My Chemical Romance watches the 'Watchmen'

While it's highly unlikely that Bob Dylan was thinking of masked vigilantes when he penned the line "at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do" for his 1965 classic "Desolation Row," the bleak and epic song fit Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' classic 1980s graphic novel "Watchmen" so well that Moore titled the work's first issue "At Midnight, All the Agents."

Fast forward 20 years, and with the inevitable film version of "Watchmen" set to hit theaters on March 6, North Jersey rock band My Chemical Romance has been chosen to cover "Desolation Row" for the film's soundtrack.

 While My Chemical Romance's version of the cut has yet to hit shelves -- it will be released on a 12-inch vinyl picture disc on Jan. 27 and is current available for pre-order on the band's Web site -- I have to say that the prospect of a whole new generation being introduced to one of Dylan's finest works via MCR makes me both excited and nervous.

In its official version, released by Dylan on his album "Highway 61 Revisited," "Desolation Row" is a sprawling epic that clocks in at around 10 minutes and ends with one of the finest kiss-offs in rock. Its lyrics simultaneously make total sense and almost no sense at all, with references to "Einstein disguised as Robin Hood," Cinderella, Ophelia, Cain, Abel and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Musically, the album version of the song is an acoustic number with influences from both Spanish traditions and carnival melodies, and one can picture Dylan as a carnival barker telling this long and winding tale at the end of a long night hoping to scare off any last remaining customers.

Now, My Chemical Romance first made its name as an emo band, and then transitioned to Queen and Green Day-inspired rock bombast with 2006's "The Black Parade." Will their "Desolation Row" be a haunting and barren wasteland similar to Dylan's? Or will their studio version be in the same strange, sped-up, surf-rock vein as the YouTube clips of them performing the song live? Only time will tell.