9 tracks
Side one "Like a Rolling Stone" "Tombstone Blues" "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" "From a Buick 6" "Ballad of a Thin Man" Side two "Queen Jane Approximately" "Highway 61 Revisited" "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" "Desolation Row"

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9 tracks
Side one "Like a Rolling Stone" "Tombstone Blues" "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" "From a Buick 6" "Ballad of a Thin Man" Side two "Queen Jane Approximately" "Highway 61 Revisited" "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" "Desolation Row"

"Desolation Row"

Single by My Chemical Romance

from the album Watchmen: Music from the Motion Picture

Released

January 26, 2009

Format

12″ vinyl, digital download

Recorded

2008

Genre

Punk rock

Length

3:01

Label

Reprise, Warner Sunset Records

Writer(s)

Bob Dylan

Producer(s)

My Chemical Romance
(add. production by Rich Costey)

My Chemical Romance singles chronology

"Teenagers"
(2007)

"Desolation Row"
(2009)

"Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)"
(2010)

"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965 and released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. It has been noted for its length (11:21) and surreal lyrics in which Dylan weaves characters from history, fiction, the Bible and his own invention into a series of vignettes that suggest entropy and urban chaos.

"Desolation Row" is often ranked as one of Dylan's greatest compositions.

Although the album version of "Desolation Row" is acoustic, the song was initially recorded in an electric version. The first take was recorded during an evening session on July 29, 1965 with Harvey Brooks on electric bass and Al Kooper on electric guitar. This version was eventually released in 2005 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack.

On August 2, Dylan recorded five further takes of "Desolation Row". The Highway 61 Revisited version was recorded at an overdub session on August 4, 1965, in Columbia's Studio A in New York City. Nashville-based guitarist Charlie McCoy, who happened to be in New York, was invited by producer Bob Johnston to contribute an improvised acoustic guitar part and Russ Savakus played bass guitar. Polizzotti credits some of the success of the song to McCoy's contribution: "While Dylan's panoramic lyrics and hypnotic melody sketch out the vast canvas, it is McCoy's fills that give it their shading." Outtakes from the August sessions were released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 in 2015.

When asked where "Desolation Row" was located, at a TV press conference in San Francisco on December 3, 1965, Dylan replied: "Oh, that's some place in Mexico, it's across the border. It's noted for its Coke factory." Al Kooper, who played electric guitar on the first recordings of "Desolation Row", suggested that it was located on a stretch of Eighth Avenue, Manhattan, "an area infested with whore houses, sleazy bars and porno supermarkets totally beyond renovation or redemption". Polizzotti suggests that both the inspiration and title of the song may have come from Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac, and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck.

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Wikipedia