World Gone Wrong

Bob Dylan

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 26, 1993)
• Original Release Date: October 26, 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000029E8
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #86,015 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
With his songwriting muse on pause, Bob Dylan spent the mid-'90s recording old folk and blues standards with just himself, a harmonica, and an acoustic guitar. Good As I Been to You was the first effort. For the follow-up, World Gone Wrong, he went even further into the dark night of the soul. His voice aged by road-weary experience and informed by lifelong insight delivers just the right pathos to these tales of lost love and existential blight. Tom Paley, one of the original New Lost City Ramblers, popularized "Love Henry," a symbolic tale of a businessman who loses his soul traveling through the halls of corruption. Dylan delivers it as a funeral march and surrounds it with songs of similar sentiment. A modern acoustic blues classic. --Rob O'Connor

Product Description
Out-of-print in the US. Import pressing of this Grammy Award winning album, released in 1995. Sony / BMG. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blues Gone Right, July 16, 2004

By	Gianmarco Manzione (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Aside from the astonishing cover art and photography adorning the liner notes, the power of Dylan's performance here cannot be overstated. Wholly deserving of the 1993 Grammy Award it garnered for Best Traditional Folk Album, the album's austere minimalism makes for as vulnerable an album as Dylan has allowed since Blood on the Tracks (listen for the tapping of Bob's shoe on track 3, for instance). Some critics pan "World Gone Wrong" as yet another morbid example of Dylan's inability to catch up with the times. Yet an attempt at updating his sound is exactly what nearly destroyed his career as he released one unfocused album after another throughout the late '70s and '80s. He's damned if he tries and damned if he doesn't. It seems that Dylan's enormous reputation and many musical masks have polarized his audience, groups of which subscribe to specific and stultifying expectations of what kind of sound Dylan ought to deliver. Yet "World Gone Wrong" further illustrates that the best Dylan records are the ones he records for himself. It is a lonely, paranoid, occasionally brooding and sincere recording, fraught with masterful finger-picking (Ragged & Dirty, Broke Down Engine), some rollicking harmonica (Stackalee) and an absolutely heart-wrenching interpretation of the traditional classic, "Two Soldiers," a rendition that has accompanied me during some of my loneliest hours for years now. In fact, the solitude articulated with these gritty performances is so real and honest that it actually keeps you company. And that, I think, is what good art does: it makes you feel less lonely, less misunderstood. Dylan does that with this release. I can think of no higher praise.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All Right With a World Gone Wrong, July 19, 2002

By	booknblueslady (Woodland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

All those years ago as a school boy in Minnesota, Dylan sat listening to old blues and folk vinyls, playing his guitar and singing along with them. He grew to know them like good friends and became familiar with their essence and soul. He paid special attention to their inflections, timing and feel, so that when he arrived at Greenwich Village and began playing in the coffee houses Dylan had a genuine feel for the music. As he began singing and recording his own songs these songs and artists were part of his secure base, his roots.

In recording World Gone Wrong Bob Dylan decided to do a tribute to his roots by producing an all folk and blues cd. This is a very stripped down and spare cd. We hear only Dylan's nasal voice, guitar and harmonica and that makes a pretty powerful combination. Stripped of all the other instruments and studio finesse one hears how kinetic and emotional these songs can be with Dylan as a performer.

In addition to the Dylan's performances are the liner notes which he writes about each song. They are not to be missed. About the title song World Gone Wrong, Dylan says:

"Strange things are happening like never before, strange things like courage becoming befuddled and nonfundamental, evil charlatans masquerading in pullover vests & tuxedos talking gobbledygook, monstrous pompous superficial pageantry parading down lonely streets on limited access highway."

The songs themselves are of course wonderful things made more intense with Dylan's nasal voice of gravel and gritl which can be alternately tender, harsh, pain filled, caustic and angry. Ragged and Dirty by Willie Brown is about love, working man style. "If I clean up Sweet Mama, can I stay all night with you." Broke Down Engine a Blind Willie McTell song is intense and powerful.

In World Gone Wrong a Mississippi Sheik's song we hear Dylan's wonderful nasal voice with the familiar cadence of drawing out the ending notes.

I can't be good no more

Once like I did before
I can't be good, baby
Honey, cause the world gone wrong

Other noteworthy songs are Blood in My Eyes, a raw and ragged love song of great depth and caring and Delia, a tender and caring ballad about poor Delia who was a gambling girl and died of a gunshot would. Dylan sings "All the friends I ever had are gone.

This is perhaps not a typical Dylan cd because it lacks any of his original material. It does aptly showcase how powerful and emotional a performer he is. It also demonstrates his care and respect for the American folk tradition.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Dylan's most underrated recordings, and unjustly trashed...., June 15, 2006

By	Grigory's Girl "Grigory's Girl" (NYC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Dylan said after he recorded his 2 acoustic solo albums (Good As I Been to You and this one), critics wrote him off, saying he was done. He said it make feel so free and alive in a way he hadn't felt like in years. From now on, he could do just what he wanted. When Dylan toured in the 70's and 80's, he did mostly older material, with occasional new songs. On his current tours, he does whatever he wants for the most part, similar to the Grateful Dead and Phish, who did whatever song struck them at the time. While grunge was exploding, Dylan does 2 solo acoustic albums of old folk and blues standards. That's a beautiful thing. Dylan is always at his best when he follow his own voice. The songs here never date. This album is the better of Bob's two 90's folk albums. I'm not dissing Good As I Been to You (which is great), but this one is tighter, scarier, more haunted. The best songs are Stack a Lee, the title track, Two Soldiers (astonishingly beautiful and sad), Jack a Roe, and Blood in My Eyes. The whole album is magnificent. Thanks, Bob...