Classic Albums: World Gone Wrong by Bob Dylan

Dylan’s 29th studio album, World Gone Wrong was released in 1993 and finds Bob in his home/garage studio with an acoustic guitar and harmonica covering a collection of classic American folk/blues songs and as David Bowie said:

“His albums have a great class to them, even those albums where he is actually playing songs of long-dead blues singers.”

World Gone Wrong includes Dylan-penned liner notes titled “About the Songs (what they’re about)” that are O-so-Bob:

DELIA is one sad tale-two or more versions mixed into one. the song has no middle range, comes whipping around the corner, seems to be about counterfeit loyalty. Delia herself, no Queen Gertrude, Elizabeth 1 or even Evita Peron, doesn’t ride a Harley Davidson across the desert highway, doesn’t need a blood change & would never go on a shopping spree. the guy in the courthouse sounds like a pimp in primary colors. he’s not interested in mosques on the temple mount, armageddon or world war 111, doesn’t put his face in his knees & weep & wears no dunce hat, makes no apology & is doomed to obscurity. does this song have rectitude? you bet. toleration of the unacceptable leads to the last round-up. the singer’s not talking from a head full of booze.

A friend of a friend told me about this record many years ago, long before streaming was a thing, and even though I grew up on a steady diet of early Dylan, I’d never heard of World Gone Wrong. I’m sure I’d never heard a single track from the album played on the radio…So I went a searchin’ and found a used CD—the LP, which never saw a US release, was long out of print at that time making it rare and as you’d expect expensive (it was also released on cassette and minidisc).

To say I was surprised by what I heard when I first spun that CD is an understatement—it was more of a dream come true as I had been heavily into early folk/blues for years and Dylan plays and sings these more and less obscure songs with ease as if he’s slept in ’em for years. I will mention the ‘sister’ album Good As I Been To You, released a year earlier and along similar lines, but I greatly prefer the songs, sounds, and moods on World Gone Wrong that seem to reach a deeper level of involvement—stunning in both chops and voice. Raw.

Here’s a taste in video shot on 16mm black-and-white film directed by the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart:

The record sounds stunning as well with an immediacy and intimacy that makes you feel connected all up close and personal to these intimate and personal songs performed by a master storyteller.

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