World Gone Wrong (1993)

Or Good As I Been To You part 2. The similarity between this LP and his last is so obvious that you might as well treat them as two halves of a whole. For that reason, there is not a great deal to add to my last post.

Damn.

Having said that, while the two LPs share a style of song choice, the only-covers content, solo Dylan recordings, I think there is a slight difference in that this album is not quite as good as the last.

It's good - no mistake about that - just not as good. Part of that could be because we've now heard this before and that if World Gone Wrong had come first I'd have been jumping up and down about this in the same way I did about Good As I Been To You. But, then again, perhaps not as, while this is a thoroughly enjoyable journey through some old tunes bashed out in the way that only Dylan can, I'm not convinced that the choice of song is as consistently top-notch as on the previous LP.

There are some great choices on here - World Gone Wrong, Blood In My Eyes and Delia in particular - and the rest are fine songs but if you were to combine these two all-acoustic LPs in one and then cut it down to a single record, I'd bet you'd have more songs from the first one than this. But that's not to knock this as a stand alone LP. Dylan's voice is still holding up and fitting these, mostly downbeat, ballads perfectly in a timeless, beautifully anachronistic way. Plus you get to hear him have a crack at the Blind Willie McTell tune, Broke Down Engine, which is a blast.

I think what is probably bugging me is that while this folk/blues standards diversion has been great, I'm starting to itch for some Dylan originals. As always with Dylan, what the truth is surrounding this absence of any original releases between 1990 and 1997 is unclear. Muse left town again? Perhaps. Whatever the reason, we should be a touch grateful as it did at least allow him to revisit some grand old tunes of the past and give us a couple of gems of LPs and maybe the last time we'll get to hear just Bob alone with his guitar and harp. But, then again, Dylan being Dylan, who knows?

Out of five?

Three and seven eighths

Favourite track?

World Gone Wrong

Up next?

Time Out Of Mind.