Bob Dylan: World Gone Wrong

This was a great, and very pleasant, surprise when I bought it in 2002. I'd written it off for almost a decade since the music press had been so rude about the 'greatest songwriter' resorting to cover versions.

It was reading Greil Marcus's Invisible Republic, about the legacy of American folk music from the early part of the twentieth century, that led me to buy this. And it's astonishing. I wouldn't have imagined that Dylan could play guitar so well. He gets the most out of his voice, even though it's shot.

But it's the songs that are the real strength. Now that Bob has his own radio programme, we know that he has a massive range of more or less unknown old songs up his sleeve. Some of the songs on World Gone Wrong are on the Anthology Of American Folk Music, but Dylan's versions of Love Henry, Blood in my Eyes and Delia are my favourites. I love Two Soldiers, too.

Sean Willentz has an interesting chapter on Delia in The Rose and the Briar. Like Dylan's own Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, it's based on a true story, dating in this case from the turn of the twentieth century. What you don't hear in the song is that the real Delia and her boyfriend/killer were fourteen years old.

MusicBrainz entry for this album