An Album A Day #10 Bob Dylan - Desire
Oct 15, 2021 5:56:38 GMT
fange, Sneelock, and 2 more like this
Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2021 5:56:38 GMT
Hurricane:
Well everyone knows the story of the Hurricane now don’t they?
There is an urgency to Riviera’s fiddle on this song and I feel that drives what is otherwise quite a basic song from a musical point of view. The lyrics are also very starightforward. These days if the authorities commit a grave injustice there is usually a video or a tweet that takes care of that but back then Dyan had to write a song about it.
And that’s about all I have to write about the first track.
Isis:
I guess this word has taken on new meaning now and when I googled it during my research I made sure I wrote “Isis by Bob Dylan” just in case I ended up in an orange jump suit on an island off the coast of Cuba.
Even on my first listen I preferred this song to the opener. A basic piano riff that is more rhythmic than melodic and off we go. It’s a song about the chase being far more satifying than the thrill; only at the end of the journey is the protagonist is driven to return to his first love (Isis) who I beleive is meant to be a metaphor for idealised love.
The empty tomb the protagonist finds is another metaphor for the ultimate emptiness of chasing new adventures. Of course Dylan felt this way in 1976; all jaded out by the sxities with their hypocrisy and ultimately their inablity to really give anyone enlightement, with their so called “mind expanding drugs”. I mean if the acid had been that good surely what followed in the next fifty years would have been better than what we all got……
I digress……
Jack White does a cover of this song and he ripped off the piano part for “Doorbell” one of their hits, they sound very similar.
Mozambique: It seems to me that perhaps the music was written before being introduced to the words. Dylan wanted to see how many words rhymed with Mozambique, I don’t think there is any hidden meaning it is just muscicans and poets having a blast. Uplifiting.
One More Cup of Coffee: Desire is of course the album that came after Blood on the Tracks. I always feel there is a bright sweeteness to even the sadder songs on that album compared to the ones on this album. Both this song and the next seem to have a desperate yearning in the music due to the key they are written in however it always feel that Dylan is hamming it up and that’s ok with me cause it stops the music from being bogged down by self importance.
The backing vocals add to the musicality of the song and once again the violin lifts the music up above it just being another miserable guy with a guitar looking for a fix of caffine.
Oh Sister: Both this and the song above have a late night stumbling drunk into your exes place kind of vibe, I guess this was in the days before drunk dialing. I always interpreted Sister as a female counterpart (not necessarily romantic), like they’ve accidently found each other after a long time apart. The harmonica is here and it’s a nice addition as is Emmylou Harris backing vocals. Of course it signs off with a brilliant line about how time is an ocean that ends at the shore except I still don’t entirley understand what that actually means.
Joey: A song about American mafioso Crazy Joe Gallo.
One of the 20th century arts biggest preoccupations was glorifying gangsters like Gallo especially if there was a suggestion they enjoyed art and/or other intellectual pursuits. I am a big Sopranos fan so I guess I am part of that problem.
It’s the longest and weakest song on the album, a waste of everyones time if I’m being honest. An average chorus can’t save a weak song.
Romance in The Durango: Fabrizio de Andre did a cover of this song however Clapton played on the original so I guess the choice is yours.
Black Diamond Bay: Song fades in which always confuses me, however it makes me take notice and it’s almost like that couple in The Durango have ended up on this island that has been condemned to oblivion by an erupting volcano. There is a host of characters all trying to take control of their fate without realising that the imminent catastrophe will render their plans and emotions meaningless.
A down on his luck gambler finally gets his big win ony to be burnt to a cinder. A man hangs himself when if he had just waited he would have got his wish and saved himself the effort. Oh isn’t it ironic sang Alanis Morrisette decades later but it wasn’t as artistic or as beautifully painted as this song.
I could write a good few pages on this one but I that would be self indulgent. I will end and say I love the end how it turns out this lonley tipsy narrartor is watching the horror unfold on his television and is about as interested in the characters fate as the Volcano would be.
The harmonica seems to be in on the pathos needed to pull this kind of song of and it is important in terms of the album sequence that this song is slightly faster paced due to how slow the next song is……
Sara:
The harmonica let’s out a defeated sigh as we are intorduced to the final song on the album. It’s a beautiful love song written about his wife former Playboy Bunny Sara.
The violin follows the bittersweet lyrics though it is not quite as prominent in the mix.
It’s clearly autobiographical which for Dylan is a change of tact. Complete honesty for a man who often traded in riddles and mystery when it came to his own life, he had always been able to write himself in and out of song but not now. Supposedly he started recording this song with his estranged wife on the other side of the recording booth and obviously she took him back (for a short while) cause who couldn’t love somone who writes a song as beautiful as this.
Perhaps there is something quite mainpulative about such an act, he must have know she was going to break when he played this but he did it anyways, maybe because he is one of those people who gets what he wants all of the time.
As the song climaxes towards the end the harmonica comes back in and the playng is much more confident perhaps because he knows that he has won her back……like the song has given him his own confidence in their relationship back….
