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RE 
They're selling postcards of the hanging. 
         SOL                   RE 
They're painting the passports brown. 
    LA7 
The beauty parlour's filled with sailors. 
SOL                RE 
The circus is in town. 
RE 
Here comes the blind commissioner. 
        SOL          RE 
They've got him in a trance. 
    LA7 
One hand's tied to the tightrope walker. 
SOL                  RE 
The other is in his pants. 
        SOL 
And the riot squad they're restless 
     RE                  SOL 
they need some where to go. 
   RE              LA7 
As lady and I look out tonight 
SOL            RE 
on Desolation row. 

RE 
Cinderella she seem so easy. 
         SOL                   RE 
It takes on to know one she smiles. 
    LA7 
Then puts her hand in her back pocket, 
SOL           RE 
Betty Davis style. 
RE 
Then in comes Romeo he's moaning. 
        SOL          RE 
You Belong to me I believe. 
    LA7 
And someone says your in the wrong place my friend 
SOL          RE 
You better leave 
        SOL 
and the only sound that's left 
     RE               SOL 
after the ambulances go 
   RE              LA7 
is Cinderella sweeping up 
SOL         RE 
on Desolation row. 

RE 
Now the moon is almost hidden 
         SOL              RE 
the stars are beginning to hide 
    LA7 
The fortune telling lady 
SOL                                RE 
Has already taken all her things inside. 
RE 
All except for Cane and Able 
        SOL          RE 
and the Hunch Back of Notre Dame 
    LA7 
everyone is making love 
SOL             RE 
or else expecting rain 
        SOL 
And the good Samaritan he's dressing 
     RE                      SOL 
He's gettin ready for the show. 
   RE              LA7 
He's going to the carnival 
SOL            RE 
tonight on Desolation row. 

RE 
Now Ophelia she's 'neath the window. 
      SOL           RE 
For her I feel so afraid. 
    LA7 
On her twenty-second birthday 
SOL                   RE
She already is an old maid. 
RE 
To her death is quite romantic. 
     SOL          RE 
She wears an iron vest. 
    LA7 
Her profession's her religion, 
SOL                  RE 
her sin is her lifelessness. 
        SOL 
And though her eyes are fixed upon 
     RE           SOL 
Noah's great rainbow 
   RE              LA7 
she spends her time peeking 
SOL            RE 
into Desolation row. 

RE 
Einstein disguised as Robin Hood 
         SOL           RE 
With his memories in a trunk 
    LA7 
Passed this way an hour ago 
SOL                        RE 
With his friend a jealous monk. 
RE
He looked so frightful 
        SOL          RE
As he bummed a cigarette 
    LA7 
Then went off sniffing drain pipes 
SOL                  RE 
and reciting the alphabet. 
        SOL 
No you would not think to look at him 
     RE                  SOL 
That he was famous long ago 
   RE              LA7 
for playing electric violin 
SOL         RE 
on Desolation row. 

RE 
Doctor filth he keeps his word 
     SOL       RE 
Inside a leather cup 
    LA7 
But all his sexless patients 
SOL                  RE 
Are trying to blow it up. 
RE 
Now his nurse a local looser 
        SOL                 RE 
She's in charge of the cyanide hole 
    LA7 
And she also keeps the cards that read 
SOL              RE 
Have mercy on his soul. 
        SOL 
They all play on penny whistles 
     RE               SOL 
You can hear them blow 
   RE                     LA7
If you lean your head out far enough 
SOL            RE 
from Desolation row 

RE 
Across the street they've nailed the curtains 
         SOL                RE 
they're gettin ready for the feast 
    LA7 
the phantom of the opera 
SOL                    RE 
a perfect image of a priest 
RE 
They're spoon feedin Casanova 
        SOL              RE
to get him to feel more assured 
    LA7
then they'll killed him with self confidence 
SOL                  RE 
after poisoning him with words 
        SOL 
and the phantom shouting to skinning girls 
     RE                   SOL 
get outta her don't you know 
   RE              LA7 
Casanova is just being punished 
SOL            RE 
for going to Desolation row. 

RE 
Now at midnight all the agents 
     SOL           RE 
And the superhuman crews 
    LA7 
round up everyone 
SOL                       RE 
That knows more than they do. 
RE 
Then they bring them to the factory 
        SOL               RE 
where the heart attack machines 
    LA7
is strapped across their shoulders 
SOL             RE 
And then the kerosene 
        SOL 
is brought down from the castles 
     RE                 SOL 
by insurance men that go 
   RE              LA7 
check to see that nobody is escaping 
SOL           RE 
to Desolation row 

RE 
Praise be to Nero's Neptune 
    SOL             RE 
The Titanic sails at dawn 
    LA7 
and everybody shouting 
SOL                RE 
which side are you on 
RE 
and Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot 
        SOL          RE
fighting in the captains tower 
    LA7 
while calypso signers laugh at them 
SOL                  RE 
and fishermen hold flowers 
        SOL 
between the windows of the sea 
     RE                SOL 
where lovely mermaids flow 
   RE              LA7
and nobody has to think too much 
SOL            RE 
about Desolation row 

RE 
Yes I received your letter yesterday 
         SOL                 RE 
About the time the door knob broke. 
    LA7 
When you asked me how I was 
SOL                RE 
Was that some kind of joke. 
RE 
All those people that you mention 
        SOL          RE 
yes I know them they're quite lame. 
    LA7 
I had to rearrange their faces 
SOL                  RE 
and give them all another name. 
        SOL 
Right now I can't read too good 
     RE                        SOL 
don't send me no more letters no. 
   RE              LA7 
Not unless you mail them from 
SOL        RE 
Desolation row. 




    •   
 Desolation row è un brano folk rock composto 
 da Bob Dylan nel 1965, caratterizzato da un 
 testo sui generis, in cui si intrecciano perso-
 naggi storici, biblici, narrativi in un ambien-
 te caotico e urbano. 
    L'atipicità del brano dello statunitense, 
 che chiude il suo sesto album Highway 61 Revi-
 sited, lo testimonia la durata dello stesso, 
 11 minuti e 21 secondi. 

All'epoca i più importanti critici musicali affermarono che Desolation row fu senz'altro 
il lavoro più ambizioso, fino ad allora, realizzato da Dylan, la canzone fra tutte più 
esemplificativa del genio del cantautore del Minnesota, in quanto, in essa, v'era insito
 un nuovo stile di alta poetica. 
   Fu, però, il chitarrista Andy Gill a dichiarare quelli che tutti avevano cercato di 
dire con frasi forbite e giri di parole, per Gill, incontrovertibilmente, la canzone non 
è altro che un poema di undici minuti.  
Ed è proprio per la sua originalità che è entrata nella classifica delle 500 migliori 
canzoni di sempre, stilata dalla rivista musicale Rolling Stone, piazandosi alla 185a 
posizione.

    Infine, sembra inutile scrivere di quanto la canzone sia conosciuta in tutto il mon-
do e, in quanto conosciuta può, ovviamente annoverare numerose cover, fra tutte ricor-
diamo: Via della povertà scritta da Fabrizio De Andrè nel 1974 e inclusa nel suo album 
Canzoni; Nederst pa Karl Johan, del 1997, realizzato dell'artista norvegese Età Aleksan-
dersen; la versione svedese di Dan Tillberg, Hopploshetens grande; le cover degli sta-
tunitensi Grateful Dead (2002) e My Chemical Romance (2009) che portano lo stesso titolo
dell'originale.