Song of the Week: "Isis"

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"Isis"

Bob Dylan

from Desire

1976

In the vast scope of Bob Dylan's discography, Desire stood as an accomplished but slightly forgotten LP from the mid-'70s. It's punctuated with lots of violin, which gives the whole thing a slight Deadwood feel. Since I received this album for Christmas in like 2007, I've always liked it, but it wasn't one I returned to often or particularly gave a spare thought to.

That all kind of changed this past week, when Pam and I sat down and watch the new Scorsese doc, Rolling Thunder Review. The 210-minute film (we had to watch it over the course of two nights because I'm a sleepy baby) had a lot of interviews and a lot of concert footage. The interviews were mostly fascinating, mainly due to the fact that Bob Dylan is a bullshit artist off-stage, and his social circle were a bunch of wackadoo post-hippies who looked like David Cross. (Also, a lot of the interviews were actually fake? WTF?!)

But yooooooo, the concert footage was on point. There was an energy on stage that sometimes doesn't translate into Dylan's studio recordings. "Isis" in particular, stood out to me as a song revitalized on stage.

The studio album is laid-back, like a cowboy slowly riding his horse through a pasture. The live version was fucking INTENSE. Dylan stands there on stage, harmonica armed like a weapon, slightly crouched, stomping his foot in some sort of tribal fashion, as if he is Indian chief, telling a horror story around the fire. The way the cameraman shoots the footage adds to the audience's heightened experience—mostly close-ups of Dylan's face, painted white, his eyes and teeth yellow in contrast, the eyes squinted with rage, the teeth spitting vitriol.

When I listen to the Desire version of "Isis" now, it sounds different. I appreciate it more, because now I can hear the beating heart in the center of it.