Dylan always had a thing for story songs--he would sprinkle a few in each of his albums, but he never focused on them until the followup to his mid-career masterpiece Blood on the Tracks. For Desire, Dylan brought out an entire album of story songs. Even the few songs that aren't strictly narrative (the 3-track run of "Mozambique," "One More Cup of Coffee" & "Oh, Sister") still have a strong sense of place & atmosphere, rounding out the settings for the other songs, adding to the overall impression of a rakish, picaresque travelogue. Probably because of the collaboration with Jacques Levy, who specialized in the theater, this is certainly the most dramatic album Dylan ever put together.
The opener "Hurricane" is an example of a genre familiar to Bob Dylan: the plainspoken, "singing journalist" ripped-from-the-headlines protest song. (Well, plainspoken aside from the '70s jive talk he throws in, including an ill-advised use of the n-word.) From "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" to "Who Killed Davey Moore?" Dylan used to be the best in the world at this type of thing (apart from maybe Phil Ochs). The thing is, he hadn't written such a song in a long time, & in fact it was pretty much the only one of the entire 1970s. Even more amazing, the song was a hit, reaching #33 on the Billboard Hot 100. If Ruben Carter's story affected Dylan enough to make him reach back into his topical ballad bag & do something he hadn't done in a decade, the results were gratifying: the song's success led to Carter getting a new trial & ultimately exonerated. Don't let anybody tell you art can't help save the world.
But even on "Hurricane," the violin hits you before the lyrics do. Violinist Scarlet Rivera is the most noticeable of the 2 major backup players on this record; her haunting playing appears on every track & is a big part of the album's distinctive sound. The other MVP is Emmylou Harris, whose backing vocals are mixed almost equal to Dylan's on songs like "Mozambique" & "Oh, Sister," as well as the choruses of "One More Cup of Coffee," "Black Diamond Bay," & more.
In some ways, "Hurricane" feels like a real-world prologue before we dive into Desire's fantasy worlds. If that's the case, "Isis" is the true opener, a piano-led blues shuffle that tells the western-tinged adventure story of an unsuccessful grave robbing that leads a new groom to recommit to his marriage. The comparatively short & simplistic "Mozambique" follows, & here we start to see a slightly troubling tendency of this album to romanticize "exotic" locales like southern Africa, Mexico ("Romance in Durango") & possibly the Caribbean ("Black Diamond Bay"). I recognize that these themes are important for the louche, globetrotting mood of the album, & it doesn't get really harmful, but it still doesn't sit entirely right with me.
Speaking of Dylan's cringe tendencies, closer "Sara" is a mixed bag. On one hand, it's the most intimate glimpse into his private life that Dylan ever offered his audience. On the other hand, Dylan's always had a problem with being condescending toward women who fall short of his idealized standards, & calling his ex things like "sweet virgin angel" & "mystical wife" does not help in that regard. Gratefully, those sentiments are confined to the choruses, while the verses are just well-chosen images & narrative details that the listener is invited to make sense of.
"Black Diamond Bay" is one of the weaker tracks here--I think "Lily, Rosemary & the Jack of Hearts" from Blood on the Tracks does everything that tune tries to do just a little better. I'm also not a fan of the overlong, mobster-lionizing "Joey." But all in all, Dylan never made another album that sounds anything like this. Between the mysteriousness of "Isis" & "One More Cup of Coffee" & the radio-friendly justice fire of "Hurricane," there is a certain ineffable magic here.
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