Broke Down Engine

There is a Bob Dylan album called World Gone Wrong (1993), which is a tribute by Dylan to the blues music that clearly influenced him. The songs are performed by him and him alone... no band, no backing. Just Bob and his guitar hammering out these beautiful, powerful, sad, lonesome ballads and stories. Human lives from past decades rolling out and coming into colourful existence once more.

My personal favourites are Blood In My Eyes and Broke Down Engine. Dylan himself wrote in the liner notes:

BLOOD IN MY EYES is one of two songs done by the Mississippi Sheiks, a little known de facto group whom in their former glory must've been something to behold. rebellion against routine seems to be their strong theme. all their songs are raw to the bone & are faultlessly made for these modern times (the New Dark Ages) nothing effete about the Mississippi Sheiks.

BROKE DOWN ENGINE is a Blind Willie Mctell masterpiece. it's about trains, mystery on the rails -- the train of love, the train that carried my girl from town -- The Southern Pacific, Baltimore & Ohio whatever -- it's about variations of human longing -- the low hum in meter & syllables. it's about dupes of commerce & politics colliding on tracks, not being pushed around by ordinary standards. it's about revival, getting a new lease on life, not just posing there -- paint chipped & flaked, mattress bare, single bulb swinging above the bed. it's about Ambiguity, the fortunes of the privilege elite, flood control -- watching the red dawn not bothering to dress.

The punctuation and writing style is pure Dylan - capturing the essence and the connection of these songs (interesting that he uses the phrase 'these modern times' in referring to the Mississippi Sheiks - then makes an album in 2006 called Modern Times that is obviously hearkening back to a bygone musical era in style, but very much in the present in terms of lyrics).

One thing I had not realised until this week was that back in 1987, Dylan had what he describes in Chronicles as a 'freak accident' where his hand was pretty mangled up and took a lot of rehab. I listened to the guitar playing on the Blind Willie McTell cover with new admiration and appreciation. The first time I heard that song, the joy burst through me like a bubble and I laughed aloud. Not because of the lyrics or the meaning of the song, which is serious, lonesome and about loss - but the spirit with which Dylan plays it. Love; enthusiasm; skill; a celebration of life amongst the 'cities of the plague'. That pure fighting quality makes me stand up against the world and laugh out loud in its face.

Bob Dylan is real and raw and honest in his music. A person I work with once accused Dylan of being 'a phoney' and I became incensed. I am sure he doesn't need me to fight his corner and as he once said (paraphrase), it doesn't matter what others think of you as long as you know inside that you are true to yourself.

However, I don't know how anyone could listen to World Gone Wrong and think that the emotion and heart pouring through every note - which then echoes through Dylan's own music like the chime of a perfectly-honed bell - could possible not be genuine.

It is a hurricane of truth that will knock you off your feet.

Then again, some people fear the truth...