Isis (song)
| "Isis" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Bob Dylan from the album Desire | ||||
| Released | January 5, 1976 | |||
| Format | Vinyl Record | |||
| Recorded | July 31, 1975 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||
| Length | 6:58 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Writer(s) | Bob Dylan, Jacques Levy, | |||
| Producer(s) | Don DeVito | |||
| Desire track listing | ||||
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| 9 tracks |
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"Isis" is a ballad written by Bob Dylan in collaboration with Jacques Levy, in July 1975. The song is the second track on the Bob Dylan album Desire.
This song is in a moderately fast 3/4 time, in the key of B-flat major. The arrangement is based on rhythm chords played on acoustic piano, accompanied by bass guitar, drums, and violin. The harmonic progression consists of an ostinato using the following chords throughout:
Ⅰ–ⅤⅠⅠ♭–Ⅳ–Ⅰ
B♭–A♭–E♭–B♭
The lyrics are all verses; there is no chorus. The melody is in the style of a modal folk song, emphasizing the tonic and dominant notes in the scale, with leaps of a fifth in between them. The mode is Mixolydian with a major third in the harmony, but Dylan's delivery of the melody and Rivera's violin accompaniment use a flatted third as in the blues.
"Isis" tells the tale of a man (the narrator) who married an enigmatic woman ("a mystical child") named Isis. The story covers his separation from her, his subsequent adventure and, ultimately, his return. The marriage took place "on the fifth day of May," (an allusion to Cinco de Mayo, one of several Mexican themes found in Dylan's songs during the 1970s). After the wedding, he "could not hold on to her very long", so he "cut off his hair and rode straight away for the wild unknown country..." He reaches a "high place" divided by a line "through the center of town" into "darkness and light." He hitches his pony and enters a laundry, as though to wash himself of his past. He meets and falls in with a shady character who promises "something easy to catch." They ride "to the pyramids all embedded in ice". They carry on in freezing conditions until the bounty-hunting companion dies. The narrator breaks into the empty tomb ("the casket was empty"), finds no treasure, and realizes the adventure had been a fool's errand. He leaves his dead companion in the tomb, says a quick prayer, and rides back to Isis, whom he still loves. He sees Isis in a meadow and when she asks him if he is going to stay this time, he replies, "If you want me to, yes!"
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Wikipedia