which is the reproach of the South, may also occur, as we now learn in the bitterness of humiliation, in Minnesota. Residents of Duluth began to work on ways to commemorate the victims of the lynching. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Scholarship Committee set up a fund in 2000, and awarded its first scholarship in 2005. On October 10, 2003, a plaza and statues were dedicated in Duluth to the three men who were killed. The bronze statues are part of a memorial across the street from the site of the lynchings. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial was designed and sculpted by Carla J. Stetson, in collaboration with editor and writer Anthony Peyton-Porter. At the memorial's opening, thousands of citizens of Duluth and surrounding communities gathered for a ceremony. The final speaker at the ceremony was Warren Read, the great-grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the lynch mob: It was a long held family secret, and its deeply buried shame was brought to the surface and unraveled. We will never know the destinies and legacies these men would have chosen for themselves if they had been allowed to make that choice. But I know this: their existence, however brief and cruelly interrupted, is forever woven into the fabric of my own life. My son will continue to be raised in an environment of tolerance, understanding and humility, now with even more pertinence than before. Information quoted from Wikipedia and chimes of freedom

[@PaulSchuster-yj4zb]

Ophelia is a Nunn.

[@kenkaplan3654]

If we don't try to figure out every detail, the panorama and meaning of the song are quite clear. My take. "The song is a panorama of the depravity of Western culture using icons from major cultural, historical, literary and religious sources all struggling within that depravity. The sanctuary is Desolation Row where the singer sits in safety and views this cultural carnage where postcards can be sold of a hanging. The last verse is Dylan's retort to Irwin Silber of "Sing Out" magazine who published an open letter in the publication to Dylan castigating him for "abandoning ' the folk scene and social justice causes. Dylan is fed up and says I am not interested in your opinions unless you come to understand where I am at. "Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row." Or as Ken Kesey and the merry pranksters said "You are either on the bus or off the bus." On "Desolation Row" Dylan is "on the bus" and is not interested in opinions from those who are "off it."

[@joshuadeshaies7266]

One of my favorites from Bob is Tangled Up In Blue. This guy is legendary 💪

[@rogerdarby908]

Blood On The Tracks may not be his best album but it’s my favorite

[@kenkaplan3654]

@@rogerdarby908 It's up there. Depends on your taste.

[@BernardHodgson]

When I saw Dylan at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969, I slept in a tent on the row called Desolation Row.

[@Goatchild90]

One of my favourite songs of all time

[@rogerlunde8668]

I remember when I when first time heard this song, I was 15 years old (1971) and a friend played it, I was taken to " another place" and I never forget it. This album is my favorite Dylan album and I think it's the most importent in Rock-music history, a game-changer tha't changed The Beatles and everyone in it's time.

[@kenkaplan3654]

Me too. I couldn't believe how textured and dense it was. The Einstein verse just blew me away. Who would think of that?

[@PaulSchuster-yj4zb]

It does my heart good to see a younger man sing along with Desolation Row and think about, the words just like me when I was 18. Watch, The Graduate. Dustin Hoffman's parent's and the world they created is Desolation Row. It's a statement on our generation, trying to create a better world than "these people who are quite lame," who ended up being our parents. "The generation gap."

[@kenkaplan3654]

Yes similar POV.

[@PaulSchuster-yj4zb]

74 now. I memorized every word when this came out, and spent a lifetime trying to figure out the metaphors.

[@simontemplar3359]

It's an absolute gift! I swear I can hear Kerouac here. Specifically thinking of Desolation Angels and Dharma Bums. Peace and blessings, amigo!

[@kenkaplan3654]

I stopped trying to, figure out every symbol because it is a surrealist picture of a landscape "rearranging" historical,. literary, cultural and religious icons to demonstrate the depravity of contemporary American society. As a gestalt, all the pieces fit into one great theme. Or as the Merry Pranksters said "you are either on or off the bus". The singer in this song is "on the bus" viewing the carnage from safety.

[@PaulSchuster-yj4zb]

@@kenkaplan3654 I think you are right. I can stop now,. Thanks.

[@kenkaplan3654]

@@PaulSchuster-yj4zbThank you.

[@chrisnicol1644]

Biz... I own all of Dylan's 1960's albums and they are great...

[@mattjohn4731]

Gonna grow my hair down to my feet so strange I'll look like a walking mountain range. Then I'll ride into Omaha on a horse, out to the country club and the golf course. Carrying a New York Times. Shoot a few holes, blow their minds 🤯

[@TeresaMount-t9o]

Bob telling his stories, so good. Thank you Biz.

