{"id":461,"date":"2016-01-06T04:09:57","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T04:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/?p=461"},"modified":"2016-01-06T04:09:57","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T04:09:57","slug":"desire-holy-crap-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/?p=461","title":{"rendered":"“Desire” Holy Crap! 40 years???"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Desire\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the 1970\u2019s as a 1960\u2019s informed and inspired teenager, I latched onto the music and message of Bob Dylan. I\u00a0 had worn the grooves out on \u201cBefore the Flood\u201d and \u201cBlood on the Tracks\u201d when, on this date in 1976, Bob Dylan\u2019s \u00a0album, \u201cDesire\u201d, was released. I had heard all about the recording\u00a0in advance via Rolling Stone and my local progressive FM radio station, Starview 92, and knew the story of Ruben \u201cHurricane\u201d Carter and was excited to hear that song and the full album.<\/p>\n

Within days I purchased my own copy at Mailman\u2019s Department Store and listened to it over and over, absorbing all the brilliant word play and being mystified by some of the references.\u00a0 Initially the opening track \u201cHurricane\u201d was my favorite song. But it is the second song \u201cIsis\u201d that grew to be not just my favorite on the album, but one of my favorite songs by anyone, ever.<\/p>\n

Isis is truly epic, a long song of love won, lost and regained, of adventure promised and dreams dashed, of howling winds and outrageous snows. As much as I love this song, the live version from the Rolling Thunder Revue Bootleg series album<\/a> is so much better. Recorded in the Fall of 1975, over a year earlier, this version crackles with an intensity far beyond the studio recording. The beat drives harder, the violin soars higher and the vocal performance is one of the best he ever recorded.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, back on Desire\u2026 \u201cMozambique\u201d follows and it is kind of palate cleanser, a light hearted song about being on a sunny beach with lovely people, and seeing how many things rhyme with \u201cique\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne More Cup of Coffee\u201d returns to the emotional intensity. A man has to do what a man has to do, but one more cup of coffee before I go\u2026 into the valley below.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh Sister\u201d closes side one and I never really liked it that much. I listened again today and still\u2026 not so much.<\/p>\n

Side Two opens with \u201cJoey\u201d a 9:14 long story of the notorious New York gangster \u201cCrazy Joey\u201d Gallo<\/a>. At the time, this song perplexed me. \u201cWhy would he devote 9 minutes to a long slow song about a murdering mafia guy?\u201d I didn\u2019t get it then, but I get it now. \u00a0\u00a0I do recall being in Little Italy one day back in the 1980\u2019s and walking past Umberto\u2019s Clam Bar, the spot where Joey was killed, and thanking Bob for the education.<\/p>\n

\u201cRomance in Durango\u201d and \u201cBlack Diamond Bay\u201d both have their charms, but the album closer, \u201cSara\u201d a love of a lifetime song to his then wife is the revelation for me.\u00a0The marriage was a rocky one, and this song, like no other Dylan song before or since is direct and personal and without persona or artifice.\u00a0 He was trying hard to hang on and this song put it all on the line, but a year or so later the marriage finally fell apart for good. \u00a0At age 17, this song was a bit of a bore to me, 40 years later, it just blows me away.<\/p>\n

Great art stands the test of time. Often that means that new listeners can appreciate something created long before they lived, like the music of Mozart or Miles Davis or the Beatles. But on a personal level, music that stands the test of time doesn\u2019t mean that it takes you back to where you were and who you were when you first encountered it. It means that the art meets you where you are now. The lyrics resonate in new and often more powerful ways, the familiarity of an old favorite is imbued with new meaning, the song is ALIVE.<\/p>\n

So, yeah. \u201cDesire\u201d stands the test of time.<\/p>\n

Today Rolling Stone is also writing about this classic. Read the cool stories about the making of the record.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 1970\u2019s as a 1960\u2019s informed and inspired teenager, I latched onto the music and message of Bob Dylan. I\u00a0 had worn the grooves out on \u201cBefore the Flood\u201d and \u201cBlood on the Tracks\u201d when, on this date in 1976, Bob Dylan\u2019s \u00a0album, \u201cDesire\u201d, was released. I had heard all about the recording\u00a0in advance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dadscarradio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}