Notes

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Burned as DVD from Mpeg

What’s Bob’s best song? Ask 20 people and you’ll probably get 20 different answers. Ask me and I’ll say Desolation Row. I can even tell you my favourite verse - it’s the Einstein one, which, in 12 short lines witheringly indicts scientists (whom Einstein stereotypically represents) before deftly pointing up the malign and suppressive influence of science (the quest for useless and pointless knowledge) on both religious belief and art. Just in case you thought that wasn’t enough, its four-word eighth line, in dismissing e=mc2 as reciting the alphabet, bequeathes us one of the most devastatingly elegant put-downs you’re ever likely to find. One of several highlights on BS7 is an early electric take of Des Row with a lyric almost but not completely finalised and the subsequent revision that springs quickest to mind concerns Casanova and what the poor bloke is or isn’t spoon-fed. (Do you think he was upset at being deprived of his boiled guts? No, me neither.) But note, too, Einstein’s changed look: the relatively bland so immaculate becomes - poet at work! - the sharper, closer and brilliantly conceived so immaculately frightful. Have you seen those wild-haired pictures? Einstein did look like that! Strangely, the words describe with almost equal precision their 24-year-old author. And, finally, the song's opening line is one of the most arresting and immediately recognisable in the canon, but did you ever stop to wonder about its provenance? I mean, what hanging? Did D have a specific event in mind or just conjure the concept out of nothing? What follows is adapted from Wikipedia:

Duluth, June 1920: the circus is in town and, after the rape of a local girl, three of its crew - Isaac McGhie, Elias Clayton and Elmer Jackson - are picked up and detained. But, on the night of the 15th, before any trial can take place, a ten thousand-strong mob storms the jailhouse, seizes the suspects and proceeds to lynch them at the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East. Postcards with a photo of the incident are later sold as souvenirs. Duluth native Abe Zimmerman would have been just eight years old in June 1920. In May 1941 his first son Robert will be born in St. Mary's Hospital on Third Street, a stone's throw north of the where the hangings took place. And 400 yards from Highway 61...

The definitive H61R take has ten verses. Since he’s been singing it again, D usually sings verses one, two and three in order, then eight (At midnight...) and invariably the tenth and final verse last of all. But before that one we get either one or two of the others, chosen seemingly at random and not necessarily in song-order. Einstein often figures, but is sometimes dropped in favour of Dr Filth (thus sparing science but giving both barrels instead to the medical profession). And sometimes, as here, both of those are passed over, so allowing old maid Ophelia a look-in. As for this very wonderful little film, don’t pause to rue Einstein’s absence. I guarantee that, whatever you may have thought of Desolation Row before seeing it, your take on Bob’s epic 1965 masterpiece thereafter won't be quite the same, for, if nothing else, in considering this one aspect of the song's cultural heritage, the film thereby places it comfortably into a continuum of great art spanning back nearly 500 years. And, lest you think such a claim pretentious or over-egged, watch first and then decide.

If you care anything for Dylan’s art, this film positively and absolutely must not be missed. Thanks, as before, to Ms V, and to Roderick Smith too. Five stars.