[@pault2461]

Dylan's reintroduced this song on his Rough & Rowdy Tour, a more sedate version but all the same still has that raw impact

[@davescurry69]

This was the song that really pulled me into Bob. Highway 61 Revisited was the first Bob Dylan album that I bought and it's still my favourite. And it was the album's epic closing track that really drove home Dylan's genius for me. I think "Ballad Of A Thin Man" would be a good one to check out next. It's from the same album. You may as well react to the rest of the album, Biz. It's one of the most important and greatest albums ever made. Loved your reaction and thank you for choosing this one. You'll have to start going through Blonde On Blonde next.

[@Bekka_Noyb]

great song off a great album! ♥ You gotta check out his song Things Have Changed Actually won best song at both Oscars & Globes!

[@cindyfalstrom7231]

Such a gifted poet...

[@dwhite849]

I just let my mind see all of those pictures

[@babylonian.captivity]

It's miraculous, isn't it?

[@EricCalhoun]

Good stuff, great to see folks tackle it seriously. I love this song but especially the last verse, when he tells you that to be in his life he needs you to understand Desolation Row, you can't hide from it.

[@chopa2less]

One of my favorites!

[@hongfang2348]

These early songs, folk songs, are Bob singing and playing acoustic guitar and harmonica. I suggest that you watch a video of him from this era. There's a satisfaction to watching him on stage all by his lonesome, singing the epic gems from early in his career.

[@davescurry69]

This wasn't his folk era. This was after it when he went electric (although this one is acoustic).

[@FrançoisGuèdenet]

Great album...Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues.

[@freeforever6971]

Another Dylan great!

[@bobschenkel7921]

"Desolation Row" is ONE of Bob Dylan's best compositions. He has so many great songs/poems I couldn't say which is best, but this song is near the top of any list. In addition to Dylan, another band does a very excellent cover of "D Row", and that is, of course, the Grateful Dead, with Bob Weir taking Lead Vocal duties. Very much worth a listen.

[@jasonmccluskey3623]

Awesome

[@chrisgrey9616]

I agree!!! " And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah's Great Rainbow"...." Everyone is making love or expecting rain" . Just too beautiful.

[@David-j9h9g]

one of my faves..my mother was called Ophelia Minerva...

[@tomgribbin9531]

Before most of us Boomers and reached our LSD phase Bob provided the groundwork for the forays into the phantasmagorical world we'd soon experience where anything could connect with anything immaginable.

[@barbarascotto3873]

Dylan is the greatest songwriter and poet in HISTORY. You should hear the Grateful Dead do this. 🔥 Amazing take on this masterpiece, Biz.

[@pb68slab18]

And no matter how many times they did it, Bobby always flubbed at least 1 line!

[@barbarascotto3873]

@@pb68slab18 that's pretty much standard Bobby. The crowd goes nuts when he fucks up 😁

[@ernesttarver2533]

The epitamy of free form stream of conciousness poetry.

[@lisarainbow9703]

Next Bob Dylan suggestion: "Simple Twist of Fate"

[@1rwjwith]

EPIC POETRY !

[@nosredna2]

Go to Wikipedia and look up Charlie McCoy, a prolific session musician. He did the beautiful guitar work on Desolation Row. Interesting story about how he got involved with that particular Dylan recording session and others.

[@lesterthorpe4190]

Glad you’ve found this amazing song at last ! 🎉

[@gdmyers47]

"Highway 61 Revisited (1965)" is a great album, but his next album, "Blonde on Blonde (1966)," a double-album, which I've listened to probably hundreds of times, is, in my opinion, his best album.

[@RalphSpoiledsport]

What's next for Bob Dylan? Throw a dart at the board. It'll be a winner.

[@dead_beat_poet]

I believe this closes out the album...wild song, but wild ending to a record too. Great reaction! 🎉

[@Richard-k8x]

Thanks so much he is the best writer bless be

[@kenkaplan3654]

The song is a panorama of the depravity of Western culture using icons from major cultural, historical, literary and religious sources all struggling within that depravity. The sanctuary is Desolation Row where the singer sits in safety and views this cultural carnage where postcards can be sold of a hanging ( a real event in Minnesota). Everyone is being prevented or hurt for going to this place. Very few have found it. The last verse is Dylan's retort to Irwin Silber of "Sing Out" magazine who published an open letter in the publication to Dylan castigating him for "abandoning ' the folk scene and social justice causes. Dylan is fed up and says I am not interested in your opinions unless you come to understand where I am at. "Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row." Or as Ken Kesey and the merry pranksters said "You are either on the bus or off the bus." On "Desolation Row" Dylan is "on the bus" and is not interested in opinions from those who are "off it."

