bob dylan: desire, the poll

Have soft spots for lots of these like “Black Diamond Bay,” for example, but objectively it’s got to be “Isis.”

I love a lot of this record, including some of the songs that other people don't, but "Romance in Durango" is the one I could listen to all day.

Isis for me. I love the loping rhythm and I never tire of the story.

This record is a hard if not impossible listen -- I recoil from his whine, the wet slap of the drums, the inapposite Emmylou harmonies.

Yeah this is not a good record

hurricane

love romance in durango, esp the version on the rolling thunder review “bootleg” set.

On the one hand, I agree with Alfred but on the other hand I find this album’s turgidness and bloat compelling and sorta hypnotic

I get that with Street-Legal and Empire Burlesque, not here. There's a sense of using the record as a therapy that I don't wanna hear from Dylan yet he uses gypsy tropes, musical and lyrical, as distancing devices without toning down the coke volume of his voice. I'll take EB and Under the Red Sky over it.

Not a Dylan fan in the slightest but I absolutely adore ‘Sara’.. I actually think it’s one of the great love songs...the imagery is just beautiful and he actually sounds quite choked up/soulful even singing it...

Not into this album (Alfred’s notes OTM); voted “Black Diamond Bay.”

Oh, god, “Sara” is one of the great terrible Dylan performances. His strident whine induces apoplectic rage in me, same response as from young children shrieking in public.

I used to like this record otherwise. Thought Hurricane was a jam. Nowadays it’s Isis all the way (tho I prefer that great live version on Biograph).

I voted for "Sara", the only song on here that I ever want to play.

"Joey" obviously.

Yeah not a big fan of this one, esp coming after BOTT. Toss up between Durango and Mozambique for me (I'll probably vote for the latter since no-one else probably will)

"One More Cup of Coffee" is hilariously terrible otherwise I like the vibe and sound of the album, the violin, Emmylou.
But the songs are not very good, indeed.
Anyway, for me, "Sara" easily.

I really like this album, never got the perceived relative dislike, although it makes a little bit of sense in the light of it following Blood On The Tracks.

Need to hear it again before voting. One More Cup is one I do like a lot. Hurricane's cool. But it's likely that I'll go with one of the more popular choices Durango or Sara as well.

completely baffled by the dislike for this record. dylan + emmylou sounds great to me, cf. “oh sister” which i’m prob voting for. i was surprised that the songs i’ve heard are “bad” are both awesome (“one more cup of coffee” and “joey”)

nonstop great drum performance on this record

What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad - Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!

Songs I'd keep:

Isis
One More Cup of Coffee
Sara (maybe)

Dylan fans seem to loathe "Joey", which, in itself, is a good reason to like it. As it is, I've never been interested in Dylan, but for some reason I had a tape of this album and "Joey" is the only song I remember from it.

the drums don't even wetly slap alfred

they better not slap me!

i marvel at their crispness, the playing on "one more cup of coffee" is delicious

Is the wet slapping meaning the hand drums?

one more cup of coffee is great, desire is fun and low stakes except when it’s devastating (sara, oh sister), emmylou sounds wonderful as always, the fiddling is annoying but not oppressive

Probably going with Oh Sister

Hurricane or Isis for now. This album tends to grate on me after the first two tracks, but I'll give it another shot...

This album grates on me if I listen to ANY two tracks in sequence, but I can listen to most of them one by one just fine.

“Sara” reminds me of Heath Ledger’s great performance as divorce-bound Dylan in I’m Not There.

hard for me to get critical distance on this one - my first dylan album (after the old blue greatest hits) and my dad's favorite - i think one of very very few records from his younger days that he ever made a point of getting on CD for convenient listening. i always found "joey" a huge drag, always always dug "black diamond bay" (even polled its cast of characters once), but of the lopey story songs it's pretty clear "isis" is the standout. the hook on "romance in durango" cooks, esp in rolling thunder live mode, but it's hard to get past all that hokey cod-mexican imagery. "hurricane" blew me away as a teen, wish i could hear it for the first time again, nowadays i think it's a little overlong despite some killer lines sprinkled throughout.

yeah, hurricane was certainly one of my gateway tracks to dylan fandom.

I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for Desire even if it’s second level Dylan. It is a travelogue album full of strange characters, exotic locations, adventure, failed love, and brief flings: it’s Heart of Darkness as a Harlequin romance novel. The gypsy element, violin and Emmylou Harris, give it a unique feel in Dylan’s catalog.

