For this reason, most of the songs were recorded in four sessions: July 30, July 31, and August 11 for overdubs, and October 24 for “Hurricane.”
On January 5, 1976, Desire was released worldwide at the end of the first part of the Rolling Thunder Revue. The record immediately received favorable reviews. Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone called the album, “One of the two best records Dylan has made since John Wesley Harding.” The public agreed. The seventeenth Dylan studio album reached number 1 on the US Billboard Pop Album Chart for five weeks and was certified double platinum. In the United Kingdom, the album peaked at number 3. It is currently ranked number 174 on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.”
Technical Details
The album was recorded at Columbia’s Studio E, located on the sixth floor of 49 East Fifty-Second Street in New York City. Desire allowed sound engineer Don Meehan to enter Dylan’s private circle. As house engineer, Meehan affirmed that he worked on the production as well. The credits on the record cover indicate cryptically that the album “could have been produced by Don DeVito.” Desire was cut on an MCI sixteen-track recorder and a forty-eight-input MCI board. For Dylan’s vocals, Meehan used a dynamic mic, probably an Electro-Voice RE20, and a Teletronix LA-2A limiter. Meehan recalls, “I would never use a condenser mic on anybody who was singing live in the studio like that because it would pick up everything. I asked him to work as close as he could to it to cut down the leakage.” He used the famous “Seventh Avenue reverb” found at Columbia, but also used EMT plate reverb. Finally, Studio E was equipped with Altec A7 loudspeakers.
The Instruments
Dylan played acoustic, probably his Martin 00-21 but perhaps also a Martin D-28 (the one possibly used during the Rolling Thunder Revue). For the electric, did he play a Fender Stratocaster or Telecaster or even a Gibson Les Paul that he used in concert? Finally, he used harmonicas in C, E-flat, and G.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
In January 1976, Desire was also released in quadraphonic sound in many countries, including the United States, Spain, and Australia. Needless to say, these albums are attractive to any collector.
Hurricane
Lyrics: Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan / Music: Bob Dylan / 8:33
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Ronee Blakley: harmony vocals
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Steven Soles: guitar, harmony vocals
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Leon Luther: congas
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: October 24, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Genesis and Lyrics
Recalling the protest songs of the early days of his career, Bob Dylan wrote “Hurricane” in response to what he believed was a judicial error. This song is about Rubin Carter, known as “Hurricane,” a black American middleweight boxing champion, one of the best in his category in the early 1960s. On October 14, 1966, Carter and his friend John Artis were arrested for a triple murder committed four months earlier in Paterson, New Jersey.
On the night of June 17, 1966, two males entered the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson and started shooting. The owner and a customer were killed on the scene, a waitress died a month later from her injuries, and a second customer was severely injured. Several witnesses told the police they saw two black males fleeing in a white Dodge Polara. Investigators traced the car to Rubin Carter, who owned this model. Upon searching the car, police found a 32-caliber pistol and a 12-gauge shotgun corresponding to the murder weapons used in the shooting. Eyewitnesses identified Carter and Artis as the two perpetrators. Based on this testimony (conflicting with others), and despite the absence of clear evidence, Carter and Artis were arrested, indicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment by an all-white jury.
Carter, who maintained his innocence, wrote his autobiography in prison, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, released in 1974, which led to increasing public support for a retrial. Dylan was contacted by Richard Solomon, Carter’s lawyer. The songwriter read Carter’s biography before visiting him in prison. Soon after, he was convinced of his innocence. “The first time I saw [Carter], I left knowing one thing… I realized that the man’s philosophy and my philosophy were running down the same road, and you don’t meet too many people like that.”112 He started writing an extended song supporting the boxer, a victim of a two-tier justice system. The very first line, “Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night,” sets the scene.
Carried away by his humanist impulse, Dylan took liberties with the truth throughout the song. The songwriter affirms that Carter “could-a been / The champion of the world” even though the boxer’s career was in decline, and Dylan accuses Arthur Bradley of having robbed the bodies, even though he was not on the murder scene. After listening to the song, CBS’s lawyers feared a lawsuit and advised against releasing it. Don DeVito, the producer, was told by Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS Records, that Dylan needed to change the lyrics. Don Meehan, the sound engineer, remembers, “I got this call from Don [DeVito] telling me, ‘You’ve got to get those tapes out and erase them!’… I said, ‘I can’t do that, man!’ He said, ‘You’ve got to—everything with Emmylou on ‘Hurricane.’”116 Reluctantly, Meehan carried out the request, but did not erase the vocals on all sixteen recording tracks. He said, “Those are probably still in the vault somewhere.”116
The songwriter agreed to some changes in the text. But this did not prevent Patty Valentine, the witness mentioned in the first verse who saw “the bartender in a pool of blood,” from suing, as she did not see anything at all! The suit was “on the grounds of defamation of character and for mentioning her name without permission.”
