The Titanic Sails At Dawn

Sometimes a song presents itself as a ready-made comment on the times. At the moment, the number that says it for me is 'Desolation Row' by Bob Dylan. I'm sure you know it well. Eleven minutes of slowly evolving horror. The author gives us scorn, despair and a mocking harmonica solo. And one of the greatest ever intros: "they're selling postcards of the hanging, they're painting the passports brown".

Those lines really say it for me. Rough justice has been turned into a division of the entertainment industry. There's a regime change and it's probably worth your while to go with the new diktat. We meet Dr Filth and the hunchback, Ezra Pound and TS Eliot. Morality is on the slide while insurance men and faceless agents are on the lookout for dissenters.

My Chemical Romance have released a thoroughly bad version of the song, but the Dylan original from 1965 is ferocious art. He's performing off the cuff while the musicians around him are winging it, playing it like a cowboy ballad. Which makes Bob sound even more like the anointed hipster.

It's a song about control and distortion, from the faceless courtiers in the castle to the riot police on the ground. The common enemy is individuality and the clampdown is causing the moon and the stars to look away in shame. Nice.