Songs for Saturday: Desolation Row

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.)

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