The American anthem Bob Dylan wanted to replace
There are hardly any living songwriters whose songs have been etched into the history books like Bob Dylan.
While he has always focused on writing the next great tune whenever he goes in to make a record, that doesn’t negate the countless lines that have practically become wise proverbs in the American lexicon at this point. They still stand as some of the greatest American poetry ever conceived, but even after following the lead of people like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, Dylan felt that there were some songs of his that should go toe-to-toe with the greatest American hymns of all time.
But not everything that Dylan sang about was naturally patriotic by any means. He knew that he had to grind as hard as he could if he wanted to break through, but no one needed to be one of the greatest American poets of all time by kissing the country’s ass. He had a lot of thoughts about the way the world worked back in the early 1960s, and with citizens going off to war, a lot of his greatest songs were ruminations on the human condition rather than the typical rock and roll songs.
‘Masters of War’ is still one of the most stirring songs that he has ever made, and while ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ have taken on new meaning based on whatever generation you’re in, you can still feel the urgency in his voice on a lot of those early recordings. Some of his lesser-known tunes also had a lot of social critiques, but that’s what any songwriter is supposed to do when they see what’s going on around them.
I mean, just look at Johnny Cash. There wasn’t a prouder citizen of the US of A than ‘The Man in Black’, but even when he graciously accepted playing for President Richard Nixon in the midst of his term, his choice to sing songs like ‘What is Truth’ is the best thing he could have done. Just because he was patriotic didn’t mean that he couldn’t still have an opinion, and Dylan was doing the same thing by the time he hit on ‘Desolation Row’.
There were countless songs that he had written about the horrors of war and then shocking political decisions happening in the country, but this song puts all of those major events into perspective. The protagonist in this song is looking out at a once-prospering city and seeing what it became due to everything from prejudice to racism to incompassion, and if Dylan had it his way, he felt that it said a lot more about America than anything else.
Compared to the other patriotic songs, Dylan felt that tunes like ‘America the Beautiful’ couldn’t hold a candle to what ‘Desolation Row’ was talking about, saying, “I would immediately rewrite ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and little school children, instead of memorizing ‘America the Beautiful’, would have to memorize ’Desolation Row.’” Even though it was entirely played for a gag, you can definitely hear the kind of vitriol that Dylan had for the state of the world at the time.
‘America the Beautiful’ is certainly a better-written melody than what Dylan came up with, but the lyrics say a lot more about not just the country but about the way that we treat each other as well. No one would have had the bravery to say these kinds of things out loud, but since the country is literally called ‘The Home of the Brave’, people needed to hear songs like this that showed the darker side of the country as well.
Because even if patriotism sweeps through every country, there’s a point where everyone needs to remember that their home isn’t perfect from back to front. History might like to paint with a broad brush every now and again, but it takes people like Dylan to help fill in the gaps when the country started going down roads that they might not ever be able to come back from.
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