Annotations for Desolation Row

Lyric: Don’t send me no letters, no
 Not unless you’re going to mail them from
 Desolation Row
Annotation:
Dylan is trapped, isolated and desolate. He’s been sent letters, but they’re not enough – he wants his correspondent to come and visit him on Desolation Row. Given time,  Dylan’s successors would be bemoaning the demise of the written letter. Don’t it always seem to go…?

Lyric: Escaping to
 Desolation Row
Annotation:
Desolation Row contains the hardships and realities of the world outside of the surreal. The “surreality” could be the violence of World War II, a class war between factory workers and bean counting “insurance men”, or the petty wars between the artistic in-crowd. Desolation Row is stated to be life outside of the factories, a reality beyond the surreal.

Lyric: Where the heart-attack machine
Annotation:
The “heart attack machine” appears to be a method of execution, and could refer to the work camps where Jews were gassed in the Holocaust. One of the effects of zyklon-B, a poison gas used by the German regime, was that it induced heart attacks in its victims. The dead bodies were burned, thus the reference to flammable “kerosene.”

Lyric: They’re going to bring them to the factory
Annotation:
Despite strong references to the Holocaust, other interpretations can be drawn from this verse. The “factory” could refer to Andy Warhol’s Factory, where the artistic bohemian elite of New York City hobnobbed.

Lyric: Go out and round up everyone
 That knows more than they do (Knows more than they do)
Annotation:
The idea that they’re “rounding up everyone that knows more than they do” could be interpreted as another reference to Einstein, and more or less, the educated Ashkenazi communities within Europe at the time.

Lyric: And superhuman crew
Annotation:
The “Superhuman Crew” might be a reference to the supposed racial superiority of Aryans within the context of Germany during the Nazi regime. (The Nazis drew on Nietzsche’s concept of the  Übermensch or overman/superman.)

Lyric: Now at midnight, all the agents
Annotation:
This line was used as the title of the  first chapter of the seminal graphic novel  Watchmen. Another Dylan lyric,  “Two Riders Were Approaching…”, is used for Chapter 10.  This cover of the song was used in the Watchmen movie.

Lyric: Is Cinderella sweeping up on
 Desolation Row
Annotation:
A reversal of the Cinderella fairy tale. Instead of becoming a princess, she is left to pick up the pieces, sweeping up the wreckage of Desolation Row.

Lyric: And then the only sound that’s left
 After the ambulances go
Annotation:
The only reason an ambulance would come and go was if someone had suffered a serious injury. Dylan is obliquely hinting that Romeo was attacked by the locals. This line paints Dylan as a fairly disengaged observer. Rather than commenting on the violence, which you wouldn’t forget in a hurry, he mentions a trivial detail like the ambulance leaving.

Lyric: And now here comes Romeo, moaning
 “You belong to me, I believe”
 And if someone says, “You’re in the wrong place, my friend”
 You better leave
Annotation:
Shakespeare’s famous play  Romeo and Juliet is centered around two families' conflicts and mutual hatred, as well as the “star-crossed lovers” from each respective family.  Romeo arrives “moaning” his love for Juliet and claiming that she’s his and his alone. His words are a likely reference to the sentimental 1950s ballad  “You Belong to Me.”)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=817ulh5EmWkSomeone tells Romeo he’s in the wrong place: Desolation Row has no room for such an old-fashioned, sentimental conception of love. The fifties have turned into the sixties. As the presence of “easy” Cinderella suggests, this is a world of looser attachments, freer love, greater cynicism. The later “ambulances” and “sweeping up” imply it’s a more violent world as well. In this context “You better leave” sounds like a threat, which Romeo apparently ignores.

Lyric: “Well, it takes one to know one,” she smiles
Annotation:
She “seems easy” sexually, but, as she points out, “it takes one to know one.” “Easy” could also imply that she’s easygoing or seems at ease with herself.

Lyric: Cinderella, she seems so easy
Annotation:
She “seems easy” sexually, but, as she points out, “it takes one to know one.” “Easy” could also imply that she’s easygoing or seems at ease with herself.

