Desolation Angels in a Desolation Row

I chose Desolation Row as the main topic of this work because since the first time I listened
to this song I found the way it lists so many characters very fascinating and compelling.
Moreover Bob Dylan is my favorite songwriter: I started listening to his music when I was

eleven and I’ve never stopped.

When in 1965 Dylan wrote this song he decided to give it the name Desolation Row as a
tribute to the contemporary and worldwide known writer Jack Kerouac.

Jack Kerouac was an author of the Beat Generation, a literary movement based on the
rejection of standard narrative values. People belonging to the Beat Generation often took
drugs and alcohol and used to follow exotic religions and habits.

Jack Kerouac wrote a novel called Desolation Angels in 1965, which is divided in two parts.
The first part is taken almost directly from a journal written by the author while he was
working completely alone as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade
mountains of Washington state. The second part is a sequel of the first and talks about the
Mexican trip of the author. The leitmotiv of the whole story is the theme of desolation and
sadness.
Here are some extracts from this novel:

“I look up, there are the stars, just the same, desolation, and the angels below who don’t
know they’re angels-
And Sarina will die – And I will die, and you will die, and we all will die, and even the stars
will fade out one after another in time.”

“Because all these serious faces’ll only drive you mad, the only truth is music – the only
meaning is without meaning – Music blends with the heartbeat universe and we forget the
brain beat.”

And finally, speaking about himself:

“They put spotlights on me standing there in the road in jeans and workclothes, with the big
woeful rucksack a-back, and asked: - "Where are you going?" which is precisely what they
asked me a year later under television floodlights in New York, "Where are you going?”-
Just as you can’t explain to the police, you cant explain to society "Looking for peace.”

Having explained Kerouac’s novel main topic, Dylan’s song connects with it by speaking
about desolation. Bob Dylan lists different iconic figures, such as Bible characters (Noah,
Cain and Abel), fictional (Ophelia, Romeo, Cinderella) and famous artists and scientists
(T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Einstein). This well-known personalities, which all belong to
the collective imagination, are all put in the same location, which is indeed Desolation Row.
We can consider Desolation Row as both the sum of civilization decadence and the
imaginary place where myths are dismantled and the reality of life, made of sadness and
desolation, is seen in its wholeness.

Below are the song lyrics, and by side there is

an explanation of peculiar parts:
This first episode is referred to a real event: the
They're selling postcards of the hanging lynching of three black men in Duluth. They
They're painting the passports brown were workers of a circus and had been accused
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors of raping a white woman. On the night of June
The circus is in town 15, 1920, they were removed from custody and
Here comes the blind commissioner hanged. Photos of the lynching were sold as
They've got him in a trance postcards. Duluth was Bob Dylan's birthplace.
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker Dylan's father, Abram Zimmerman, was eight
The other is in his pants years old at the time of the lynching, and lived
And the riot squad they're restless only two blocks from the scene. Abram
They need somewhere to go Zimmerman passed the story on to his son.
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Cinderella is the famous fairytale character
Cinderella, she seems so easy that here is seen in a modern way. In fact she
"It takes one to know one," she smiles puts her hand in the classic pose of the Bette
And puts her hands in her back pockets Davis actress.
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning Romeo is the character of the well-known
"You Belong to Me I Believe" Shakespeare’s drama. He is searching for
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, Juliet but he is in the wrong place.
my friend You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
The hunchback of Notre Dame is the
Now the moon is almost hidden character of Notre-Dame de Paris, a Victor
The stars are beginning to hide Hugo novel, and is a symbol of a man rejected
The fortunetelling lady by society.
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 is one of the main characters of
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
Shakespeare’s drama Hamlet and she is
For her I feel so afraid
described as a lifelessness woman, because
On her twenty-second birthday
she let herself drown after her disregarded
love for Hamlet.
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 is here described as an electric violin
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood player. He really used to play violin, but not
With his memories in a trunk the electric one.
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now 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 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
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding 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 Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row”
Now 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 “Which Side Are You On?” is a sentence

The Titanic sails at dawn closely bounded to the social clashes of the
And everybody's shouting sixties, when in the stream of the civil rights
"Which Side Are You On?" movements people felt the need to unmask
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot opportunism and ambiguity.
Fighting in the captain's tower Ezra Pound and Thomas Eliot are represented
While calypso singers laugh at them here as a symbol of literary Decadentism far
And fishermen hold flowers away from real life.
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 door knob broke)
When you asked 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

The song was originally recorded with an electric guitar, but the album version of
Desolation Row is acoustic. The guitarist Charlie McCoy was invited by the producer Bob
Johnston to contribute to the recording with an improvised acoustic guitar part, which
always repeat the same leitmotiv for the whole length of the song.

