Tuesday, July 09, 2024
Elizabeth Nelson on Bob Dylan's Desire I have mixed feelings about this record: "Hurricane" is a bop, but even at the time it seemed like a questionable bit of advocacy; "Joey" is simply awful, "Oh, Sister" is nearly as bad, and so is "Isis". On the other hand, there are moments- “Black Diamond Bay" is one- where ol'Bob's sense of humor shows through, and it is always interesting when Dylan collaborates with someone. "You know, I do lyrics," Jacques Levy is said to have told Bob when approached about working together, and perhaps that's why the songs that rock rock as well as they do, and why the melodies that work are as strong as they are.
[I]n some ways Desire is the most explicit manifestation of the central literary irony of Dylan’s career: that the consummate barometer of social and cultural authenticity can’t be trusted with the facts about anything, least of all himself.
// posted by Bill @ 12:10 PM 
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