"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.
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