Another misunderstood song?

Another Bob Dylan song. Apologies, I will get back to mathematics soon, I promise …

I stumbled on the wikipedia page for “Desolation Row” recently, and was surprised to learn how many people had identified it with a particular street in a particular (usually North American) town. Even Dylan himself played this game, though of course he was well known for winding up the press. People talk as if Desolation Row is a street where all these bizarre things happen. But that is not it.

To unpick this, let’s turn back to a similar song on Dylan’s previous album, “Gates of Eden”. It is clear, even from the title, that inside the Gates of Eden is a kind of nirvana-like place (if that makes any sense) where there are no kings(!), no trials, no sins, reality doesn’t matter; but outside the Gates of Eden, there are no truths. (I suppose all is fake news.) All the bizarre action of the song takes place outside the Gates.

Now I contend that the same is true of Desolation Row. The first stanza makes clear that the singer and his lady are looking out from Desolation Row and watching the things to be described. Moreover, Ophelia, whose profession is her lifeless religion, spends her time peeking in; Einstein used to play electric violin there but now is a drainpipe-sniffing bum outside; you have to lean a long way out to hear the piping of Dr Filth’s sinister medical practice; and so on. People try to escape to Desolation Row, but insurance agents are directed to stop them, and if they succeed, they are punished. (You have to face reality, yes?) We learn that the Good Samaritan is going to a carnival on Desolation Row, but never find out whether he gets there.

Having two songs with such similar messages makes one inevitably look for a third to complete the trilogy. I used to think that the third is “Visions of Johanna”, where the immaterial visions play the role of the paradise safe from the outside world. (Johanna herself never puts in an appearance.) This is likely true, but there is a much later song, “Blind Willie McTell”, where Willie McTell’s blues songs seem to play the same role, insulating you from the chain gangs and bootleggers of reality. Perhaps he is accompanied by Einstein on violin?

Two final notes. First, I didn’t realise that the first line of the song is based on a real, dark incident in American history, where three black men where lynched by a mob of thousands in Duluth and hanged before they could be tried, and postcards were produced to commemorate the event.

Second, in my opinion, another Dylan song misrepresented by those who only hear the title is “Dear Landlord”; but I won’t go on to that now.