“When they asked him why it had to be that way, ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘Just because:'” A thoroughgoing consideration of Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’

Hello! In case you missed it, over at Pitchfork, I published a long meditation on Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’ LP. A taste:

He would never make another record like it—its circumstances being unrepeatable seemingly by design—but in some ways Desire is the most explicit manifestation of the central literary irony of Dylan’s career: that the consummate barometer of social and cultural authenticity can’t be trusted with the facts about anything, least of all himself.

Check it out if that seems like your particular cup of coffee for the road!