If Blood on the Tracks was an unapologetically intimate affair, Desire is unwieldy and messy, the deliberate work of a collective. And while Bob Dylan directly addresses his crumbling relationship with his wife, Sara, on the final track, Desire is hardly as personal as its predecessor, finding Dylan returning to topical songwriting and folk tales for the core of the record. It's all over the map, as far as songwriting goes, and so is it musically, capturing Dylan at the beginning of the Rolling Thunder Revue era, which was more notable for its chaos than its music. And, so it's only fitting that Desire fits that description as well, as it careens between surging folk-rock, Mideastern dirges, skipping pop, and epic narratives. It's little surprise that Desire doesn't quite gel, yet it retains its own character -- really, there's no other place where Dylan tried as many different styles, as many weird detours, as he does here. And, there's something to be said for its rambling, sprawling character, which has a charm of its own. Even so, the record would have been assisted by a more consistent set of songs; there are some masterpieces here, though: "Hurricane" is the best-known, but the effervescent "Mozambique" is Dylan at his breeziest, "Sara" at his most nakedly emotional, and "Isis" is one of his very best songs of the '70s, a hypnotic, contemporized spin on a classic fable. This may not add up to a masterpiece, but it does result in one of his most fascinating records of the '70s and '80s -- more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.
"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."The immortal words of David Wooderson. The man, the myth, the legend. And in a movie full of great scenes, one of the most memorable for me is when Wooderson enters the Emporium, slo-mo style, set to Dlyan's 'Hurricane'.For those several seconds, he was the epitome of late 1970's small town cool.Bob Dyl...
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It took me about half a year to get this thing working :P, not that I looked at it much in the time between now and my registration date. Problem with flac support is solved I see now, and I can log in again.So that was me, now lets see. Probably there won't be much activity because there is more to life than some community forming without any direct social contact, but I will keep the mog whee...
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Two Bob Dylan poems made their way into the September 22nd issue of the New Yorker. The poems, titled #17 and #21, are both from the book Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript, a collection of 23 Bob Dylan poems synched to photos taken by Barry Feinstein. Feinstein shot Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' cover, about the same time in the '60s that Dylan penned the two poems you can r...
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"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."The immortal words of David Wooderson. The man, the myth, the legend. And in a movie full of great scenes, one of the most memorable for me is when Wooderson enters the Emporium, slo-mo style, set to Dlyan's 'Hurricane'.For those several seconds, he was the epitome of late 1970's small town cool.
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How do you pick a Bob Dylan song when every song is special? Here's just one of my favorites, from "Desire"....(and a few more pictures from the San Carlos trip.)This is Craig's sculpture "Apache" which is installed at the entrance to the Apache Gold Casino in Globe, Arizona.Coming home thru the eastern Sierras.
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Whew. It's tired in here. This weekend I went through the major ordeal of moving. In addition to sleep deprivation and exhaustion, there is the unfortunate byproduct of being without Internet at home. I am actually _happy_ to be at the office - for one, I can check in on Mogland (I'll never catch up though) and secondly, at least I have 9 hours that I don't have to wade through boxes.I am n...
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"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."The immortal words of David Wooderson. The man, the myth, the legend. And in a movie full of great scenes, one of the most memorable for me is when Wooderson enters the Emporium, slo-mo style, set to Dlyan's 'Hurricane'.For those several seconds, he was the epitome of late 1970's small town cool.Bob Dyl...
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Pistol shots ring out in the barroom nightEnter patty valentine from the upper hall.She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,Cries out, my god, they killed them all!Here comes the story of the hurricane,The man the authorities came to blameFor somethin that he never done.Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a beenThe champion of the world.
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Man, I have been gone for quite some time now. You must forgive my absense! I have so much to say, and trust me...it will be said. Everything from As I Lay Dying to Bob Dylan are involved. My posts will start being more frequent, and I know you all are very excited! Or are you? Well, check back as soon as tomorrow. I hope to have a review or something like it up by then. Yours Truely,Val Pal
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It took me about half a year to get this thing working :P, not that I looked at it much in the time between now and my registration date. Problem with flac support is solved I see now, and I can log in again.So that was me, now lets see. Probably there won't be much activity because there is more to life than some community forming without any direct social contact, but I will keep the mog whee...
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| Title | Lyrics | Buy |
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| 1 Hurricane |
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| 2 Isis |
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| 3 Mozambique |
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| 4 One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below) |
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| 5 Oh, Sister |
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| 6 Joey |
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| 7 Romance in Durango |
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| 8 Black Diamond Bay |
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| 9 Sara |
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 "Desire")
