World Gone Wrong

Album: World Gone Wrong

Recorded: May 1993

Released: October 1993

Songs / length: 10 / 43:51

Music obsessives like to cite a few albums they consider to be criminally underrated, and in Dylan's body of work I'd probably go for World Gone Wrong. As with previous LP, Good As I Been To You, there's no original material here, but Dylan makes the songs his own thanks to atmospheric arrangements, impassioned phrasing and eccentric but informative liner notes. I'd even rank some songs here – such as Delia, Two Soldiers and Jack-a-Roe – as highly as Dylan's mid-70s output.

Recorded in just a few days in his Malibu garage, the production is again relatively primitive and the vocal range limited, but there's a real mastery of mood and material, with Dylan now sounding like he's entering a more mature phase as an artist. Compared to the strong folk emphasis of his previous LP, there's also more of a blues focus this time, with songs about rural and marginalised American characters who are troubled by getting old and by their misadventures in love. As an album, there's also a lovely progression to the songs, from the hot-blooded passion of Love Henry and Blood In My Eyes (see video below) to the sacred sound of Doc Watson's ballad, Lone Pilgrim. 

The music video for Blood In My Eyes was recorded in London's Camden Town and contains the same footage that was used for the front cover of the album – a picture of Dylan in top hat sitting in Flukes Cradle Cafe Bar beneath a painting by Irish artist Peter Gallagher, which depicts L'Etranger (Mersault the outsider) from Camus' famous novel. Dylan certainly looks like an outsider, or fish out of water, wandering around the streets of London – as the legendary story goes, it was around this time that Dylan was house-hunting in Crouch End and drinking a cup of a tea with a local that he mistook for Dave Stewart of The Eurhythmics.

Anyway, back to reality. Perhaps spurred by some of the criticism he faced about not crediting other artists correctly for their arrangements on his previous record, Dylan provided extensive liner notes this time, and they're brilliant. I heartily recommend you read them – here – along side listening to the record. He credits his many sources, such as Tom Paley and Blind Wille McTell, and also provides some wonderful stories, like how Jerry Garcia taught him the American Civil War battle song, Two Soldiers. He's also characteristically cryptic at times, especially about one of my favourite songs on the album, Delia. What I do know is that it originated in Savannah, Georgia and that its sad refrain of "all the friends I ever had are gone" offers a prelude to the even darker themes of mortality to be explored on Time Out Of Mind.

Album rating: B