After a second trial, the jury confirmed Carter and Artis as guilty of the murders. Finally, a Supreme Court judge dismissed the charge against Hurricane Carter entirely in 1988. Carter died in April 2014. In 1999, Norman Jewison devoted a film to the case, The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington in the role of the boxer.
Production
At the end of the session on July 28, 1975, Dylan recorded three cuts of “Hurricane” backed by twenty musicians. Emmylou Harris sang alongside the songwriter. Another take was cut on July 30, including Harris, but this time with a smaller band. Then, for the aforementioned legal reasons, Dylan partially rewrote his text. Don Meehan recalls, “But then, instead of just doing a new vocal, Dylan wanted to record the song again from scratch, so that’s what we did.”116 After a slow start, as soon as Dylan begins singing, the song attains cruising speed. Dylan’s performance is excellent; his vocals reflect how important the song was to him. Scarlet Rivera improvises a beautiful gypsy violin tone throughout the eleven verses. The rhythmic bass and drums reach a high level of quality. Rob Stoner and Howard Wyeth ensure an efficient backing for both acoustic guitars played by Bob Dylan and Steven Soles, not to mention the excellent conga part provided by Leon Luther, another attribute of the song. Emmylou Harris said it was hard to follow Dylan’s singing. Ronee Blakley experienced difficulty recording with Dylan but did pretty well despite sometimes being uncertain (listen to the song at the six-minute mark, including guitars). Dylan concluded the song with a harmonica solo (in C) that was not really necessary. “Hurricane” is the first track on Desire but it was the last song to be recorded. It took ten takes on October 24 to cut the song, but the master appears to come from a combination of the second and sixth takes.
“Hurricane” was released as a single in November 1975. The song reached number 33 in the United States in January 1976 and a month later number 43 in the United Kingdom, but number 13 in France in January! Dylan played the song live for the first time onstage at the War Memorial Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1975.
Isis
Lyrics: Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan
/ Music: Bob Dylan / 6:59
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, piano, harmonica
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Sheena Seidenberg: tambourine
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: July 31, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Genesis and Lyrics
Isis was an Egyptian goddess who married her brother, Osiris, and conceived Horus with him. Isis also possessed magical powers to resurrect her husband and brother, when Seth, another brother, murdered them. In Dylan’s song, the goddess becomes the heroine married to the narrator. The text symbolizes the attempt of a man to pass certain trials to be worthy of his beloved. This quest, which starts just after his marriage, leads him to an unknown person (an outlaw representing the devil?). They ride through the wilderness, to the “devilish cold” of the far north before reaching “pyramids all embedded in ice.” Finally, the singer rides back to the arms of his beautiful Isis, transformed by his journey of initiation. In the last verse, Dylan sings, “What drives me to you is what drives me insane.”
Jacques Levy recalls the creation of the song: “The only reason that ‘Isis’ was chosen as the song to work together on was that we were at my loft apartment and Bob didn’t have a guitar with him… but I had a piano, and ‘Isis’ was the one song that he had started to write on the piano… We are sitting at a piano together and we are writing these verses in an old Western ballad kinda style.”112 In 1991 Dylan revealed that this song may have more meaning for Levy than for himself.20
Production
“Isis” was immediately conceived of as a song for a small band of musicians, like the song “Sara.” The first two takes date from July 30—the two complete cuts that appear to have been satisfactory. However, the next day, two new attempts were made. The arrangement is based on a three-chord progression repeated in a loop, which ultimately has a hypnotic effect. The highly reverberant drum brings a heaviness to the piece even more pronounced than the supporting bass. There is no six-string guitar in this song; Dylan preferred to play piano. Scarlet Rivera was surprised that the songwriter asked her to replay some solos along his passages on harmonica (at 4:02). The second of the two takes was chosen for the album. As with “Hurricane,” the first public performance of “Isis” was the concert in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1975.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
A voice overdub is made on the first line of the fifth verse (at 1:55).
Mozambique
Lyrics: Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan / Music: Bob Dylan / 3:02
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Emmylou Harris: harmony vocals
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Sheena Seidenberg: congas
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: July 30, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Genesis and Lyrics
This song was the subject of a misunderstanding. At the time it was released on the new album in 1976, the country of Mozambique had recently won its independence from Portugal, on June 25, 1975, after more than ten years of war and thirteen thousand casualties. The People’s Republic of Mozambique was a self-declared communist state from the time of independence through December 1, 1990, thereafter becoming the Republic of Mozambique. As a result, some Dylanologists thought that Levy and Dylan wrote the song to greet the new heroes of the revolution. However, the lyrics do not support such an interpretation, except perhaps in the line “people living free.” In “Mozambique,” Levy and Dylan describe a small romantic getaway, “the couples dancing cheek to cheek” and pretty girls “whispering your secret emotion,” the imagery of a picture postcard. This idyllic vision of a new African country, was it motivated by the politics of the authors or by the exotic location? Music critic Paul Williams noted that Bob Dylan first wanted to write a song about Marseille, France, before finally opting for Mozambique.
