"Everything is Broken" is an uptempo rock song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, and released as the first single from his 1989 album Oh Mercy, where it appears as the third track. It was later anthologized on the compilation albums The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000[2] and Dylan in 2007.[3] The song spent eight weeks on Billboard's "Mainstream Rock Songs" chart, peaking at number eight on October 27, 1989.[4] It was produced by Daniel Lanois.
Composition
"Everything is Broken" is a "list song" in which the narrator describes a world where everything seems to be broken.[1] Originally recorded as "Broken Days" in March 1989, Dylan had rewritten the song entirely by April, giving it its current name. In an interview with Nigel Williamson (the author of The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan), Oh Mercy's producer, Daniel Lanois, described how Dylan would rework his songs over and over again:
"I sat next to him for two months while he wrote [Oh Mercy] and it was extraordinary. Bob overwrites. He keeps chipping away at his verses. He has a place for all his favorite couplets, and those couplets can be interchangeable. I've seen the same lyrics show up in two or three different songs as he cuts and pastes them around, so it's not quite as sacred ground as you might think.[1]
Critical reception
In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon characterize "Everything is Broken" as a "Louisiana, or swamp blues, song" in the vein of Slim Harpo. They describe the recording as "both nonchalant and rhythmic, punctuated by guitars with very pronounced vibrato" and praise Dylan's harmonica solo as "exquisite".[5]
Spectrum Culture included the song on a list of "Bob Dylan's 20 Best Songs of the '80s". In an article accompanying the list, critic John Paul wrote that "it is at its heart a blues designed to resonate with those experiencing any of its broken items and ideas. Like all good and resonant blues lyrics, 'Everything is Broken' is general enough to apply to nearly any feeling of despondency. In this, Dylan is going back to his folk and blues roots three decades into his storied career".[6]
A 2021 Guardian article included it on a list of "80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know".[7]
NJArts' Jay Lustig noted that, while Dylan's output was "uneven" in the 1980s, Oh Mercy "put a nice cap on it, with a cohesive, atmospheric sound (largely thanks to producer Daniel Lanois, who also plays various instruments on nine out of the 10 songs) and a strong batch of new songs" and cited "Everything is Broken" as his favorite track on the album.[8]
^Margotin, Philippe; Jean-Michel Guesdon (2015). Bob Dylan : all the songs : the story behind every track (First ed.). New York. ISBN978-1-57912-985-9. OCLC869908038.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