How strange his most honest song he ever produced is one he wrote with someone else……
Well everyone knows the story of the Hurricane now don’t they?
There is an urgency to Riviera’s fiddle on this song and I feel that drives what is otherwise quite a basic song from a musical point of view. The lyrics are also very starightforward. These days if the authorities commit a grave injustice there is usually a video or a tweet that takes care of that but back then Dyan had to write a song about it.
And that’s about all I have to write about the first track.
Isis:
I guess this word has taken on new meaning now and when I googled it during my research I made sure I wrote “Isis by Bob Dylan” just in case I ended up in an orange jump suit on an island off the coast of Cuba.
Even on my first listen I preferred this song to the opener. A basic piano riff that is more rhythmic than melodic and off we go. It’s a song about the chase being far more satifying than the thrill; only at the end of the journey is the protagonist is driven to return to his first love (Isis) who I beleive is meant to be a metaphor for idealised love.
The empty tomb the protagonist finds is another metaphor for the ultimate emptiness of chasing new adventures. Of course Dylan felt this way in 1976; all jaded out by the sxities with their hypocrisy and ultimately their inablity to really give anyone enlightement, with their so called “mind expanding drugs”. I mean if the acid had been that good surely what followed in the next fifty years would have been better than what we all got……
I digress……
Jack White does a cover of this song and he ripped off the piano part for “Doorbell” one of their hits, they sound very similar.
Mozambique: It seems to me that perhaps the music was written before being introduced to the words. Dylan wanted to see how many words rhymed with Mozambique, I don’t think there is any hidden meaning it is just muscicans and poets having a blast. Uplifiting.
One More Cup of Coffee: Desire is of course the album that came after Blood on the Tracks. I always feel there is a bright sweeteness to even the sadder songs on that album compared to the ones on this album. Both this song and the next seem to have a desperate yearning in the music due to the key they are written in however it always feel that Dylan is hamming it up and that’s ok with me cause it stops the music from being bogged down by self importance.
The backing vocals add to the musicality of the song and once again the violin lifts the music up above it just being another miserable guy with a guitar looking for a fix of caffine.
Oh Sister: Both this and the song above have a late night stumbling drunk into your exes place kind of vibe, I guess this was in the days before drunk dialing. I always interpreted Sister as a female counterpart (not necessarily romantic), like they’ve accidently found each other after a long time apart. The harmonica is here and it’s a nice addition as is Emmylou Harris backing vocals. Of course it signs off with a brilliant line about how time is an ocean that ends at the shore except I still don’t entirley understand what that actually means.
Joey: A song about American mafioso Crazy Joe Gallo.
One of the 20th century arts biggest preoccupations was glorifying gangsters like Gallo especially if there was a suggestion they enjoyed art and/or other intellectual pursuits. I am a big Sopranos fan so I guess I am part of that problem.
It’s the longest and weakest song on the album, a waste of everyones time if I’m being honest. An average chorus can’t save a weak song.
Romance in The Durango: Fabrizio de Andre did a cover of this song however Clapton played on the original so I guess the choice is yours.
Black Diamond Bay: Song fades in which always confuses me, however it makes me take notice and it’s almost like that couple in The Durango have ended up on this island that has been condemned to oblivion by an erupting volcano. There is a host of characters all trying to take control of their fate without realising that the imminent catastrophe will render their plans and emotions meaningless.
A down on his luck gambler finally gets his big win ony to be burnt to a cinder. A man hangs himself when if he had just waited he would have got his wish and saved himself the effort. Oh isn’t it ironic sang Alanis Morrisette decades later but it wasn’t as artistic or as beautifully painted as this song.
I could write a good few pages on this one but I that would be self indulgent. I will end and say I love the end how it turns out this lonley tipsy narrartor is watching the horror unfold on his television and is about as interested in the characters fate as the Volcano would be.
The harmonica seems to be in on the pathos needed to pull this kind of song of and it is important in terms of the album sequence that this song is slightly faster paced due to how slow the next song is……
Sara:
The harmonica let’s out a defeated sigh as we are intorduced to the final song on the album. It’s a beautiful love song written about his wife former Playboy Bunny Sara.
The violin follows the bittersweet lyrics though it is not quite as prominent in the mix.
It’s clearly autobiographical which for Dylan is a change of tact. Complete honesty for a man who often traded in riddles and mystery when it came to his own life, he had always been able to write himself in and out of song but not now. Supposedly he started recording this song with his estranged wife on the other side of the recording booth and obviously she took him back (for a short while) cause who couldn’t love somone who writes a song as beautiful as this.
Perhaps there is something quite mainpulative about such an act, he must have know she was going to break when he played this but he did it anyways, maybe because he is one of those people who gets what he wants all of the time.
As the song climaxes towards the end the harmonica comes back in and the playng is much more confident perhaps because he knows that he has won her back……like the song has given him his own confidence in their relationship back….
How strange his most honest song he ever produced is one he wrote with someone else……
