Songs for Saturday: Desolation Row

[mdlbear]

I sat down this morning to start a s4s post, and given my mood Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" was the first thing that came to mind. Sorry about that. As I wrote in this post (originally on LJ), "Desolation Row" is not only my favorite Bob Dylan song, but one of the very best songs I've ever heard. Or sang.

I transcribed it from this track [UPDATED: previous link was wrong] on his (vinyl) album Highway 61 Revisited sometime in the mid-to-late 1960s. Transcribing a track from vinyl us a tedious process and involves a lot of repetition, which is why I can perform it off-book.

Sometime in the early 70s I found that the melody was wonderfully well-suited to my modified Travis picking pattern, as is Dylan's "Lilly, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts", which I learned sometime later from Joan Baez's album From Every Stage. It wasn't until 2008, when I wrote "Quiet Victories" (usually referred to as QV), that I wrote a song that exceeded either of those in length and pickability.

When I sing "Desolation Row" to a filk audience, I usually introduce it by saying that it reminds me somehow of Dhalgren. (No, not just because of its length...)

I also wrote a little parody: Desolation -- Oh, No!. After I wrote QV I wrote a revised version of the second verse, changing "I just can't stop singing Bob Dylan" to "I'm afraid I'm as bad as Bob Dylan". (It can be sung immediately after QV to lighten the mood.)

Links:

• Desolation Row | The Official Bob Dylan Site
• Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (Audio) - YouTube
• Bob Dylan - Desolation Row (Audio) - YouTube
• Desolation Row - Wikipedia
• Rolling Stone article on "Desolation Row" as the 187th Greatest Song of All Time
• Quiet Victories

... as Lady and I look out tonight / From Desolation Row.

Comments

[amaebi]

I'm hoping that comfort and pleasure embrace you.

[mdlbear]

Thank you!

[dreamshark]

I keep thinking that I should find a way to send you a playable file of my Pandemic Playlist. But seeing how much our musical tastes seem to overlap, I suspect that you already own copies of most of the songs. Did I ever give the song list?

[mdlbear]

I don't remember. Many of the songs I don't have can be found on YouTube. Many of the ones that can't are filksongs, and my collection of filk is... extensive. Less so recently, since I haven't been able to get to enough conventions to continue being completist.

[jesse_the_k]

Chris Smither does an excellent version of Desolation Row, which has been my morning wake up song for the last couple months.

Hmm, maybe I should switch it up to something cheerier? I just love how Smither gets this ultra-myxolidian resonance going on all his guitars.

[mdlbear]

Interesting. Maybe I should record my version. (Of course that sends me down a rabbit hole -- places like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGAsGKngQ_M

[jesse_the_k]

Oooo … that's a lovely performance, and I'm glad to learn about http://www.imtfolk.org the Institute of Musical Traditions in Maryland

Pandemic Playlist

[dreamshark]

I posted the list of songs in my Pandemic Playlist on my own journal.

https://dreamshark.dreamwidth.org/520061.html

If you want to make one of your own and trade playlists in playable form we could probably figure out some way to do that. Our taste in music seems to have a lot of overlap.

(And I really can't resist a man that knows what mixolydian means).