Desire - Bob Dylan (1976)

Dylan has always changed and adapted to both the state of the world and the people he surrounds himself with. In 1975, that included a guy named Jacques Levy–which wiki refers to rather brilliantly as “an American songwriter, theatre director and clinical psychologist”–and the world of experimental theater that he was involved in.

Dylan conceived a loosely organized road show with a carnival atmosphere, brought to smaller towns and venues than he’d been able to play recently. He called it the Rolling Thunder Revue. While it wasn’t well documented at the time (the next release, the live album Hard Rain, featured tracks from the tour but didn’t explain itself much), we’ve since gotten a Bootleg Series release of a lot of that material as well as a Martin Scorcese “documentary” which, in typical “Dylan has an odd sense of humor” fashion, is at least 50% fiction.

This is a lot of backstory, but it helps to explain the shambling, sprawling, experimental character of Desire. These songs were often co-written with Levy and featured some of Dylan’s industry connections (EmmyLou Harris, Eric Clapton) as well as violinist Scarlet Rivera, who met Dylan through a seemingly random encounter and ended up as a major contributor to both the record and the Revue.

This is a unique album in Dylan’s catalog, and it’s full of great songs. I think nobody really understood what the man was trying to do, and I know he wasn’t particularly interested in explaining himself. So, just like quite a few times in history, you get to just watch Dylan be Dylan and speculate as much as you like.

Tracks I Liked

Isis - one of Dylan’s very best

Mozambique - a tossed off little song that you don’t hear much anymore, but I love it

Oh, Sister - A gorgeous ballad

discography note: between Blood On The Tracks and Desire, Dylan released The Basement Tapes. Since that was a collection of recordings from the previous decade, I’m not counting it in the release order.