Dylan’s previous record, the precision-controlled display of omniscient superego that was 1975’s Blood on the Tracks, had set an impossibly high standard for its follow-up. In response, Desire was a fantasia of grave injustices and grave robberies, exotic and dangerous locales, broiling days and fleeting gestures in the face of grim destiny. Its nine songs spread out over 56 minutes, co-mingling protest folk, travelogue tunes, throwback country, and sideways klezmer, all comprising one peculiar episode in the baffling sweep of his career. Blood on the Tracks was a document of personal and romantic trauma that traced an outline around a generation who prized individual freedoms to the point of self-annihilating alienation. Desire is about getting stoned and strange and trying to forget about all of that
A straggling Gemini-twin to “Hurricane,” Desire’s most indulgent composition whinges on interminably and borderline incomprehensibly about the gangland slaying of an objectively psychotic mafia figure named Joey Gallo. Dylan famously coined the aspirational phrase “to live outside the law you must be honest,” a formulation that “Joey” undermines in every way possible. If you wanted to make the case for “Joey” as his worst song, you might begin with the demented portrayal of Gallo as some manner of saint, whose ahistorical indulgences might be more persuasive had Dylan bothered to string them together with a shred of narrative logic. You might move on to the torpid melody, one of the least memorable he’s ever written. But hey, at least it’s 11 minutes long. The twist is, in the nimble, gleefully amoral hands of the Grateful Dead, this dismal composition became supple and agreeable. Somehow the Dead brought “Joey” back to life. There’s your graverobbers right there.
Posted from: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/bob-dylan-desire/
[the_ad id=’12166′]