[@gdmyers47]

If you're a "lyric guy," Dylan's your guy; might I suggest for your next reaction from "Highway 61 Revisited" "Ballad of a Thin Man;" it was a favorite of some of the main players in the 1960's black power movement. I do, again, however, consider the songs on the next album ("Blonde on Blonde") to be even better, in general, than those on "Highway 61 Revisited." In case you didn't know, Dylan produced three albums during what is called his electric "trilogy" period, from 1965-1966, "Bringing It All Back Home," "Highway 61 Revisited," and "Blonde on Blonde," again, a double album.

[@ojos_verdes76]

Check out 'Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues'. It's like a mini version of 'Desolation Row' and comes just before it on the album.

[@danielperezcabezas109]

A great song! I´d say he´s talking about about the tragic comedy of life and society with all those scenes and characters that may look random but in the last verse he explains they are incarnations of real people and situations to which he has "rearranged their faces and given up another name".He´s so fed up he asks to not receive more letters about these matters ,but he would make an exception if the letter came from Desolation row.Brilliant!

[@zunbake3]

Did you listen to his last Masterpiece Murder Most Foul that he wrote at age 80. It is an amazing cultural assessment of our culture and politics centered around the assassination of JFK.

[@darkstar1074]

Song is Lyrically nuts. I've always considered it Dylan's surreal, dreamlike observation of the cast of characters seen on desolation/skid row. A couple often overlooked gems for consideration would be "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts" & "Boots of Spanish Leather".

[@davidgehoski1306]

Check out Visions of Johanna and the Blonde On Blonde double album.

[@dyl-annfan6]

There are some incredible songs not released on official albums, you can find them on his "bootleg" albums, "Blind Willie McTell" "She's your Lover Now" "Angelina" "Series of Dreams" "Foot of Pride" "Catfish" to name just a few off Bootleg 1-3

[@theivory1]

That one is incredible. Countless literary, religious, and cultural references.

[@ah13554]

Im still trying to find that coka cola factory down in Mexico 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💪

[@davidgehoski1306]

His concerts sometime take this song to a total Latin swing.

[@JoeCruz-hs2yt]

Dylan is brilliant the poet of the 20 century !

[@billdomitilli8125]

Try Visions of Johanna for more genius poetry lyrics.

[@captainkangaroo4301]

Check out a live performance of the Grateful Dead doing this as well as Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. Dylan was often covered by the Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band. I would also recommend a live performance of The Jerry Garcia Band doing Simple Twist of Fate. Jerry’s guitar solos are just so good.

[@mattjohn4731]

I want to recommend my uncle Bob Shiel's book 61 Highways Revisited, which creatively critiques all of Dylan's album around 2010

[@jonneil7169]

..."As lady and i look out tonight from Desolation Row"..1st verse, explains it all..."The fortune telling lady has even brought all her things inside"''' Its a place. Street scene, "street people" poetically described and embellished upon. All the characters, the cops, everyone is out in full force. Definitely a Masterpiece (among the many others...)

[@johnleebold8894]

Im Here for ya man on the Sir Bobby Dylan journey … when to much Dylan is never enough … haha… Dig into TIME OUT of MIND Album … Try … Cant Wait or Not Dark Yet..

[@John_Locke_108]

This might be his best song. To call it a masterpiece doesn't begin do it justice.

[@elkbomb]

I feel like you might like Love Minus Zero/No Limit. Very romantic, poetic lyrics.

[@zadornov128]

Two Dylan recomendations: 1. Key West (Philosopher Pirate) , from Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). It's unbelievably good 2. Mississippi, studio version from Love and Theft, 2001. Exactly this version, others are good, but than one is exceptional

[@allanelliot9234]

Love Key West!

[@bobschenkel7921]

You can tell the difference between Bob Dylan and Neil Young playing the Harmonica, both very distinct.

[@jasonmccluskey3623]

LEGEND

[@tenjed4224]

I enjoy this version (the original version) of this song. But, for playing at concerts I've heard none do it better than the Grateful Dead w/Bob Weir at vocals.

[@roybarutzke9850]

Blood on the tracks(masterpiece)1A

[@Oceanblues0101]

I do not want a heart attack machine strapped across my shoulders!

[@MikeWalsh-f1g]

Dylan says more in this and several other songs than most artists say in their whole career.