One More Cup of Coffee, Oh Sister, and Isis are the heart of the album and responsible for the weird vibe just as much as the violin. I love everything except Mozambique and Black Diamond Bay, which I like in the context of the album.

I know people dislike Joey (and I get why) but I kind of love it. He uses so many idiosyncratic flourishes (“in the year of who knows when”). As is often the case with Dylan, he saves questionable material through the gravity of his performances.

I’ve always had a warm place in my heart for Desire even if it’s second level Dylan. It is a travelogue album full of strange characters, exotic locations, adventure, failed love, and brief flings: it’s Heart of Darkness as a Harlequin romance novel. The gypsy element, violin and Emmylou Harris, give it a unique feel in Dylan’s catalog.

One More Cup of Coffee, Oh Sister, and Isis are the heart of the album and responsible for the weird vibe just as much as the violin. I love everything except Mozambique and Black Diamond Bay, which I like in the context of the album.

I know people dislike Joey (and I get why) but I kind of love it. He uses so many idiosyncratic flourishes (“in the year of who knows when”). As is often the case with Dylan, he saves questionable material through the gravity of his performances.

Sorry bout that.

I know people dislike Joey (and I get why) but I kind of love it. He uses so many idiosyncratic flourishes (“in the year of who knows when”). As is often the case with Dylan, he saves questionable material through the gravity of his performances.

On the contrary I think his performance on "Joey" is pretty comic.

On the proviso that I'm not a Dylan fan, that is.

Found it: Bob Dylan's "Black Diamond Bay" Characters Poll

On the contrary I think his performance on "Joey" is pretty comic.

I didn’t mean “gravity” in the sense of seriousness, more in the sense of a force that sucks you in. Dylan’s almost always funny in my book: I mean he’s trying just as hard to sell you on the tragedy of a bloody gangster as he did on Hattie Carroll.

I like Mozambique, mainly because it's one of the few songs that isn't 100 years long

didn't know this album was unpopular. i'm not a huge Dylan fan but i do like this one

Unpopular among critics, but it's not a bloc either. At any rate it was a considerable hit with the public.

Desire is great — that loose sound (those drums!), unreliable narrators all over the place ... such a radically different record than Blood On The Tracks, even though they were recorded less than a year apart. Dylan definitely figured these songs out during the Rolling Thunder Revue, but the slightly hesitant feel of the album sessions is pleasing to my ears.

Has there ever been an official breakdown of which lyrics were written by Dylan and which by Jacques Levy?

Dylan gets solo credit for "Sara" and "One More Cup of Coffee."

yeah i don't think there's been a line-by-line breakdown of the levy/dylan songs ... maybe there's a levy interview i haven't read though?

i worship at the throne of howie wyeth

he's definitely a cool player, very interesting style (him and stoner sound great together). was just reading that he was supposed to be on the 1978 tour originally but had to back out because he realized he couldn't bring drugs to Japan ... would've been a different vibe, I think.

I'm totally okay with the hokeyness of Desire and I love the rhythm section on this - the drums especially. Eck. I have a half-baked theory that all American writers eventually have to reckon with the 'West' as a concept and this is Dylan's whack at it. It's also him returning to hiding after the nakedness of Blood on the Tracks.

I'd probably go for Isis. The ordinary/necessary rhyme and phrasing is enough to make it one of my favourite Dylan verses.

Emmylou Harris is, for me, the real star of this album (along with Dylan himself).

Hmm... the estate’s gonna have to serve somebody.

― one of the only artist who is genuine (morrisp), Wednesday, January 20, 2021 5:32 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

That interview with Claudia Levy was great, thanks!

I've avoided this thread because my opinion of the album (since the 70s) has always been pretty much Alfred's...

It's not one of my favorites either, but there's a lot that's good and bad about it. "Mozambique" is insipid - the first time I heard it, it was a funny tongue-in-cheek novelty celebrating the country's newfound independence, but it loses its charm fast and I can barely stand it now. "Joey" is thoroughly terrible. "Hurricane" feels packed with awful rhymes. Most of the performances sound too tepid - I wish Dylan had taken up Sloman's suggestion and replaced the weaker performances with live ones from the late November/early December tour performances (fortunately, they were officially released a few years ago).

