Traditional Tunes (Part II) - World Gone Wrong

"Pack up my suitcase, give me my hat,
No use to ask me, baby, 'cause I'll never be back.
I can't be good no more, once like I did before.
I can't be good, baby,
Honey, because the world's gone wrong"

I read somewhere centuries ago someone point out the impossibility of saying something about Dylan that hasn't been said before ("Go ahead, try")--which is as true as anything gets. The man is an interesting subject to talk about. You can push and pull all day and most likely you won't end up a step closer, so everyone does it as they like it to be done, and everyone end up making desicions and coming to conclusions and so forth. Some are quite impressive (such as Todd Haynes' masterpiece I'm Not There), some are just needless (like that creepy guy from the 65 press conference obsessing over the cover of Highway 61 Revisited). Either way, the man talks a lot, and is talked about even more.

Good thing about that vaguness though is that he can slip in and out of things easier than most (let's face it, after a while people began reacting somewhat more mildly to his rapid changes), and through that process he offers many kinds of pretty stones and pearls. I love Freewheelin' just as i love Blonde on Blonde, or Street Legal. I even have a few of Christmas In The Heart on my ipod. Point I'm making is that the acceptance of his alterations results in an acceptance of the altering of his works, you tend to give more chances to works to which you would otherwise deny a minute of your day.

World Gone Wrong



On my account, World Gone Wrong is similar to that. It's a change of heart, or for Dylan, I guess, a change of muse. It breaks away two cliches: first one being "Dylan can't sing" and second one being the start of all this rambling, that the traditional tunes of one nation can not move someone of the other.

It was an album of Dylan that excited me as a whole, the moment I heard about it. He is obviously known to make original works, but I have always enjoyed his interpretations of tunes that aren't his--Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land could be on my-favorite-8-billion-Dylan-songs list. The wonderful bootleg The East Orange Tape is one to me of the most enjoyable bits of Dylan. I even love his When I Got Troubles -- a super amateur home recording of his days way before he took off to New York. Long story short, I like listening to him sing stuff that aren't his, and no matter what anyone says, I do think the guy can sing. You just have to listen right, if you ask me.

Anyways, so obviously World Gone Wrong was a new batch of cookies for me, and I gave it a whole round the minute I got my hands on it. It's Dylan through and through. It's a different Dylan, considering he was, well, I guess in his 50s, when it was released. So it's not like singing Pastures Of Plenty at the age of 22 or so. There's a different air to the whole thing, but an air that in any case smells of Dylan.

The songs--well, I'll start as always with my favorite, which was also the song that got me interested in this album in the first place (see with Dylan, there's always so much material, you need to go step by step). Blood In My Eyes is simply put, a masterpiece. Could be one of the greatest Dylan songs (per say), even. It is perfect match to his now ragged, worn out tone; and the way he sings it makes you not doubt for a second that the song is his. That obviously is not the case, but still, he owns that song in a way much more different than he owns any other on the album. You may not like Dylan, but you will like that song.

Second one deserving of attention-- World Gone Wrong. A gem in both lyrics and tune. The minute it starts of as the opening track you know you're in for a treat.

Love Henry, which is right after World Gone Wrong is a lovely tune, but oddly, it seems out of place. I could say that is the one song that doesn't fit Dylan. Probably the theme of the song looks not so good on him. Considering (or more like assuming, let's say, godforbid you say something certain on the man and he'll flip you around on it like a million times) fatal jealousy is not one his traits, the song kind of slips. It's good, don't get me wrong, he sings it perfectly fine. It's just that when you remember something like You never had to be faithful/I didn’t want you to grieve /Oh, why was it so hard for you/If you didn’t want to be with me, just to leave? of the masterpiece She's Your Lover Now, and the way he scorns her not leaving honestly instead of leaving at all, and the way he stings more than he resents all through it blurs the vision on Love Henry. It is possibly a stretch, but jealousy doesn't suit Dylan the way it suits others. It's just the way it goes.

I did really enjoy Ragged& Dirty. Good lyrics, good music.

My last comment about the songs will be on The Lone Pilgrim which I absolutely loved. Much more mellow than the rest, it has a calming way of misery. It's the song on the album which moves past its story. I didn't really care what it said, I was even suprised to find out what its title was. It's just simply enjoyable.

Another tasty treat of World Gone Wrong is obviously its liner notes. They resemble almost too greatly Tarantula, reminding you that after all this is the lifetime of one single individual which moves somewhat from one point to the other--instead of a clash of a hundred pesonalities. It is after all Dylan you're talking about. Whether it's Gospel or folk or rock or nothing or everything he sings, that head of his is still that head of his. Not that you should--or could--precisely understand, but you could at least acknowledge it.

