CINDERELLA IS WHAT?! | Desolation Row - Bob Dylan (Reaction) 

My favourite Dylan song. Magic, some of the lyrics relate to events others are just wonderful poetic word play

Bob's describing the aftermath of the lynching of three workers from the John Robinson Circus, in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1920. His father told him the story.

The guitar work in this song is incredibly cool.

I have been listening to this for over 50 years, and i can't pretend to understand it. I first heard him sing this live in Liverpool in 1966, and i loved it then and still do now.

NOBODY puts words together like Bob Dylan. Listening to his songs is an education.

That superb guitar is Charlie McCoy. Check him out.

Every 'Rapper" can Bow Down to the Greatest Rapper of them all. Nobody else is on this level of lyrical brilliance.

Like all great poetry the song doesn’t provide easy answers to its meaning. It does however work on an emotional level using imagery and sound to evoke feelings in the listener. Dylan does imply in the last verse that he had specific people in mind that he had to “rearrange their faces and give them all another name”. To me Desolation Row is a place on the outskirts of a corrupt society where some kind of truth can be found.

I think Desolation Row is a place that holds both horror and comfort. Nobody on the outside gets it. Nobody there ever really wanted to be there but found a home, and the outside powers want to make sure nobody else escapes to it. He parades a bunch of victims in front of us (including himself) and then seems to say that they're better off where they are than out here with us.

Desolation Row is like any song, it means what you want it to mean, this is stream of consciousness writing, these songs came in an album, you listen to the album, not single cuts. This song meant something different at the time, because it was a reflection of a time in America of social chaos, violence and change. You need to know the 60s and what happened, what happened in the 30s, it's black history, it's American history, Dylan is an American artist.

Love your reactions. Cool how you are doing Bob Dylan. Back in the late 60's early 70's we were blessed to be rockin' out to the likes of Led Zepplin, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Beatles & many more while at the same time we could chill with the folksy sound of Bob. These were also the days of Motown & growing up in a Detroit suburb it felt like we owned them. We were sooo spoiled, we had it all, blues, rock, folk & at that time they were merging & creating new exciting sounds. You have a lot before you young man, have fun, I'll be listening.

Aw man, this is THE song. The Grateful Dead did this so very well in many of their shows, even with Dylan joining them on stage.

Most every song from Bob Dylan is a fantastic story mixed with social commentary like nobody else ever has or will. I have seen him live three times. I consider that an honor and priceless memories.

"Cinderella seemed so easy it takes one to know one she smiles and puts her hand in her back pocket Bette Davis style" !! LOVE your channel!!

"Desolation Row" is the last song on side two of Highway 61 Revisited. The lyrics are surreal, but not impossibly inscrutable -- "All these people that you mention \ Yes, I know them, they're quite lame \ I had to rearrange their faces \ And give them all another name" -- The songs on that album kicked off the sixties, more or less, surprising somewhat, in hindsight, as this song begins like a cantina ballad of the sort one might hear in a Western movie from the 1950's set in Texas or Arizona or Mexico before turning into a monster of a barn-stormer built around his harmonica. The Beatles were definitely paying attention. The title "Desolation Row" echoes the title of the 1945 novel "Cannery Row" by American author John Steinbeck, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. That novel tells a story about an assorted group of oddballs inhabiting a waterfront street lined with fishing canneries in Monterey, California. Dylan mentions the place in his song "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands". But this song seems to take its cue from the novel, filling in the details about the characters populating some dirt road in the middle of nowhere, like a desert or vast fields of land lined with a ramshackle line of buildings evocative of a ghost town, desolation amid emptiness and destruction. Now consider the nick names a poet might give to the various people inhabiting such a place while describing their eccentricities...

Another great bob song love it

If you want another long one, you might try "Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands," considered by most critics to be Dylan's best album, the double album, "Blonde on Blonde," released in 1966.

Hey My Friend..... YOU are now My Favorite Reactor. You're doing some of the best music of them all from the greatest artist of them all. Your Personal Folder is growing fast in my collection. Now, I KNOW you were impressed with this little tune from The Master Story Teller..... "Ballad Of A Thin Man"... "Who Killed Davy Moore" are something you want to hear. Have a spectacular day.

