The first time I heard Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” I hated it.
As the final track on his 1965 album “Highway 61 Revisited,” the song is splattered with depictions of familiar characters in strange situations. He creates a vivid image of a street where nothing seems to make sense.
Dylan looks out onto “Desolation Row” and sees Cinderella sweeping up the street, Romeo taken away by an ambulance, the Phantom of the Opera dressed as a priest, Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood, reciting the alphabet and Ophelia watching from beneath her window.
If you’re like me, you like when things make sense. It’s comfortable, and it’s easy.
So when I first listened to the song, it frustrated me because I didn’t get it.
I’ve come to realize that our lives, like “Desolation Row,” are full of people and places we don’t understand. And instead of trying to categorize and define everything, we should be open-minded and ask questions about things we don’t know.
Attending university has challenged me to confront ideas other than my own and get to know people I’m not familiar with. I don’t understand everything or everyone; I’m not sure I can. But when something is unfamiliar, I don’t hide from it. Instead I ask myself, “Why don’t I get it?”
Another Dylan song, “Ballad of a Thin Man,” is an attack on Mr. Jones, a clueless man who cannot comprehend the world around him. Mr. Jones hides behind “facts” when someone confronts him with unfamiliar ideas and “attacks his imagination.”
Dylan writes, “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?”
Humans are categorical creatures. We match patterns and look for common denominators upon encountering things we don’t know. It’s not wrong, but it’s not productive, either.
When organizing the world as we experience it, we should not put the things we are unfamiliar with into boxes labeled “these ones” and “those ones.” Instead, we should ask ourselves questions like, “Why don’t I understand this? What does that say about me?”
In my experience, it’s easy to judge what you don’t know, while it’s harder — and more honest — to admit that you don’t know.
Bob Dylan is more than a songwriter, he’s a philosopher. While he would certainly hate this label, it’s true. His early songs are full of condemnations of arrogant people, not for who they are, but for what they refuse to accept.
So take a lesson from Dylan, and the next time you find yourself on "Desolation Row," don’t turn away from what you don’t understand — embrace it.
Brady McCracken is News Reporter at The Beacon. He can be reached at mccracke27@up.edu.
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