[@maggiebryan2355]

❤❤❤

[@allanelliot9234]

Her profession is her religion, her sin is her lifelesness. Poor Ophelia! I wonder who he had in mind?

[@PaulSchuster-yj4zb]

Ophelia is a Nunn without a doubt. Her profession is her religion. her eyes are fixed on Noah's great rainbow.. She spends a lot of time (helping) peeking into D.Row.

[@gudlisner501]

“The Fortune telling lady has even taken all her things inside”. Now what does she see?

[@charliecochran3035]

Now you can spend the rest of your life pondering what he's thinking about in the verses. Your initial take is pretty good. The truth is there's too much to write about in any kind of concise manner. There are multiple themes. The funny thing about Desolation Row is that he's drawn to it. He's a lot more interested in the people there than the ones outside.

[@bitfenix90]

Other commenters mentioned John Steinbeck's books. Those are fantastic. CANNERY ROW has funny characters and moments. A good intro. But you've also got a streak of being a student of human nature, and eventually by Book 3 or 4, you will stumble upon Steinbeck's OF MICE AND MEN. I might recommend it as your entry to Steinbeck on one hand - but it can sort of blow worlds apart, too. It's a tad sad.

[@bitfenix90]

Dylan is also an Album Artist, NOT a singles or Top 40 AM hits artist. Only his record label (and every Top 40 radio station) wanted him to be that. But his fans didn't. HE didn't. His albums are pieces of deliberation collections of music and thougths.

[@damonhines8187]

😊

[@bobdelp2023]

FYYYYRRRRR BIZ FOR SURE!!! 💯😊HIGHWAY 61 OF COURSE IS GOOD BUT YOU NEED TO GET INTO HIS BACK TO BACK GREATS : BLOOD ON THE TRACKS & BLONDE ON BLONDE👍BUT YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH ANYYYYY DYLAN BIZ SO! ENJOY HIM

[@peterginger]

You’ll be reading this for years

[@DawnSuttonfabfour]

You going to The Row??? Get ready, it's long but what a story. You def gonna need those slyirics! EDIT One of my most played/enjoyed Dylan albums. You should pick a track from his Live at Bhudokan in Japan. One of the best live albums ever and Bob's absolute best live.

[@tonydelapa1911]

Highway 61 is a brilliant album. In another video you,entioned playing albums for your kids some day, if you have any. This would be a great one. Most of your Bob Seger songs have been serious or displaying serious chops. If you’d like one that is lighter, simpler, and funny, consider this one from his purely folk period: Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues!

[@balkanarchist1914]

Wasn't this the song he broke from a rehearsal to write and came back in about an hour with this gem? Pretty sure it was this one.

[@dougsusie2319]

What's up Biz, hope all is well with you. Love this song. Dylan's following record, his 1966 double Lp "Blonde On Blonde" is just as good as (maybe better) than "Highway 61 Revisited". I have always thought of them as volume 1 and volume 2 releases just as George Harrison felt that The Beatles " Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" Lp's were like volume 1 and volume 2 for him and who am I to dispute that. He was in the band, right? Here's my take on "Desolation Row" at this very moment in time. Listen up America, a vote for Trump is a vote for a "Desolation Row" because that's what he's promising you along with Project 2025. Peace ❤

[@WilliamEricStone]

This song means anything you want it to mean...As a nurse I think a whole lot about some local loser being in charge of the cyanide pool... A whole lot of fucking truth to all that.

[@raymind1313]

For me, only VISIONS OF JOHANNA has such depth.

[@mejbarron]

I really like you style! I think you might like this recording which reveals the joy in the musicians including Bob himself. Here he is not only a great performer but also having a bit of fun as an actor. It has Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor, the guitarist who replaced Brian Jones for the Rolling Stones. I have a short list of the best lyricists of my lifetime: Bob, Leonard Cohen, John Prine and Lucinda Williams. One of her best song is Lake Charles. Be sure to play a live video of her, say at Austin City Limits" Bob Dylan - Don't Fall Apart on Me Tonight (Version 2) (Official Video)" kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpqZqIhnZsRnjck

[@thejoelrooganexplosion2400]

Murder Most Foul

[@AnnoyingCritic-is7rp]

I just want one negative reaction from any of the reactors And this is not a bad song but it's kind of a silly one

[@davidzieglmeier1020]

I love Dylan, but the Harmonica? Way too loud and sounding just bad

[@Daniel-y9q7f]

sir can you not sing over Bob Dylan, thanks

[@danieloleary1067]

Bob Dylan....the 1st rapper.