Cold Irons Bound

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"Cold Irons Bound" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1997 on his critically acclaimed album Time Out of Mind. An alternate version was released on the Masked and Anonymous soundtrack in 2003. A live version was released (outside of the United States) on the compilation Live 1961-2000: Thirty-nine Years of Great Concert Performances in 2001.

Oliver Trager describes "Cold Irons Bound" as "biting" with "ricocheting guitar licks, rockabilly drums, distorted organ, and [a] voice floating in a blimp of its own echo," in which "one can still hear, to paraphrase "Visions of Johanna," the ghost of electricity howling from the bones of Dylan's face..." (110) Michael Gray describes this song somewhat more harshly:

There's an interesting tension, too, in "Cold Irons Bound," perhaps more accurately an interesting inappropriateness between, on one side, the grinding electronic blizzard of the music and the cold, aircraft-hangar echo of the voice lamenting its sojourn across a lethal planet---fields turned brown, sky lowering with clouds of blood, winds that can tear you to shreds, mists like quicksand---and on the other side the recurrently stated pursuit of tenderness, in phrases that seem imported from another consciousness...It's decidedly odd to hear, pitched against the scraping Lanois winds half tearing us to shreds, sentiments as obdurately "romantic" as

I found my own, found my one in you

or

Lookin' at you and I'm on my bended knee

or

I tried to love and protect you

and to hear such a defensively bleak, exhausted old voice articulate the thought that

I'm gonna remember forever the joy we've shared. (795)

Since its composition, "Cold Irons Bound" has been a regular in Dylan's live setlists.

[edit] Covers

"Cold Irons Bound" has been covered by:

• Druha Trava & Peter Rowan: New Freedom Bell (1999)
• Jing Chi: Jing Chi Live (2003)

[edit] References

• Bob Dylan's official page
• Gray, Michael. Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan. Continuum, 2000.
• Trager, Oliver. Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Billboard Books, 2004.