Bob Dylan / 7:16
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Daniel Lanois: guitar
Robert Britt: guitar
“Bucky” Baxter: pedal steel guitar
Augie Meyers: organ
Tony Garnier: bass
David Kemper: drums
Recording Studio
Criteria Recording Studios, Miami: January 1997
Technical Team
Producer: Daniel Lanois (in association with Jack Frost Productions)
Sound Engineer: Mark Howard
“Cold Irons Bound” may have been inspired by “Rosie,” an African-American work song sung by inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman Farm. The tale is about a better life symbolized by a beautiful woman named Rosie. Many years earlier, Dylan had recorded a similar song for his album Self Portrait, titled “Take a Message to Mary,” written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.
In “Cold Irons Bound,” the narrator is sentenced to prison. He says he is “Twenty miles out of town in cold irons bound / The walls of pride are high and wide,” and under “clouds of blood.” This is most likely a metaphor, indicating that he is experiencing a love that is “taking such a long time to die”; he is a prisoner of memories of the joys he shared with his beloved.
“Cold Irons Bound” is a small production masterpiece by Daniel Lanois. The song opens with Tony Garnier’s massive and poignant riff bass sound on which David Kemper has grafted his half-ethnic and half-rockabilly drums. The orchestration is heavy with increasing tension. The two guitars confer a rather aggressive blues-rock atmosphere, accompanied by Augie Meyers’s excellent organ part. While far from Dylan’s usual sound, the result is dazzling. The Lanois-Dylan collaberation works perfectly. Dylan’s vocal is brilliant, as if it comes straight from the depths of the Delta, reminiscent of the Excello Records recordings of Slim Harpo and Lightnin’ Slim. “Cold Irons Bound” is one of the successes of the album. Unfortunately, Dylan has said that he did not really achieve his goals in writing this song.