But otherwise, "Hurricane" is a wonderful performance, so much it can make up for the dodgy words. "Isis" and "Sara" are masterpieces. "Black Diamond Bay" still holds up as witty and charming every time I hear it. "Abandoned Love" is an excellent outtake - it nearly took (and should have taken) the spot given to "Joey." And while the studio performances of "One More Cup of Coffee," "Oh, Sister" and "Romance in Durango" bother me less now, the live ones that were officially released (The Bootleg Series Vol. 5 for the first two, Biograph for "Durango") are marvelous - had they slotted those in along with "Abandoned Love," Desire would have played like a truly great album to me.

FWIW, that's actually what I listen to if I ever put it on - I burned it on a CD years ago:

1. Hurricane
2. Isis
3. One More Cup of Coffee [live, 11/21/1975, 2nd show]
4. Oh, Sister [live, 11/21/1975, 2nd show]
5. Abandoned Love
6. Romance in Durango [live, 12/4/1975]
7. Black Diamond Bay
8. Sara

It's about 46 and a half minutes, which is still pretty long for a single LP. (The original crammed in over 56 minutes.)

Funnily enough, I was listening to "Black Diamond Bay" and "Iris" last week.

Now imagining Dylan covering that horrible Goo Goo Dolls song, thank you

I can hear it!

100% agree that the ideal tracklist cuts Mozambique and Joey, and adds Abandoned Love. With regard to the songs for which you subbed live versions, birdistheword, I am torn. I agree that the live arrangements and energy are superior, but I'm not sure they would fit the vibe of the album better than the cuts he put on.

One More Cup of Coffee is different enough to be apples and oranges, and I get why some dislike the album version but it has a lot of charm to me (the Roger McGuin version on the I'm Not There soundtrack captures a bit about what the song gains from being slinky and mellow rather than shot through with adrenaline). I do love the saxophone on the Budokan version, over-the-top as it may be. Like I said, apples and oranges.

I think my ideal version of Romance in Durango would be somewhere between the more loping groove of the album version and the faster, higher energy live arrangement. So less of a disagreement there, though I think my ideal Desire keeps the studio one. I also love the transition from Durango into Black Diamond Bay, to the point that I always think of them as a suite, even though they couldn't be less connected to each other, musically or thematically. It's just that Durango fades out so nice and Black Diamond Bay fades in so nice...

Desire fans (and maybe even non-Desire fans) should seek out the rehearsals discs that showed up on the Rolling Thunder box — basically Desire meets the Basement Tapes.

Thanks, Tyler, that sounds great! Will pursue

I'm not going to argue that Desire doesn't have warts, because it does, but I love the album and the warts make it one of his most distinctive.

but do you actually listen to Joey when you put it on?

I love Joey. One of my favorite of his performances as performance.

I like Joey, too - particularly the harmonies on the chorus. I've never really followed the narrative of the song and have sort of wilfully ignored the background so have nothing to hate about it.

I mean I get the criticism. Some of the rhymes are laughable, he makes a martyr out of a cheap gangster, one of his most mannered performances, etc., but Bob sells the hell out of it.

It's the best track on the album. The criticism of it only confirms that I'm right not to be a Bob Dylan fan.

What are the laughable rhymes btw?

Thanks yall, I will check out those live versions---re "Joey," I tweaked the Renaldo comments. like I should have done before posting the link, sorry, and added this:
I've started to wonder if the whiny-to-yowly, curiously laidback yet carefully detailed (in word and delivery), insolent-as-indolent (punk) "Joey," which eventually follows "Hurricane" on Desire, isn't a self-parody as partial disavowal of his righteous white protest bard mode---also screwing with us, daring us to decide about both songs' mixed motives, mixed messages, a la Andy Kaufman, and El Cohen, on occasion.

Getting back to movies, the gangsterous, sketchy trail of rising, falling Red Hook son "Joey" might (also?) be a take-off on the...cinematic preoccupations of the aforementioned Scorsese... (Then I go into a few things re working relationship of Scorsese and D.)

So I've heard Jacques Levy actually wrote "Joey"?

Wow, thanks for the link to the Claudia Levy interview; she maybe should write her own book---and the interviewer is writing about every Rolling Thunder show.

that whole substack is worth subscribing to — the Rolling Thunder interviews were amazing (and he might be turning the whole thing into a book of some kind)

What are the laughable rhymes btw?

