Well, I investigated all the books in the library
Ninety percent of ’em gotta be burned away
by Jochen Markhorst
Once upon a time, I dressed so fine to revisit Highway 61. In October 2019, blissfully unaware of the long and empty Corona months awaiting us around the corner, I departed from Desolation Row. In the terribly naive belief that I’d write one single article for Untold about the song.
After 2000 words in which I hadn’t even got past the title, I began to suspect that “Desolation Row” would require more than one article.
140 pages later, I realised that I had to abandon my plan to write a book about Highway 61 Revisited, seeing as how it would inevitably lead to an unwieldy 800-page doorstopper – I had to publish in stages.
So I did:
Desolation Row – Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965 (March 2020)
Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot – Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse (February 2021)
Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden – Bob Dylan kicks open the door (January 2025)
and
At that point, there were still seven songs left:
- From A Buick 6
- Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
- Ballad Of A Thin Man
- Queen Jane Approximately
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Positively 4th Street
- Sitting On A Barbed-Wire Fence
And here we are. January 2026. The fifth and final book in the H61 series. The Pentalogy. Fourteen songs, six years, more than 2000 days, five books – a marathon completed. Well, a relay race at walking pace, actually. But still.
Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs
Paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0GDG8GJ45
e-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDGGDPBQ
(The German and Dutch versions are in the works.)
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
- John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
- Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s looking for the fuse
- Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
- Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang
- Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
- Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side A
- Bob Dylan takes Highway 61 – Seven mercurial songs