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.


One of Dylan's most underrated recordings, and unjustly trashed....   June 16, 2006
Grigory's Girl (NYC)
17 out of 19 found this review helpful

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...



Bob's best album   March 14, 2001
16 out of 18 found this review helpful

No white man has ever sung the blues like Bob Dylan on this record. A couple of years ago I borrowed a copy of Eric Clapton's "From the Cradle" from a friend, and just had to laugh. Clapton and other English rock stars can play a passable imitation of blues guitar, but, as Muddy Waters once put it: "the white man just cannot vocal like the black man." If Muddy had heard this record, though, he would have changed his mind. "World Gone Wrong" is as good or better than Robert Johnson's recordings. Blasphemy? Listen, and decide for yourself.

If I could take two Dylan records to the proverbial desert island, I would take Highway 61 Revisited and this album - young Bob and old Bob - young Bob went electric in '65 and turned the world upside down - old Bob went acoustic in the '90s and no one noticed or cared. Bob didn't make the cover of Newsweek when this album came out. It was this album, however, that deserved all of the accolades that Time Out of Mind later received. One man, an acoustic guitar, and a harmonica are still more powerful than all of the space-age echo effects in Daniel Lanois's bag of tricks.


Blues never sounded so sad   May 5, 2001
James J. Lundy Jr. (Charleston, SC United States)
12 out of 15 found this review helpful

The predecessor to this album, "Good as I been to You" got a lot of attention. Riding high on this success and flirting with the idea of never writing another song ever again (that would last another 4 years) "World Gone Wrong" came out right on its heels. Both albums are adaptations of traditional or public domain songs, well played, finding Dylan in good voice, but the two couldn't be more different. This collection of songs is dark and world-weary. All but two of the songs feature the death of someone, murder, or the threat of murder. The two that don't, "Broke Down Engine" and "Ragged and Dirty" are as dark, low-down, and dejected as their names suggest. But there are two marvelous reasons to buy this CD: First is the liner notes written by Dylan himself. If you have ever started to doubt this man's genius, just get a load of the surreal visions and landscapes these songs evoke in his mind. You might hear a traditional blues song, he sees, "paint chipped & flaked, mattress bare, single bulb swinging above the bed," and so on. Almost all of the songs are summarized in his unique, brilliant perspective. The second reason is the last song "Lone Pilgrim" which to my ear is the single most heartfelt, expressive song he's ever recorded -- bar none. I want this song sung at my funeral; nothing else could do.