Summing up this too long piece of reflections; World Gone Wrong offers more than good songs and calm nights. The real trick in the business is Dylan's desire to tell stories. That spark is what sets everything on fire. He could have done milion other songs, but naively, I would like to believe that these were the ones he wanted to do. He wanted to talk about the songs (and what they are about), he wanted to tell their stories. You can sense (or assume) that all over the liner notes, and all over the album.

And let's face it, it's always good to hear him talk.

Traditional Tunes (Part I) - Just Dave Van Ronk

A lot of people would tell you where you're born and raised affects how you define yourself. That's true. Then they will go on telling you that your homeland outlines your lines of perception, and those perceptions are mostly clear cut. To them there's one language you speak as your own, one kind of culture in which you will find the tools to talk about yourself. That, i say, is bullshit.

I will pour my heart on two topics of discussion over the next few dozen lines--both sharing absolutely nothing with where i've lived, or where i was born. They're two great works of art on stories told by men who lived neither in my time, nor on my land. they belong to the traditional ammo of an entirely different culture, nevertheless, i believe they speak of things larger than lands and borders. Hence my fascination with their existence.

It was a couple of weeks back that i got my hands on an unfamiliar, yet greatly appreciated, album: Dave Van Ronk's Just Dave Van Ronk. And a few days back i got my hands on another somewhat more familiar one: Bob Dylan's World Gone Wrong. What the two albums had in common (besides great music and musicians with colorful pasts on the streets of the Village) was their share of traditional tunes--Dylan's being entirely a complation of them, Van Ronk's being mainly arrangements, with a few other wonderful additions.

Just Dave Van Ronk



First time I saw Dave Van Ronk was on No Direction Home, all I could think was how huggable he looked. Then I noticed his gracefullness ("I could not have blamed him for that, and I didn't"*), and the amount of life squeezed into his body. You could see it wanting to break free, this flow of energy and compassion and liveliness trying to shake loose its meat suit, but obediently doing what he says nonetheless--as if he had a huge ball of life that would roll over on his command for a chewy treat.

So needless to say when I got Just Dave Van Ronk I was miserably excited, since it was to be (finally) my musical, official introduction to the man. It took me a week or two though to become acquantinces with him and with the album, but now I can say I'm on safe ground.

Overall, two things caught my attention on the album. First, Van Ronk's incredible ability to elevate songs. You feel like you're in some higher state of being when he sings. Plant sometimes has that effect; this way of turning your daily, ordinary world into some unseen sense of brand new order. Second thing that pulls you in--the vivacious, lively feel of the songs. They become living organisms through Van Ronk's cherishable tone, and you feel they move around on their own account. They force you to participate; you don't feel seperate from the songs, but kept at their arms length.

My favorites-- well, I have a few. Every song on the album is worth your while, but my money is on (by far distance and assurance) Wanderin'. It already made itself to the list of my favorite songs ever, let alone on this one album. It is almost scarily honest. It paints a world of pain and burdensome loneliness-- it is in itself a lonely song. It's kind of a song that would linger outside after closing time, with a cigarette and boney fingers. It's naturally beautiful.

Pastures Of Plenty is another interesting one--for reasons independent of the album. I have a version of it done by Dylan. He sings it in his youthful persona much more immaturely; though that may not be the word for it, there's a sense of ripeness in his version. It's a step mellower, though it's more upbeat. It has that Dylan way of making it one's own without really making it one's own. You can see the words are not Dylan's (over a zillion words he used, you can still tell which are by dylan and which aren'), he still owns the song. Dave's version is much more edgier, threatening and definetly more mature. He doesn't only sing it, but knows it. He too owns the song, but in a completely different way. He stands tall, not as a narrator, but as sort of a God-man behind it all.

God Bless The Child would be my third favorite--again simply of Van Ronk's originality in its arrangement, if of nothing else. Didn't It Rain too is worth a couple of plays back to back. Candy Man is charming to the last note, Frankie's Blues is a song that grasps you in your first play.

I have been insanely curious about House of The Rising Sun after all the stories about it, but now, I do have to say, The Animals version on my account beats both Van Ronk's and Dylan's that was later recorded for his debut album.

All in all, Dave Van Ronk musically was no disappointment on my behalf. He definetly made his way into my limited yet heartfully loved list of artists. The bluesy grandness in both his tone and in his arrangements make him simply beautiful. If you do have time on your hands, and do not care where songs come from as long as they move you, Just Dave Van Ronk is a great way to open your ear to a different kind of music that we don't hear that often these days.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will talk about Dylan's World Gone Wrong--Till then, make sure you give this artful man a chance.

*the exact quotation i can not remember for the life of me, but it was something similar to that.