Rating songs is often little more than an exercise in futility. Sure, I can be pretty sure that I think “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is better than “It Wasn’t Me,” or even, say, “Play with Fire,” but when songs are close, it’s almost impossible to draw important distinctions between them, and even when you can, it is likely to be dramatically different a week later.
That said, I’m pretty confident that “Desolation Row” and “Visions of Johanna,” from Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde respectively, are my two favorite songs of all time. They’re pretty similar too—long, sprawling epics with dense lyricism.
That dense lyricism is one of the main attractions, but it also can leave me confused. So I’ve decided to try to understand them as best I can by going through the lyrics and analyzing them. If this works out well (which it probably won’t—writing about poetry has never been my strength), I’ll also do Dylan’s other epics*, which would make the complete list this (in order of goodness): “Visions of Johanna,” “Desolation Row,” “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” (Bringing It All Back Home), “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” (BoB) and “Chimes of Freedom” (Another Side of Bob Dylan).
*Am I missing any? And don’t say “Hurricane.”
Considering it took me 700+ words just to do the first verse of “Desolation Row” (there are ten just in this song), it could be quite a while before I get through all of this, but that’s okay.
I should also add that I owe a lot to my high-school English teacher, Mr. Sluyter, for this first verse analysis. One class when I was sixteen, instead of having us talk about whatever book we were reading, he came into the classroom, turned this song on, wrote the first verse’s lyrics on the board and asked us what it meant. I was just happy that I recognized the song, but it ended up being a very awesome experience. I believe he did the same thing with his class the previous year, except using “Visions of Johanna” instead. That guy’s got some taste, eh?
Anyway, the point is that I got a lot of these ideas from that conversation.
Also, the same qualifications apply as with all poetry, except maybe especially with Dylan: I have no idea if he meant any of this, but considering that great artists are all inspired by gods anyway, intention isn’t relevant, only the result is.
Verse 1:
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in townHere 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 tonightFrom Desolation Row
We start off with an ominous description of “selling postcards of the hanging.” There is probably a racial element here too, as it was standard practice in the south during slavery and afterwards to sell postcards with photographs of lynched blacks, which connects nicely with the descriptions of “brown” passports. What’s most striking about this line is of course the utter lack of sensitivity it requires to be involved in this kind of action—first, in trying to make money of someone’s violent and public death; second, presumably there are people spending money to send a picture of a dead man to a friend or relative.
I wonder if “they’re painting the passports brown” suggests that these nebulous “they” are marking all the passports in such a way that no one will be able to leave the place they control, presumably Desolation Row. Of course “Lady and I” are looking out from Desolation Row, not on it, but this song is more than a little surreal, and I don’t think any fact is truly concrete. At the very least, this image portrays more, well, desolation and despair with simple, clear words.
I have two conflicting ideas of the next line. I tend to think “the beauty parlor is filled with sailors” is only the prelude of scary bizarreness to which “the circus is in town” is the conclusion. On the other hand, I’m not sure if it’s totally unheard of for sailors to be in a beauty parlor, looking for women. If that’s the case, then it’s another image of emotional coldness, now only caring about sex. I suppose the answer is that it’s probably both.
“The circus is in town” has been my favorite line of this verse ever since that day back in Mr. Sluyter’s class where we discussed this song. The phrase is normally an exciting, happy one. Imagine a little child saying, “Oh, yay, the circus is in town!” But because of the context Dylan has placed it in, it instead means something terrifying and disconcerting. Brilliant.
Then you’ve got this mysterious “they” in control of the commissioner too, the guy who’s supposed to be running the show. It’s again a very disturbing image—saying they’ve got him in a trance is a powerful way to say they’ve got him in their pocket. And then he’s on the edge of falling—“one hand tied to the tight-rope walker”—and that once again brings the circus back into the picture. Even more damning of the commissioner, he’s got that other hand in his pants, jerking off. Sit back in awe at the way Dylan has painted the guy as an incompetent, unscrupulous guy through evocative images. This is the creative writer’s creed of “show don’t tell” beautifully in action.
“The riot squad they’re restless, / They need somewhere to go” is, I think, pretty obvious, but it really deepens the despair and terror of this place as well.
The last line is nicely ambiguous. Are “Lady and I” looking out at all of this happening somewhere else from Desolation Row, or are they looking away from all of it, which is happening on Desolation Row, as an escape, a short mediation on what else could be possible away from this place? I always assumed it was the former before, but now I think the latter is more likely. I’m sure Dylan intended both meanings to be present, but the second one fits in better, I think.
The other thing that needs to be addressed is the “they” that seem to be responsible for everything that’s going wrong. I like how the first four lines begin “they,” “they,” “the,” “the,” and then there are two others that begin with “theys.” But that’s just more of a stylistic issue rather than a thematic one. It adds a lot though not to define the “they” in any way. They are a mysterious, foreboding presence that hangs over the whole verse.
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