Desire is the seventeenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976 by Columbia Records. It is one of Dylan’s most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year. Many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley. Most of the album was co-written by Jacques Levy, and is composed of lengthy story-songs. A well-received follow-up to Blood on the Tracks, Desire reached #1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart for five weeks, becoming one of Dylan’s top-selling studio albums (currently certified double platinum). Rolling Stone named Desire #174 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. (More from Wikipedia)
One clue to what was happening with Bob Dylan occurred about six months before Slow Train Coming was released in November 1979; as reported by Wikipedia: “Before the album was completed, Patty Valentine had brought a defamation-of-character suit against Dylan, regarding the song ‘Hurricane’ from Desire; on May 22, [1979,] while giving a pre-trial deposition in his defense, Dylan was asked about his wealth. ‘You mean my treasure on earth?’ replied Dylan. He was asked about the identity of the ‘fool’ in ‘Hurricane’. Dylan said the ‘fool’ was ‘whoever Satan gave power to . . . whoever was blind to the truth and was living by his own truth.’ Five days later, Dylan’s pre-trial statement was reported in the Washington Post, which also interviewed Kenn Gulliksen, who revealed to the paper that Dylan had joined the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.”
(August 2014)
