Bob Dylan didn’t rest on his laurels after his creative resurgence with Blood On The Tracks in 1975. He returned with Desire a year later. In many ways, it proved an even more ambitious undertaking than its predecessor.
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Dylan based the album around narrative-driven songs to an extent he’d never tried in his career. It’s an album filled with fascinating stories behind the songs, as these five tidbits prove.
Litigious Legerdemain
Many years earlier, Bob Dylan purposely misspelled one of the names on the lyric sheet of “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” to avoid potential legal proceedings. In the case of “Hurricane”, Dylan’s searing defense of the then-imprisoned Rubin Carter, he was again nearly tripped up by lawsuit concerns. When his record company heard the version of the song he had recorded, they insisted that he change some lyrics that might have invited a legal headache. He decided to re-record the song entirely rather than simply try and punch in the new lyrics. In any case, “Hurricane” helped bring attention to Carter’s plight. He eventually received a new trial and was released.
Surprise Collaborator, Part 1
Dylan had never worked with a co-writer to any major extent for his previous records. When he bumped into Jacques Levy one day in New York City, the two hit it off. Levy had done some songwriting, but he was mostly known for working in theater. When Dylan started playing him some of his new material, the partnership was on. Levy ended up with writing credits on eight out of ten of the album’s songs. And there’s no doubting that the material contained the kind of story structures that one might expect from the world of visual arts. You can hear in on epic narratives like Joey, Dylan, and Levy’s retelling of the life and times of New York crime figure Joe Gallo.
Surprise Collaborator, Part 2
Few artists of note have ever worked more instinctively in the studio than Bob Dylan. It turns out his tendency to go with his gut also applied to assembling his band. Dylan was bouncing around New York City in his car one day when he spotted Scarlett Rivera walking around with her violin case. Although the two had never met till that point, and Rivera hadn’t played on any other major records to that point, Dylan invited her to the Desire sessions after talking with her. What a brilliant decision that turned out to be. Rivera’s slinky violin parts help make Desire one of the most mysterious and alluring Dylan albums. You can hear what she brings to the table on tracks like “One More Cup Of Coffee”.
An Epic with a Twist
Desire steers clear of any concerns of filler. Each song seems like an event in itself, even while the tracks manage to paint a cohesive picture when heard together. “Black Diamond Bay” stands out as one of those deep Dylan album cuts that offer endless wonders to those who dive into it. That includes one of the few true twist endings in Bob’s catalog. Most of the song centers on the lost souls populating an island that’s about to be wiped out by a natural disaster. But in the song’s final verse, the perspective changes. We’re treated to a guy sitting watching television. He sees a news report about an earthquake with details suspiciously similar to what we’ve just heard. Did it really happen, or was it all in this bored dreamer’s imagination?
Reunited
After the fact, people referred to Blood On The Tracks as Bob Dylan’s divorce album. That negates the fact that Dylan didn’t get that divorce from his first wife, Sara, until 1977. They were indeed separated for a while during and after the making of that record. But when he was recording Desire, Sara Dylan came into the studio one day. She witnessed him laying down the track that he wrote in her honor. “Sara” is a stunning song that gives glimpses of the couple’s past history while also lamenting how they’ve come to this broken point. For a while, Bob and Sara did get back together as the song had hoped, although it would be a short-lived reunion.
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