"Desolation Row"

Not saying I'm buying it, but a google reveals the Holocaust interpretation is circulating:


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

Comments: The next verse refers to Josef Mengele, the cruel Nazi who performed experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The nurse keeps "the cards that read 'Have mercy on his soul'", indicating that she is conflicted yet feels that mercy should be extended towards him.

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words
And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Comments: The seventh verse seems to be about a concentration camp worker (Casanova) who has to be spoon-fed with confidence in order for him to do his job. The skinny girls refer to those on Desolation Row who are observing Casanova.

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Comments: The eighth verse focuses on the actual death chamber which is slightly off of Desolation Row. The agents and the "superhuman crew" round up all of the prisoners and take them to the "factory". There they are executed while insurance men make sure that "no one is escaping to Desolation Row".

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Overcoaching the interpretation, I'm thinking.

 

I think that given the other songs on the album and who he was at that point in his career, that's way too cerebral for Dylan.

 

Would you have bought it from "It's All Right (Ma)"/"Gates of Eden" Dylan?