The Philosophy of Modern Song: My Generation and Desolation Row

Preface: this article includes a rather unusual recording of “Desolation Row”.  Even if you don’t feel like wandering through another of my meanders, you might care to skip the text and go to that recording.   If you’ve never come across it before, you might be surprised.  Although of course I would much prefer it if you could battle through my prose as well.

By Tony Attwood

Bob Dylan’s book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song”, was written, as I understand it, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I started out this series of articles thinking I might write a commentary upon the book, but soon felt I simply didn’t understand enough of what Bob is saying in the book, particularly in terms of why he chose the songs, to be able to write proper commentaries.  Which of course is a failure on my part, not on Bob’s.

And so after a hesitant start in reviewing the book, I abandoned that concept but at the same time still found myself drawn back to it by the notion of listening again to the songs Bob had picked, to see if I could find the links between these songs and his own work.

I would add however that if you, or anyone you know, would like to write an article or a series of articles about Dylan’s “Philosophy” book, I would be very interested in publishing it.  Indeed I am always happy to hear about ideas for an article or set of articles as much as receiving the article/s in finished form.   Email me at Tony@schools.co.uk

So far we’ve had

• Detroit City
• Take Me from This Garden of Evil
• Pump it up
• There stands the glass
• Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

Now I turn on to “My Generation” by the Who, a song which certainly had an impact on me as a school student, not least because of the opening line “People try to put us down”.  Living in the then still rural county of Dorset in southern England, being part of the protest movement, or even going to concerts, was simply not possible.  TV exposure of such bands was limited (only three TV channels were available where I lived), as was the amount of recorded rock music to be heard on the radio.  Everything conspired to make “my generation” feel like outsiders in our own society.

The fact that “My Generation” became part of our genre shows just how alienated from the rest of society some of us felt, and this song perhaps more than most, expressed a sense of total removal from the adult society that ran the country, the schools, society, the radio…

And into this background came “My Generation” and that it was a song of its time was shown by the fact that while by 2004 it was still number 11 in the Rolling Stone “Greatest Songs” list, by 2021 it had sunk to number 232.  Yet in terms of overall impact, I think it should still be right up there near the top.  We may not listen to the song much any more, but its influence on our society is surely still to be seen and felt.

“My generation” was released on 29 October 1965, by which time Bob Dylan had just released his sixth album (already available were Bob Dylan, Freewheelin’, Times they are a-changin’, Another Side, Bringing it all Back Home, and then, just before “My Generation”, we received “Highway 61 Revisited”.

And it is this coincidence of time that, looking back, I find this extraordinary, because the song “My Generation” is at once the antithesis of what Bob was doing in Highway 61, and deeply connected to it.   The connection of course is that both songs are about one part of society being utterly alienated from the other.   The antithesis is that Townshend expresses his view as anger – a clear statement that he has every right to choose the lifestyle he wants.  Dylan howeer is desperately distressed by living in a society in which “they are selling postcards of the hanging”.

The lyrics of “My Generation” are at the simple end of “simple”.  The words “Talkin’ bout my generation” are repeated at the end of each line, but since they are always there and always the same I am not sure they need to be included in the transcript of the lyrics…

People try to put us d-down 
Just because we get around 
Things they do look awful c-c-cold 
I hope I die before I get old 

Why don't you all f-f-fade away 
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say  
I'm not tryin' to cause a big s-s-sensation  
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation

And that’s it.  Now it is in fact, a coincidence that in my last rambling piece on this site in the series about the music of Bob Dylan,I considered “Desolation Row” and the way in which the horrors of the world were described within a lilting, gentle ballad with minimal acoustic accompaniment.

For what we find is that “Desolation Row” is about the world gone wrong in a racial context, while The Who’s “Talking bout my generation” is about younger people rejecting the older generation, their values, and the restrictions they seek to put on the behaviour of the young.

And you might think there can never, ever be any connection between these two utterly different songs, but just in case that is yur view, have a listen to this…. it is from November 2024…

But equally, the perspective is obviously utterly different.  Pete Townshend’s song reflects the world through his eyes as a young rebel, while Dylan is much more reflective.

Yet the two men were only born four years apart (Dylan in 1941, Townshend in 1945).  And somehow these two songs from 1965 offer us two utterly different ways of looking at the world.   One offers resignation (“Right now I don’t feel too good, don’t send me no more letters, no…”) the other pure anger (“Why don’t you all f-f-fade away”).

Yet there is this powerful connection from these two songs each of which emerged from highly talented songwriters at about the same time, and that is, “it’s broken”.  It being both society at large, and our ability to communicate across generations, across the social divide, across race…

Of course, the two songs are not normally considered alongside each other because their musical approach is so radically different.   “Desolation Row” is lilting, gentle, full of dismay and regret, “My Generation” anything but.  And yet the concept of non-communication, a lack of understanding, and indeed a complete lack of empathy between two major groups of people within the same society, is the same in each case.

The difference comes thus not from the issue that the composer chooses, but from the way the musician responds.  For Dylan, there is resignation and despair at the lack of communication between different parts of society.

Right now I can’t read too good
Don’t send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

For Townshend the break leads to anger and a desire to keep the different generations apart

Why don't you all fff fade away
And don't try to dig what we all ssss say

Yet both pieces of music contemplate in the most unsettling of terms the way society had collapsed, each into their own separate world.