Lyric: [Verse 2]
Annotation:
This verse arguably exposes the ‘lies, limitations, cruelty, collateral damage’ (Paglia) of society’s sexual repression and enforced norms.

Lyric: Desolation Row
Annotation:
Desolation Row is play on the expression “skid row” used to describe a seedy run-down part of town. Since this song, the phrase “Skid Row” had been used as the name of an  80’s hair metal band and featured in the rock musical  Little Shop of Horrors.  The word “desolation” emphasizes a totally ruined, inhospitable land, yet as a word drawn from high literature it adds a hint of poetic redemption.

Lyric: As Lady and I look out tonight from
Annotation:
Who is “Lady?” This could refer to “Lady and the Tramp,” which would make Dylan/the singer the Tramp – a born outsider who now finds himself with a privileged view of those who think they’re in a higher circle. The Tramp (and Dylan) take them down off their high horses by detailing the sad reality of their lives – a theme in both this song and the album opener, “Like A Rolling Stone.”

Lyric: And the riot squad they’re restless
 They need somewhere to go
Annotation:
There are no disturbances large enough in town for the riot squad to be called in for, so they’re restless. In the mid-60s United States, inner-city unrest and organised criminal threats saw increased use of National Guard units to maintain order and led to the creation of the first police SWAT teams, intended to even the odds against heavily-armed criminals. However, in more peaceful times, these highly-trained officers and expensive equipment sit unused. The debate on the  militarization of police continues today, with absurd incidents such as SWAT teams raiding a charity poker game. Dylan is commenting (presciently) on the tendency for heavy armed police to be misused in more peaceful situations, creating mistrust and tension on both sides that can lead to violence – a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lyric: One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
 The other’s in his pants
Annotation:
The circus performers have somewhat cruelly tricked the blind commissioner into walking across a tight rope with his hand in his pants.  This text refers to an authoritative figure – police or something similar – who has no say in what the citizens do. He does whatever he is told without question. He’s not in charge, but he doesn’t reject the idea. It could also be a reference to the “Tightrope Walker” in  the prologue of Nietzsche’s  Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Lyric: Oh, now look, here comes the blind commissioner
 Well, they got him in a trance
Annotation:
The circus performers have somewhat cruelly tricked the blind commissioner into walking across a tight rope with his hand in his pants.  This text refers to an authoritative figure – police or something similar – who has no say in what the citizens do. He does whatever he is told without question. He’s not in charge, but he doesn’t reject the idea. It could also be a reference to the “Tightrope Walker” in  the prologue of Nietzsche’s  Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Lyric: The circus is in town
Annotation:
This line has two meanings. The three black men who were hung in Duluth in 1920, mentioned in the opening lyrics, had literally arrived in the town as part of a circus. “The circus is in town” is also a common phrase to mean that a group of people have gone insane and are acting crazy.

Lyric: Well, they’re painting the passports brown
Annotation:
Government officials have brown, not blue passports. Government officials, in most occasions, have additional mobility. Painting your passport brown to pass as a government official might be the one of the only ways to escape from Desolation Row.

Lyric: Yeah, the beauty parlor’s filled with sailors
Annotation:
During live perfomances, Gerard replaces this line with “And the sailors are in the beauty parlor”

Lyric: [Guitar Solo]
Annotation:
This solo features a sample from the American National Anthem

Lyric: They’re selling postcards of the hanging
Annotation:
About the lynching of three black men in Duluth. The men were employed by a travelling circus and had been accused of raping a white woman. On the night of June 15, 1920, they were removed from custody and hanged on the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East. Photos of the lynching were sold as postcards. Duluth was Bob Dylan’s birthplace; at the time of the lynching, Dylan’s father, Abram Zimmerman, was eight years old, and lived two blocks from the scene of the lynchings. Abram Zimmerman passed the story on to his son. This line could also be seen as a reference to William Blake’s piece A Negro Hanged by the Ribs. The unbearably striking image was an icon of Abolitionism, and Dylan would no doubt have detected the tragic parallels of Blake’s time (of the Abolition of Slavery) and his own (of Civil Rights).

