BOB DYLAN: WORLD GONE WRONG (1993)
1) World Gone Wrong; 2) Love
Henry; 3) Ragged & Dirty; 4) Blood In My Eyes; 5) Broke Down Engine; 6)
Delia; 7) Stack A Lee; 8) Two Soldiers; 9) Jack-A-Roe; 10) Lone Pilgrim.
Dylan has never been an enemy to sequels, and
many of his finest records come in «pairs» or «trios», be they acoustic folk,
electric rock'n'roll, or Jesusfests — and since Good As I Been To You got such good reviews, a quick follow-up along
the same lines would appear quite natural. But it wouldn't be true Dylan,
either, if the follow-up were observing exactly the same angle. One more page had to be turned, so, for World Gone Wrong, Dylan chose a «long
black cloak» to wrap it in. Where the first record was essentially the
soundtrack to an old, ragged traveling minstrel show, with women and children
all equally welcome to sing along to ʽFroggie Went A-Courtin'ʼ, World Gone Wrong takes a more serious,
and usually, quite deadly view of the world.
Bob himself, clean-shaven now and well-trimmed,
is posing on the front cover in the guise of an undertaker — sharing a quiet
moment with a cup of coffee and a candle right after the services have been
held. Sure enough, the title track, if taken literally, only documents a nasty
breakup between the man and his gal, but there are so many other nasty things
happening later on that nobody will want to take it literally: «world gone
wrong» does refer to the whole world, not just the protagonist's own personal
world.
Once again, all the songs are traditional
oldies, some fairly well known (like Blind Willie McTell's ʽBroke Down
Engineʼ), some excavated by Bob from fairly obscure sources, but given a
thorough explanation in the liner notes, which he wrote himself, almost as if he
really really wanted us to digest and enjoy these songs on their own exclusive
terms, rather than in the form of «yet another Bob Dylan album». Of course,
that would be impossible, and people still ended up writing about how Bob really
managed to breathe new life into them old tunes, and you can't blame them: even
if he truly wanted to perform ʽWorld Gone Wrongʼ and ʽBlood In My Eyesʼ the
same way they were done by the Mississippi Sheiks sixty years earlier, he
couldn't have done it. But then the Mississippi Sheiks, after all, were playing
for popular entertainment, hiding the songs' grieving heart behind a wall of
lively, upbeat fiddles and guitars. Bob Dylan, at best, is playing for popular education rather than popular entertainment
— and he has no obligation, to his record label or to his audience, to whitewash
any of the feelings.
Consequently, World Gone Wrong is one of Dylan's bleakest albums, full to the
brim with murder ballads and depressed blues, and, in its own way, paving the
road to Time Out Of Mind, whose
artistic success was, beyond any doubt, at least partly the result of
inspiration drawn from recording these covers. With one or two exceptions, there
is hardly even any harmonica on here: harmonica is known to liven up the
atmosphere, and Dylan does not need that for his current purpose. Instead, he
invests it all in his guitar playing, choosing the saddest chord sequences in
his repertoire to match the lyrics and vocal intonations. And if there might
have been occasional questions as to whether his voice was really suitable to
sing stuff like ʽTomorrow Nightʼ, no such problem is evident here.
With the themes and moods so consistent,
highlights vs. lowlights are impossible to discuss, so we shall bypass any
song-by-song comments and get out the general judgement: World Gone Wrong is a more important album than Good As I Been To You, since it is more
conceptual, and the concept is
carried out in the spirit of Bob Dylan, not in the spirit of those old folk
guys, God bless 'em, who had preserved those songs for us, on tape and shellac,
back when the spirit of Bob Dylan was not just non-existent, but pretty much
unthinkable. It is tempting to compare it with Nick Cave's Murder Ballads, which came out three years later and were quite
obviously inspired by this album (two of the songs, ʽStagger Leeʼ and ʽHenry
Leeʼ, are the same as ʽStack A Leeʼ and ʽLove Henryʼ) — but Cave, when it comes
to such matters, usually goes all the way, building up a heavy-hitting
atmosphere of doom and gloom; Bob wouldn't have been able to do it if just for
the reason of not having Nick's vocal capacities, and his delivery is far more
understated, and takes more time to sink in if you are in the mood for acute
depression.
The record ends on a spiritual note — ʽLone
Pilgrimʼ, an anthem pulled out of The Sacred Harp, calms us down after all the
tales of grief and woe, once again reminding, in a traditional way now, that
«death is not the end», because all the good pilgrims simply go home when they
die. Whether this could be any consolation to a non-religious person is
unclear, but Dylan has constructed this whole album from an obviously religious
point of view (and, for that matter, he had never officially rebuked his Christianity), and if he wants this
emotional flourish — the world may
have gone wrong, but not Heaven — he's got every right to have it, and still
get his thumbs
up rating.
Check "World Gone Wrong" (CD) on Amazon
Check "World Gone Wrong" (MP3) on Amazon
I think that Johnny Cash's first American Recordings album would be a better counterpart to these two than Murder Ballads. Same bare-bones acoustic approach, same reliance on covers, same "career renaissance" aspect (although American Recordings was in itself Cash's career renaissance, while Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong are more of a prelude to Time Out of Mind). Interesting that Murder Ballads shares two songs with this one, though.
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