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Bob Dylan - Desolation Row

Bob Dylan - Desolation Row Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Highway 61 Revisited
Released: 1965

Desolation Row Lyrics

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'd 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 fortune telling 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

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
Now he looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette
And he when off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
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 the 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 in a perfect image of a priest
They are spoon feeding 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 outta here if you don't know"
Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row"

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
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 doorknob broke
When you asked me 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

Writer/s: BOB DYLAN
Publisher: BOB DYLAN MUSIC CO
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Desolation Row

The opening lines of this song ("They're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown...") refer to three men who were in town with the circus and were accused of raping a girl in Duluth, Minnesota. On June 15, 1920, a mob broke them out of jail and lynched them. Postcards with pictures of the hanging were sold as souvenirs. Dylan's father, Abraham Zimmerman, was 8 years old and living in Duluth at the time of the hangings.

This is the last track on the album. It is eleven minutes long, and was Dylan's longest song up to that point. Dylan rarely plays it at concerts, but when he does, it can stretch out to 45 minutes. (thanks Abram - Los Angeles, California)

When trying to interpret this song, keep in mind that Dylan was experimenting with LSD around the time he recorded it.

This was never released as a single, probably due to its length, but the Highway 61 Revisited album went to #3 US and #4 UK.

Dylan performed this for the first time at the Forest Hills Music Festival in Queens, New York on August 28, 1965, after he electrified the Newport Folk Festival. It was part of the acoustic set Dylan played before bringing on his electric band.

Live versions are included on Dylan's MTV Unplugged, and Live 1966.

This was covered by My Chemical Romance for the end credits of the 2009 superhero movie Watchmen.

This was the first Bob Dylan recording that bassist and guitarist Charlie McCoy played on. He would go on to contribute to every Dylan album from 1965 to 1970. His initial contribution, however, was the result of an apparent accident.

When McCoy was in New York for a visit, his friend, producer Bob Johnston, arranged for him to go and see a Broadway show. Johnston suggested that he drop by the nearby Columbia Studios to pick up the tickets. "He introduced me to Dylan," recalled McCoy to Uncut magazine March 2014, "and he said to me, 'I'm getting ready to record a song, why don't you pick up the other guitar and play?' We had time for one take, one playback and then for another session. And that was 'Desolation Row'."