Review of Bob Dylan's Song Everything is Broken

To pick the song I was going to go for this paper, I put my iPod on shuffle and picked the first thing that came on. The lucky song that came on is called "Everything Is Broken" by Bob Dylan and can be found on his Oh Mercy album. If you don't have the album on hand, the song can be listened to here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwJNMbRVPLQ which I accessed on Wednesday, February 4^th, 2009.

The song opens with just the guitar, and then drums join in, this opens for a rhythm that makes me want to go on a road trip. The rhythm feels to me like a classic 1-2-3-4 beat which makes the listener maybe want to tap their fingers or feet. If this particular rhythm was changed to maybe a faster beat, it would completely kill the moment that the song takes you. It'd be too fast to make you want to listen to the lyrics. If the rhythm were slowed down, I think the tone would be a lot more sad instead of upbeat which I don't think is what Bob Dylan wanted for this song.

The vocal of this song is kind of low, kind of scratchy, the best way I could describe it would be to say that it's like a frog is singing it. Which leads me to a visual of a frog, just hanging out on a log as it's floating down stream as he's observing all of the things in the world around him that are broken. The melody goes along with the rhythm with the same type of happy tone.

As far instruments go, there is definitely a heavy bass line which sets the mood of the song more than any of the other instruments do. I can also hear a guitar and drums as well as bongo drums. The bongo bring out the light vibe that comes with listening to this song. There is a harmonica that joins in the song toward the middle which I think brings the song to be more interesting to listen to as well as providing more richness and depth to the sound as well.

I don't hear any back up vocals or counter-melodies either. The song is just one melody, but that's what makes it simple. This song sort of has a blues hint to it and something that I've noticed about the blues is that it's clean, simple, and to the point-nothing fancy or abstract. The harmony goes along with the melody just as the rhythm does, they're all in sync with each other instead of being random and scattered throughout the piece.

If you took away the vocal from this song, I think that it could carry itself just fine as an instrumental track because there is plenty going on to keep the mind occupied. As far as the lyrics go, they could be really depressing or really angry depending on the speed of the song. I think that the melody and rhythm are definitely crucial elements to the feeling that the song portrays. This song isn't supposed to be a sad or an angry song, it's supposed to be catchy and uplifting and even though the lyrics aren't so much bring that feeling, it doesn't matter. The rhythm, melody and harmony are all delivering these lyrics in a happy way even though all they're talking about is how broken everything is.

I do enjoy this song because I enjoy blues and Bob Dylan too. The beat of this song made me feel happy and motivated to get some homework done. It's 12:16 AM right now and I've been up since 8 and this song has me all energized. I've had it on repeat as I wrote this and the effect hasn't weakened either. There are a lot of reasons why I love Bob Dylan as an artist in general, but his ability to motivate me has always been one of them.

On a deeper level, just listening to this song makes you want to do something about everything being broken. "No use jiving, no use joking, everything is broken." It's like saying, "how can you laugh when you know I'm down."