Desire

Album: Desire

Recorded: July-October 1975

Released: January 1976

Songs / length: 9 / 56:13

One of the first vinyl records I ever bought, and hearing it brings back vivid memories of being in my student digs near Leicester's market square, staying up late drinking red wine with Ruth. There's such a romance to the sound, thanks in large part to the violin playing of Scarlet Rivera, and – despite the album's minor flaws – it's still one of the most seductive and atmospheric of Dylan records.

Recorded in the run-up to the legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Desire benefits from Dylan's more open approach to collaboration at the time, with songwriter Jacques Levy working with him on several tracks, and Rivera and other musicians giving the album a more complex and rich sound. Other notable contributors include Emmylou Harris, who provides backing vocals on several songs (check out the alternative version of Hurricane featuring Emmylou below), while for the album tour Dylan managed to rope in the likes of Mick Ronson, T Bone Burnett and Joan Baez, among many others, to create a sense of a carnival or circus coming to town, with Dylan as ringleader.

The Bootleg Series excavation project might be running short of gold now, but there are still a fair few nuggets from this time that will be worth digging out, notably the alternative 1976 Desire sessions and a documentary of the Rolling Thunder Revue tour (based on footage from the aborted Renaldo & Clara film). We already have Vol. 5 of the Bootleg Series, one of my favourite Dylan live performances, but I'd pay a high price to actually see the footage.

Hurricane and Joey are the two epics on Desire, with Dylan reviving some of his early 60s political engagement. Both songs attracted controversy, though Dylan's support of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was later vindicated, given Carter's acquittal for murder after 20 years of wrongful imprisonment. Joey is on shakier ground, with its defence of New York mafia boss Joey Gallo putting Dylan in murky moral waters – notorious music journalist Lester Bangs condemned the song as "repellent romanticist bullshit", and he seems right. In later interviews, Dylan distanced himself from the song, saying the lyrics were largely written by Jacques Levy. Musically, I like Joey, but it goes on for far too long, making the album a little flabby. When you realise wonderful Dylan songs like Abandoned Love were jettisoned from Desire to make room for tracks like Joey, it makes the crime all the more regrettable.

Both songs use artistic licence and focus on outsiders, a theme that Dylan memorably explored on John Wesley Harding. The rest of the album is very different in tone, with heartbreak the theme on several songs (One More Cup of Coffee, Sara and Oh, Sister), while others are high on drama and rich in narrative (Isis, Black Diamond Bay and Romance in Durango). Those six songs and Hurricane are the beating heart of the album, while Mozambique is very much a filler, but a lovely sounding one at that. Sara is Dylan at his most direct, revealing details like how he wrote Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for his wife, and reflecting with nostalgia on the love they shared. I find the early verses in which Dylan reminisces about them being together on the beach watching their children play in the sand quite affecting, especially now I'm of an age to appreciate how transient and precious that experience feels, and the song's sincerity and sense of loss make it tough going. Despite the album's closing line – "don't ever leave me, don't ever go" – Sara would file for divorce from Dylan just over a year after Desire's release.

Album rating: A-