Desolation Row

Desolation Row: Chords

Intro:
MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI  MI4

              MI
They're selling postcards of the hanging, 
      LA                       MI
they're painting the passports brown
    SI                        
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors, 
LA                MI
 the circus is in town

Here comes the blind commissioner, 
       LA             MI
they've got him in a trance
     SI                   
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, 
LA                   MI
 the other is in his pants
        LA
And the riot squad they're restless, 
    MI                 LA
they need somewhere to go
  MI               SI
As Lady and I look out tonight, 
    LA          MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI
from Desolation Row

     MI
Cinderella, she seems so easy,
     LA                         MI
 "It takes one to know one" she smiles
    SI
And puts her hands 
                   LA            MI
in her back pockets Bette Davis style
       
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning 
       LA              MI
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
    SI                
And someone says, "You're in the wrong place, 
          LA            MI
my friend, you'd better leave"
        LA
And the only sound that's left 
MI                   LA
after the ambulances go
  MI          SI            LA          MI    
Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row

MI4  MI  MI4  MI  MI4

        MI
Now the moon is almost hidden, 
    LA                     MI
the stars are beginning to hide
    SI
The fortune telling lady 
      LA                        MI
has even taken all her things inside

All except for Cain and Abel 
        LA                 MI
and the hunchback of Notre Dame
SI                          LA             MI
Everybody is making love or else expecting rain
        LA                    
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing, 
             MI             LA
he's getting ready for the show
     MI            SI
He's going to the carnival 
          LA          MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI
tonight on Desolation Row

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

MI4  MI  MI4  MI  MI4 

   MI                    
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood 
         LA            MI
with his memories in a trunk
SI                    
Passed this way an hour ago 
         LA                MI
with his friend, a jealous monk
                   
Now he looked so immaculately frightful 
     LA            MI
as he bummed a cigarette
       SI 
And he when off sniffing drainpipes 
      LA              MI
and reciting the alphabet
    LA                        
You would not think to look at him,
          MI            LA 
but he was famous long ago
    MI                   SI        LA         MI
For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row

MI4  MI  MI4  MI    
  
    MI
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world 
  LA                MI
inside of a leather cup
    SI
But all his sexless patients, 
        LA                  MI
they're trying to blow it up
           
Now his nurse, some local loser, 
         LA                    MI
she's in charge of the cyanide hole
        SI                        
And she also keeps the cards that read, 
      LA           MI
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
LA                         
They all play on the penny whistles, 
  MI               LA
you can hear them blow
       MI                 SI
If you lean your head out far enough 
    LA          MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI
from Desolation Row

           MI                    
Across the street they've nailed the curtains, 
           LA                  MI
they're getting ready for the feast
    SI
The Phantom of the Opera 
        LA               MI
in a perfect image of a priest
              
They are spoon feeding Casanova 
       LA                MI
to get him to feel more assured
            SI                
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence 
      LA                    MI
after poisoning him with words
        LA                        
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls, 
     MI                      LA
"Get outta here if you don't know"
    MI                   SI
Casanova is just being punished 
            LA          MI  MI4  MI  MI4  MI  
for going to Desolation Row"

      MI                           LA         MI
At midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew
     SI                 
Come out and round up everyone 
      LA                   MI
that knows more than they do
                        
Then they bring them to the factory 
          LA               MI
where the heart-attack machine
   SI                     
Is strapped across their shoulders 
         LA       MI
and then the kerosene
   LA                    
Is brought down from the castles 
     MI              LA
by insurance men who go
         MI          
Check to see that nobody 
   SI          LA         MI  MI4  MI  MI4
is escaping to Desolation Row

       MI      
Praise be to Nero's Neptune, 
     LA              MI
the Titanic sails at dawn
SI                     LA                 MI
Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
            
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot 
LA                        MI
fighting in the captain's tower
     SI                       
While calypso singers laugh at them 
   LA              MI
and fishermen hold flowers
  LA            
Between the windows of the sea 
      MI              LA
where lovely mermaids flow
    MI            SI
And nobody has to think 
           LA             MI  MI4  MI  MI4
too much about Desolation Row

MI        LA    MI    SI        LA    MI

MI        LA    MI    SI        LA    MI

LA        MI    LA    MI    SI    LA    MI

       MI
Yes, I received your letter yesterday, 
      LA                    MI
about the time the doorknob broke
         SI              
When you asked me how I was doing, 
    LA                MI
was that some kind of joke
                            
All these people that you mention, yes, 
  LA                       MI
I know them, they're quite lame
        SI                
I had to rearrange their faces 
              LA            MI
and give them all another name
      LA                    
Right now, I can't read too good, 
           MI                 LA
don't send me no more letters no
MI             SI             LA         MI  MI4
Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row

MI        LA    MI    SI        LA    MI

MI        LA    MI    SI        LA    MI

LA        MI    LA    MI    SI    LA    MI

Desolation Row: Video

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Rock Italiano

Desolation Row è un brano scritto e interpretato da Robert Allen Zimmerman, al secolo Bob Dylan, contenuto nell'album Highway 61 Revisited pubblicato nel 1965. Disco che storicamente viene considerato uno dei capolavori del cantautore del Minnesota, è il secondo atto della cosiddetta "trilogia elettrica". La canzone è il brano di chiusura del lato B e raggiunge i livelli più alti della sua poetica letteraria; nel 1974 Fabrizio De Andrè e Francesco De Gregori la tradussero in Via della Povertà.

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L'autore del post

Alberto Moneti

36 anni, polistrumentista: pianoforte, chitarra, batteria, clarinetto. Ha conseguito la licenza in teoria musicale e solfeggio presso il Conservatorio Cherubini di Firenze. Dal 1997 è organista presso la Basilica di Santa Maria del Sasso, a Bibbiena (AR).