Desire

Recorded July 1975
Released Jan 16 1976

1. Hurricane
2. Isis
3. Mozambique
4. One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
5. Oh, Sister
6. Joey
7. Romance in Durango
8. Black Diamond Bay
9. Sara

Outtakes:

• Rita May
• Abandoned Love
• Golden Loom
• Catfish

Introductory remarks

Eyolf Østrem

In a blog post, Oisin O’Faghain suggested I write the following about Desire:

I think Dylan’s best singing is on Desire and Rolling Thunder (the latter being the superior).

Desire stories (yes i just used “story” as a verb) the crap out of other story albums and yet its “stories” contain questionable biographies “Joey”, “Sara”, “Hurricane”.

It is (chord-speaking) probably his most straightforward album with major and minor chords, no capo and all standard tuning. A departure, but also lyrically it is a stand-alone album (probably closest to John Wesley Harding) because its lyrics are not complex but yet remain opaque: “Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore”.

So I did. I think I have a thing or two to say about Desire myself, eventually, but until I do, the above stands, with the possible qualification that it should start: “While I listen to Desire, I tend to forget that Dylan’s best singing happened a few years later, during the Gospel period.”