There’s a good reason why he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his recordings. Sadly, high school reading comprehension scores in the US are a pathetic 40% so no one knows history to reference anything that ever happened in the world. Except, about super heroes. Our common culture was valued for many years. Today, idiocracy is on the rise.

Best cowboy song ever written

One of his most legendary songs . Many of his songs are legendary , of course . This one takes you on a tour of the inside of his mind around 1965 . The " postcards of the hanging " line is a reference to the custom of postcards being sold after a lynching , of the lynching .

BADASS Lyrics.... as expected from the master story teller.

I have to laugh watching you carefully listening to those lyrics. It’s like Dylan kicks your brain from one side of your skull and back again trying to figure out just what the hell did he just say, and what the hell does it mean. As Dylan says in another song…. “There Is No Sense In Trying”

I love your channel and I love that you're doing Bob Dylan, my alltime favorite artist. There's a lot of material to work with for sure. When you get to it, would you perhaps play "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat"? It's a fun song.

Desolation Row is the mental/emotional place where we just might get real. . . In other words, 'go big, or go home'.

Top 20 Dylan here! ♥

Death row without the exit. Purgatory whilst still being here

Thanks for listening to Dylan! Great reaction ❤ Subscribed :)

i use to understand the song when it first came out .then as the years progressed i realized i didn't understood it and now that i'm OLD , i don t understand ANYTHING, in life and it's actually a big relief .

his mother must've read a dictionary to him for the 9 months she carried him.by the time he was born, he had the word thing figured out.

Beyond the thought producing lyrics, this is a wonderful arrangement.

You handled that infusion like a champ.

Desolation Row is probably somewhere in and around the "village" (probably the east village which was a little more run down) in nyc where i believe he lived in the 60s. The colorful street people provide ample inspiration for Dylan to create this masterpiece.

"Cinderella, she seems so easy, it takes one to know one she smiles" ....... U picked some of his best bars here w/ this one !!!!

Looking at your play-list it makes me happy to see you getting a very good education on the greatest music ever created from the most talented bands/artist the world has ever seen. Your sound is good too and you don't pause the great songs you're reacting to. You have gained over 700 subscribers since I first watched one of your videos. You should do very well with the selections you're making..... Procal Harum - "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" live in Denmark 2006. You will stand and applaud. Have a very Peaceful day

Mr. Tambourine Man is my favorite Dylan song. Would love to hear your reaction!

I love the verse about Ophelia who lives a celibate life but longs for whatever is out there on Desolation Row and the harmonica at the end is awesome

When they ask me what music I want to hear the next time they knock me out for a surgery... Im going to tell them to play this song... start it when the harmonica kicks in.. and pump the knockout drug into me as it peaks.

The fact that he became a legend with limited vocal skills is a testament to his exceptional song writing skills.

the circus is in town.....this is Mick Jagger's favorite Bob song

Two Legends Together…. Doubleday Field Cooperstown N.Y. August 6th 2004. Bob Dylan & Willie Nelson. Two of the greatest song writers/story tellers in music history shared the same stage on a incredible night with the Masters Of Their Craft. I was only 25 feet away from them and like everyone else in a trance from the immensity of the event. I have so many awesome pictures and memories from that show. 4th time seeing Bob Dylan, 2nd time seeing Willie Nelson.

Interesting fact: Bob Dylan wrote his songs on a typewriter. Would scribble changes over the original. Genius!

another great Dylan song like this one is "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"

Nice too keep yoyre comment after the song

What a song 😫😫

New sub here because of Dylan!! Have you reacted to any Stevie Ray Vaughan or Grateful Dead?

"Golden Loom" is another hidden gem.

I'll never quite understand this song but I dearly love it, Grateful Dead version is fantastic.

A standard staple in the Grateful Dead repertoire, sung by Bob Weir 🍄🌁🍄

Understanding one half of Bobs refrences is the equivalent to a masters degree.

Any single verse in this song could/would make a great song on it's own. Like most all Dylan tunes. like "Who Killed Davy Moore". "Ballad Of A Thin Man" . "Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest"

Please react to Dylan's "Visions of Johanna".