Production
“Mozambique” required seven takes on July 29. Dylan was accompanied by a big band, composed of at least ten musicians and singer Emmylou Harris. The following day, with a smaller orchestration, the song was cut in four takes, the fourth being selected for Desire.
“Mozambique” is an excellent piece with an ethnic color and a catchy melody. This third track in the album features Harris singing with the songwriter for the first time. She is also heard humming in the background during the violin part (at 0:44 and 1:25). Scarlet Rivera’s violin gives the song a gypsy tone that characterizes the sound of the entire album. It may be noted that at 0:22 she starts late, unless the sound engineer accidentally deleted the first two notes! Sheena Seidenberg plays congas, and it is possible that Dylan added a second guitar part by overdubbing.
“Mozambique” was released as a single (with “Oh, Sister” on the B-side) on February 17, 1976, reaching number 54 on the Billboard charts.
One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below)
Bob Dylan / 3:47
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Emmylou Harris: harmony vocals
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Sheena Seidenberg: percussion
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: July 30, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Genesis and Lyrics
“One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)” was inspired by a visit Dylan made to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France, where he attended a gypsy celebration on his thirty-fourth birthday. When he returned to the United States, he wrote a story about it that combined romanticism and symbolism. “I’ll never forget this one man played Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber!… Anyway, things went on and it was time for me to go. So I, they said, ‘What you want Bob, as you’re leaving us?’… I just asked for a cup of coffee… for the road. They put it in a bag and they gave it to me. And I was standing there looking out the ocean, and it was like [I was] looking at it in the valley below where I was standing.”112
The narrator is bewitched by a young gypsy (“Your eyes are like two jewels”) whose “voice is like a meadowlark” and whose “heart is like an ocean / Mysterious and dark.” The songwriter seems to say that between love and death, the borderline is sometimes tenuous. In 1991, Dylan told Paul Zollo about “Valley Below,” the subtitle of “One More Cup of Coffee”: “My feeling about the song was that the verses came from someplace else.”20 But he also said in the same interview, “‘Valley below’ could mean anything.”20
Production
In the October 2012 issue of Mojo, Rob Stoner revealed that he should never have been playing in the intro. “The beginning of ‘One More Cup of Coffee’—that wasn’t arranged for me to do a bass solo. Scarlet wasn’t ready. Bob starts strumming his guitar—nothing’s happening. Somebody better play something, so I start playin’ a bass solo. Basically the run-throughs became the first takes.”117 The first take was recorded on July 30 (after an unsuccessful take two days before) and served as the final cut, consequently giving Stoner the chance to open the piece with an enormous bass sound. Dylan tries to sing with a touch of flamenco in his voice, backed by Rivera’s gypsy violin and Seidenberg’s percussion (finger cymbals? triangle?). The drummer, while excellent rhythmically, sometimes breaks up the mood by playing a little too precisely. The first live performance of this song dates back to the show in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on October 30, 1975.
Oh, Sister
Lyrics: Jacques Levy and Bob Dylan / Music: Bob Dylan / 4:03
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Emmylou Harris: harmony vocals
Scarlet Rivera: violin
Rob Stoner: bass
Howard Wyeth: drums
Sheena Seidenberg: percussion
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio E, New York: July 30, 1975
Technical Team
Producer: Don DeVito
Sound Engineer: Don Meehan
Genesis and Lyrics
Bob Dylan started working on “Oh, Sister” in Greenwich Village in June 1975, after his stay in France. The narrator speaks to a woman as if she was his sister—biological, spiritual, or imagined. He accuses her of treating him distantly: “You should not treat me like a stranger.” As is often the case with Dylan, this song has a mystical depth. The brother and the sister “grew up together,” died, were resurrected, “and then mysteriously saved.” The critic Tim Riley notes, “It was the first time Dylan had invoked God as a method of wooing a woman.” For Donald Brown, “‘Oh, Sister’ openly treats romance as a metaphysical relation, rebuking a woman’s indifference with ‘Our Father would not like the way that you act.’”118 Some have seen “Oh, Sister” as a response to the song “Diamonds & Rust” by Joan Baez, released on the album of the same name in April 1975.
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 58