Anyone looking for Dylan's imagery fueled poetry will be disappointed by 'World Gone Wrong'. Dylan arranged the songs but you will not find his name on the writers' credits. With the exception of 'Lone Pilgrim', all the songs are unattributed because they originated either out in the 'Wild West' or the 'Deep South' like so many traditional songs and ballads. It is fitting that the accompaniment is solo guitar with some occasional harmonica cords.
Bob Dylan: 'World Gone Wrong'
There is no denying that Bob Dylan's voice is no longer that of the boy who first hit the coffee houses of Greenwich Village in New York over thirty years prior to 'World Gone Wrong'. Michael Gray in 'The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia' rather unkindly comments of Dylan's singing that "...the vocal decline is evident.'
However, he is more positive about the album as a whole describing it as, " ... asserting with intelligence and formidable interpretive skill the richly humane values and poetic power of communally created song." Those are serious words and they befit what is a serious collection.
There is no hint of the dry wit that is evident other albums. The theme of the title track speaks for entire album. Tales of murder, theft, poverty and hard times resonate throughout. In the hands of Dylan they, in turn, hold the listener. It is never easy to pick out the best tracks from any album but, 'Blood in my eyes, 'Delia', World gone wrong' and 'Love Henry' stand out.
The Verdict
Now is an appropriate time to reflect on Dylan's later acoustic work. 2010 saw the release of 'Bootleg 9: The Whitmark Demos', a collection of some of Dylan's earliest recordings. They too were performed using an acoustic guitar and harmonica and were made in mono without all the sophisticated equipment employed to capture 'World Gone Wrong'. It is a good yardstick by which to measure Dylan's progress.
Arguably, the main difference between Dylan as he approached twenty and the fifty- something year old man is the quality of the interpretation. By 1993 Dylan had a firm grasp of what each song was saying. That self assurance is not always so evident in his earliest work.
This sentiment is best summarised by Gray when he writes of 'Blood in my eyes'. "(Dylan) has gained by gaining middle age, the ability to to sing so sour and'adult' a love song without it either ringing false or glamourising the unglamourously cynical, as a more youthful performer, a more youthful Dylan would symply do."
References:
- Gray, M: 'The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia' The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc, 2008 Edn.
- Dylan, B: 'World Gone Wrong' Columbia, 1993