Not my criticism, just things like too much last/Blast and too/blue. I will let others who don't like the song have at it. I will say the parts I love about it are mostly the verses and not the chorus, although that does build and build as the song reaches its conclusion.

Has it been mentioned yet the Jacques Levy also directed the stage version of Oh! Calcutta!?

So I've heard Jacques Levy actually wrote "Joey"?

That's what Dylan says, at least recently. It's possible he got tired of taking shit for it and decided it was easier to pass all the blame on to a dead man.

Feel like I see a recent bio of Joey on a bookstore table a few years back.

Desire has a dusty sepia aura about it that makes criticisms beside the point for me. I can see the reasons for finding fault, but the vocal and instrumental performances convey a strong sense of character that dominates my attention. I don't like any of his subsequent records as much until World Gone Wrong.

People don't rate Mozambique? I quite like it. Also it's one of the fee on this album that isn't a hundred and fifty years long

yeah, I defended it upthread.

I'm not a Lester Bangs aficionado, but his dismissal of "Mozambique" has never left me.

Again, I'm not a fan of "Mozambique," but they recorded a lot of short, inconsequential songs that are virtually ditties - "Rita May," "Catfish," etc. - and in its defense it's probably the best of them, so it's not surprising it's the only one that made the album.

Jerry Lee Lewis actually did a fun version of "Rita May" - not one of his great latter day recordings, but it's very enjoyable and better than Dylan's.

Oh yeah, that is good! Think there's an energetic live version on the 'Tube sometimes as well, and I dig his renditions of Dylan's "Red-Headed Stepchild." Sounds like both songs might have been written w JLL in mind, ditto "To Be Alone With You."

This seems like a clear description of positions on both sides of the Levy survivors' suit:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/legal-and-management/9514292/bob-dylan-lawsuit-co-writer-song-catalog-sale

Based on the one clause from the contact that’s quoted I can see the Dylan argument that it doesn’t encompass what they’re asking for.

Not just that, were Levy successful, his estate would be in a better position after the sale than it was in before the sale as well as in a better position than Dylan.

Before the sale, all Levy's estate gets is the 35% share of royalties received. Bob has all other rights (licensing, etc.), including to the other 65%.

After the sale, the Levy estate presumably still gets its 35%, while Dylan gets 0%. In essence, what Dylan sold (I would argue) is all his rights (and obligations) including his right to receive the 65% and his obligation to pay the estate 35%.

If Levy's estate succeeds, it would continue to get 35% plus it would have shared in the sale proceeds.

That being said, Dylan not acknowledging Levy as director of the Rolling Thunder tour including up through the Scorsese documentary is not very cool.

Yeah, and according to the Claudia Levy interview linked above, Scorsese left J. out of the Rolling Thunder semi-doc--one of his Renaldo-homage moves being to substitute a fictional director---even though they sent a limo for her to attend the premiere, had her walk the red carpet etc. Weird.
This is about D's usual biz-astuteness, considered unusual for a music star: https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9500352/bob-dylan-song-publishing-deals-history-umg/

Days to come! https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/9500077/bob-dylan-publishing-sale-whats-next/

albums that never were actually just did this — http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2020/12/bob-dylan-renaldo-clara-soundtrack.html

I finally caught up to this. I waited because it looked redundant - which it is, now that we have Live 1975 and the box set of shows from two years back - but it sank in that projects like these are supposed to be an alternate reality, so I gave it a try and it's GREAT. A "best of" compilation like Live 1975 or a whole show like Montreal, Dec. 4, 1975 would have been better, true, but for a single live LP that would have made practical sense in 1976 or 1978, this is superb. The only song I miss is "Oh, Sister," but otherwise this gets all the essentials. Something like "Hurricane" I don't miss - none of the unwieldy live performances come close to matching the studio version, and the length alone would drag down a live album. It's too bad Hard Rain was the lone representation for so long, it would've been better if Dylan had released this instead (in late 1976, not 1978 - he should've ditched his stupid movie and cut it as a simple concert film rather than labor over it for more than two years).

