After the heavy intimacy of Blood on the Tracks, Dylan cowrote an album (a first for him, I believe) that returned to the outlaw hymns of John Wesley Harding, raging against the establishment and racism put to acoustic guitar, drums, and a violin, which proves a fitting companion for Dylan’s scraping guitar, ragged vocals, and howling harmonica.

But while it’s best known for the excellent Hurricane and controversial Joey, both of which assert the innocence of publicly maligned men, there’s a sprinkle of the personal here as there was on Blood on the Tracks. One More Cup Of Coffee is just as heartbreaking as anything on Desire’s predecessor, and Sara, a bittersweet love song to his wife written during an on and off again separation, finds Dylan coming the furthest out from behind his persona ever.

Musically, the album has a much more globally conscious sound than anything else in his back catalogue, thanks in part to the ever present violin, the occasional accordion, and the mandolin and Spanish vocals of Romance in Durango. When not conjuring old Europe, the music often throws back to John Wesley Harding with its acoustic arrangement and constantly accompanying drum set (the opening strains of Hurricane could easily be mistaken for an alternate version of All Along The Watchtower). His execution is some of his tightest ever put on record, except when it veers into his sloppiest (portions of Hurricane are entirely unintelligible). But overall, Desire is an understatedly excellent album that stands on just as solid a footing as Blood on the Tracks, even if Blood stands a few feet higher.