Many covers exist of Desolation Row, but in my opinion the best one is the one by Fabrizio
De Andrè, who has a poetical free lyrics translation but with an identical music part.
Below are the song lyrics:

Il Salone di bellezza in fondo al vicolo

È affollatissimo di marinai
Prova a chiedere a uno che ore sono
E ti risponderà "non l'ho saputo mai"
Le cartoline dell'impiccagione
Sono in vendita a cento lire l'una
Il commissario cieco dietro la stazione
Per un indizio ti legge la sfortuna
E le forze dell'ordine irrequiete
Cercano qualcosa che non va
Mentre io e la mia signora ci affacciamo stasera
Su via della Povertà

Cenerentola sembra così facile

Ogni volta che sorride ti cattura
Ricorda proprio Bette Davis
Con le mani appoggiate alla cintura
Arriva Romeo trafelato
E le grida "il mio amore sei tu"
Ma qualcuno gli dice di andar via
E di non riprovarci più
E l'unico suono che rimane
Quando l'ambulanza se ne va
È Cenerentola che spazza la strada
In via della Povertà

Mentre l'alba sta uccidendo la luna

E le stelle si son quasi nascoste
La signora che legge la fortuna
Se n'è andata in compagnia dell'oste
Ad eccezione di Abele e di Caino
Tutti quanti sono andati a far l'amore
Aspettando che venga la pioggia
Ad annacquare la gioia ed il dolore
E il Buon Samaritano
Sta affilando la sua pietà
Se ne andrà al Carnevale stasera
In via della Povertà

I tre Re Magi sono disperati

Gesù Bambino è diventato vecchio
E Mister Hyde piange sconcertato
Vedendo Jeckyll che ride nello specchio
Ofelia è dietro la finestra
Mai nessuno le ha detto che è bella
A soli ventidue anni
È già una vecchia zitella
La sua morte sarà molto romantica
Trasformandosi in oro se ne andrà
Per adesso cammina avanti e indietro
In via della Povertà

Einstein travestito da ubriacone

Ha nascosto I suoi appunti in un baule
È passato di qui un'ora fa
Diretto verso l'ultima Thule
Sembrava così timido e impaurito
Quando ha chiesto di fermarsi un po' qui
Ma poi ha cominciato a fumare
E a recitare l'A B C
Ed a vederlo tu non lo diresti mai
Ma era famoso qualche tempo fa
Per suonare il violino elettrico
In via della Povertà

Ci si prepara per la grande festa

C'è qualcuno che comincia ad aver sete
Il fantasma dell'opera
Si è vestito in abiti da prete
Sta ingozzando a viva forza Casanova
Per punirlo della sua sensualità
Lo ucciderà parlandogli d'amore
Dopo averlo avvelenato di pietà
E mentre il fantasma grida
Tre ragazze si son spogliate già
Casanova sta per essere violentato
In via della Povertà

E bravo Nettuno mattacchione

Il Titanic sta affondando nell'aurora
Nelle scialuppe I posti letto sono tutti occupati
E il capitano grida "ce ne stanno ancora"
E Ezra Pound e Thomas Eliot
Fanno a pugni nella torre di comando
I suonatori di calipso ridono di loro
Mentre il cielo si sta allontanando
E affacciati alle loro finestre nel mare
Tutti pescano mimose e lillà
E nessuno deve più preoccuparsi
Di via della Povertà

A mezzanotte in punto I poliziotti

Fanno il loro solito lavoro
Metton le manette intorno ai polsi
A quelli che ne sanno più di loro
I prigionieri vengon trascinati
Su un calvario improvvisato lì vicino
E il caporale Adolfo li ha avvisati
Che passeranno tutti dal camino
E il vento ride forte
E nessuno riuscirà a ingannare il suo destino
In via della Povertà

La tua lettera l'ho avuta proprio ieri

Mi racconti tutto quel che fai
Ma non essere ridicola
Non chiedermi "come stai"
Questa gente di cui mi vai parlando
È gente come tutti noi
Non mi sembra che siano mostri
Non mi sembra che siano eroi
E non mandarmi ancora tue notizie
Nessuno ti risponderà
Se insisti a spedirmi le tue lettere
Da via della Povertà

This version of the song has been translated in collaboration with Francesco De Gregori.
Fabrizio De Andrè mentions almost all the same characters of Bob Dylan’s song, but he
tries to give them a position in his contemporary society. This is quite noticeable in the last
stanza in which he tells that all people mentioned are just like us.

The characters added by Fabrizio De Andrè are: Jesus and the Three Wise Men, Dr. Jekill
and Mr. Hyde from Stevenson’s novel and a certain corporal called Adolfo who represents
Hitler. Moreover, Einstein is here seen as a drunk man, while in Dylan’s version he’s
disguised as Robin Hood.

The Original Version: https://youtu.be/hUvcWXTIjcU

The De Andrè Version: https://youtu.be/i0MwWnvRdSk