He did try a re-cut, more of a concert movie, but still got bad feedback, as Albums That Never Were mentions. Haven't seen that, but the original was v. watchable, at least when I saw it on YouTube in 2012, an hour at a time, because busy (my piece linked above has been tweaked for some sentence improvement, and updates w links from this thread). Maybe it would have been tiresome all the way through at one sitting in a theater, but don't think so. Yeah, I miss "Oh Sister" too: the versions of that and the slide-guitar, uptempo performance on Hard Rain def. keepers---the studio original always seemed a bit tentative, and Emmylou Harris said later she thought it was a run-through, pretty much her first encounter w the song on paper or basic track etc.

Damn! slide guitar, uptempo performance of *"Shelter From The Storm,"* Ah meant to say, sorry!

Yeah, "Oh Sister" and "Shelter from the Storm" were probably the best cuts on Hard Rain. I still prefer the "Oh Sister" on Live 1975, Dylan's vocal is wonderful. As for the album version, I can definitely see what Harris means. For starters, when they did it on tour, the opening harmonica and violin blended together harmoniously, but on the studio cut, they clash kind of horrible for the first second or two. And when Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissued it several years ago, they discovered a few extra seconds of "Oh Sister" which they left in - after the band plays the last note, Harris curses out loud, like they screwed something up.

*horribly

ok I'm sure this discussion has been had in many places over the years including probably on ilm somewhere (though not, apparently, in this thread), but just wondering if others are as skeeved out by the first 2 verses - especially the first - of "Oh, Sister"? Try as I might to interpret it charitably I can't help but hear Bob's words as not only threatening but playing on power dynamics in a very uncomfortable way, like an abusive partner telling his ex that there are gonna be consequences if she turns him away, doesn't come back, etc. I love the bridge and final verse of the song, but their poetry and tenderness and vulnerability are spoiled for me by the fact that the narrator seems to be using them as a means to the end of guilt-tripping his partner into taking him back into her bed. Even just the formulation "when I come to lie in your arms," before you even get to telling her what she "should" do, deprives her of agency and is asserting that their relationship exists on his terms. I really want to love this song, and as a cowboy chords campfire guitarist it's a fun and easy one to play, but I never feel totally comfortable listening to or singing those first two verses. =

Yeah--it's a frankly fucked-up, somewhut lost, warts 'n' all self-portrait---which reminds me of cover of Self Portrait---by the same token, manipulative sentimentality, and what is a good con w/o impressive ingredients of truth---reminds me of Kristofferson's "Shandy":
'Cause nightmares are somebody's daydreams
Daydreams are somebody's lies
Lies ain't no harder than tellin' the truth
Truth is the perfect disguise How's that for a chorus? But "Oh Sister" seems tangled up in blue for reals enough to get into my ears like he wants into hers---also, as on most of Blood On The Tracks, he wants our sympathy, our "We've all been there"," and uh well at least I never played the religion card, as he does on "Oh Sister" and elsewhere---but yeah, it's pretty listenable as such, although if I were a woman, might not agree---had more trouble with what I mentioned upthread as the guilt-tripping (and less musically appealing) "Sara," although obvs a lot of people dig it.

Agree that "Sara" is musically inferior, but the lyrics don't strike me as guilt-tripping at all. He's pleading kind of pathetically and meekly, convincingly perplexed as to how something so sweet went sour. Wallowing in memories. "Oh, Sister" by contrast is menacing - refusing to let go, rather than mourning.

Otoh maybe he just suckered me in fully on "Sara"... ime with Bob it just takes a little bit of convincing self-awareness for me to tolerate/accept a whole lot of his more manipulative posturing. I am thinking about the last verse of Idiot Wind, which does a tremendous amount to redeem and elicit compassion for the narrator (in my heart, even though in my head I know it's just as calculated).

Yeah, "Idiot Wind" finally dislodges the sad ex-husband mask, just enough---!

“He ain’t no gentleman Jim” is pretty awkward

It's a reference to Gentleman Jim Corbett, an earlier boxer.

Oh

To be fair, that chunk of the song is awkwardly rhymed. I love the track but I cringe at quite a few spots, especially that one.

We want to put his ass in STIR
We want to pin this triple murrrrr-DER...on HIM!
He ain't no Gentleman JIIIIIIIM!!!!!!

Jacques Levy's son, Julien, talks about his father's role in Desire:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kz47vy/my-father-was-left-out-of-martin-scorseses-bob-dylan-movie

Didn't realize his father was friends with Joey Gallo, hence the notorious song, "Joey" (the lyrics of which Dylan has claimed were all written by Jacques Levy). Not one word of any of his horrendous deeds.