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Performed by "Bob Dylan"
Album: " Highway 61 Revisited"
We have included the explanations in the lyrics below.
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Comments: First Verse- On June 15, 1920, a mob of 10,000 lynched three men, Isaac McGhie, Elias Clayton and Elmer Jackson at the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East in Duluth MN. The men were in town with a traveling circus and were dubiously accused of raping a local girl. (On June 15, 1920, Dylan’s then ten-year-old father lived in a third floor apartment at 221 North Lake Avenue.) The Police Commissioner instructed the guards not to use their guns to defend the young men who were broken out of jail by the mob. Postcards with a photo of the incident were sold as souvenirs. It seems likely that the opening lines of Desolation Row, if not the entire song refer to this incident and the players involved, or to Duluth in general.
Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row
Comments: The second verse concerns Cinderella and Romeo, who apparently wants to woo Cinderella; she "seems so easy". However, due to his being in "the wrong place", (Desolation Row), he is unable to woo her. Cinderella is left "sweeping up/on Desolation Row" after the ambulances leave.
Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row
Comments: Cain and Abel, from the Bible, represent two brothers arguing and the Hunchback represents someone who is physically or mentally handicapped. Everyone else is either making love or "expecting rain" (expecting their death). The Good Samaritan is there because he is an out-of-ordinary freak, or outcast. But he will also be needed, because there will be panic and chaos at the carnival.
Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
Comments: The fourth verse is about "Ophelia", who does not live on Desolation Row, though she does spend "her time peeking" into it from a distance. She does not live there because she has bought into the dominant status quo. As a result of her pending doom, Ophelia is already an "old maid" "on her twenty-second birthday." She spends her day steeped in her "profession" which is her religion. She believes that God will save her people as "her eyes are fixed upon Noah's great rainbow".
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Comments: The next verse describes a washed-up Albert Einstein. Einstein was not always taken seriously in his time, and he was a noted iconoclast, and a Jew from Germany, so his presence on Desolation Row is not surprising. He is not an illustrious physicist, though, but a bum who sniffs drainpipes and bums cigarettes off strangers as he recites the alphabet (e = mc squared). Things used to be different for Einstein, though, as he used to be famous "for playing the electric violin/on Desolation Row". (This evokes the famous black and white picture of the middle-aged Einstein playing his violin).
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row
Comments: The next verse refers to Josef Mengele, the cruel Nazi who performed experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The nurse keeps "the cards that read 'Have mercy on his soul'", indicating that she is conflicted yet feels that mercy should be extended towards him.
Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"
Comments: The seventh verse seems to be about a concentration camp worker (Casanova) who has to be spoon-fed with confidence in order for him to do his job. The skinny girls refer to those on Desolation Row who are observing Casanova.
Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row
Comments: The eighth verse focuses on the actual death chamber which is slightly off of Desolation Row. The agents and the "superhuman crew" round up all of the prisoners and take them to the "factory". There they are executed while insurance men make sure that "no one is escaping to Desolation Row".
Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row
Comments: The ninth verse focuses on life far from Desolation Row where poets Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot are arguing and the Titanic sails from Britain to the United States. Nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row.
Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row
Comments: The final verse is separated by a harmonica solo, thematically dividing it from the rest of the song. Dylan has received an apparently banal letter from an acquaintance or relative. He scornfully asks if it is some kind of joke to be talking about mundane trivialities in a world gone mad. Something akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burns. His contempt for the complacency and banality of middle America of the 1960's is obvious.
As for the name "Desolation Row", this was named after Eighth Avenue in New York City, which was a very dangerous part of town at the time this song was written. The setting for the song, however, seems to be at the end of Highway 61 in Duluth, Dylan's native land.
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