Good reaction try some more modern Bob like Can't Escape from You (Studio Outtake - 2005) a little tip -turn off the autofocus

Queen Jane Approximately and It takes a lot to laugh it takes a train to cry are a must

❤❤❤❤

I always figured that Desolation Row was symbolic of feeling depressed. Could be way off, though. With Dylan sometimes we'll never know what it was really all about. Good reaction!

Just leaving Rosalie's Good Eats Café......on my way to Desolation road.

I would like to see Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts reviewed.

"Yes, I received your letter yesterday (About the time the doorknob broke)" .... was the letter received literally "about the time the doorknob broke" ... or was it received referring to "about the time the doorknob broke" ? ambiguous as only Mr D can

The end times were possible in the early sixties

Have you ever read Cannery Row by Steinbeck.Good book.Thank you.

Check out the MTV Unplugged version of this song

Try the grateful dead version it's sublime

For me Dylan is mixing all those legends from Einstein to Robin Hood and so forth. Their demeanor are controlled by the guys controlling desolation row. These guys can control even Einstein. So even how famous you are some people can control you on desolution road (wrong spelling intended)

The song is about the lynching of three Black circus workers in Duluth, Minnesota on June 15th, 1920. The three men were accused by James "Jimmie" Sullivan, 18 of assaulting and robbing James and his girlfriend Irene Tusken, age 19, and raping Irene. Sullivan's claim that Tusken was raped has been questioned. When she was examined by her physician, Dr. David Graham, on the morning of June 15, he found no physical evidence of rape or assault. After reading the details (search for Duluth Lynching Wikipedia) and listening to the song, I believe that Desolation Row may be Duluth or some specific part of Duluth, Minnesota.

bob dylan pruitt sero best dylan vocal :)

Desolation Row i think is basically the realization that life is meaningless-- or at least that the our current way of "life" is meaningless (a much better conclusion in my opinion). Being there makes you immune to the various carrots and sticks society employs to manipulate and control you which is why various establishment figures in the song are trying keep you from going there or trying to punish you for it if you do. As such, I don't think its really a bad place to be in the song since it is a place beyond denial and so at least offers some faint hope of finding a treatment for the real Disease rather than just treating this or that symptom while the underlying disease just gets worse. However, I'd Imagine that the art of living there would involve steering clear of nearby "Despair Avenue" and "Suicide Alley"...

Desolation Row is about the music industry, thats my take anyway

Another Dylan song that is wide open for the imagination.

This song …

So…. Is desolation row a good place to be? Or bad? Or does it depend who you are and what you want?

The song is too complex for me. JM BOY made a good comment, that everyone was led to the chorus, desolation row. I guess everyone can end up there.

This song makes me weep , for it depicts the sadness of the human race and it’s current take on life with the situation in the World , ( Trump & Co ) etc .

Part of this is as stupid as it appears, but I think part of it is great social commentary, describing the insane world we live in. I think RU-vid is desolation row, at times.

Drug addiction

One HELL of a song!! Try something more accessible next time. Either Blowing in the Wind Or ITS ALL OVER NOW BABY BLUE!

Hey. if you have never heard The Beatles - "A Day In The Life"..... STOP everything you're doing and do that song Next. After you'll know why.

My least fav Dylan song..the music is terrible plus..I hate when he plays the teacher/preacher role in his songs...He has read way too much modernist literature...it is so annoying.. he writes great lyrics aside from this song, but he's not very smart People think that if you can't understand, i must be great. I think that it is just a lack of imagination on his part. He is what i used to call a starf*&cker. I f98ed Joan Baez when she was a big star in th early 60s and he was just coming up. he wanted to play at the Newport Folk festival and that she could help him...she did and then he dropped. She was in love with him. unfortunately...check out her huge hit from 1975, "Diamonds and Rust"...last verse "Now you're telling me You're not nostalgic Then give me another word for it You who are so good with words And at keeping things vague 'Cause I need some of that vagueness now It's all come back too clearly Yes, I loved you dearly And if you're offering me diamonds and rust I've already paid