"Everything is Broken" is a song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 written

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and recorded

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 by American musician Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, and released on his 1989 album, Oh Mercy

Oh Mercy

Oh Mercy is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's 26th studio album, released by Columbia Records in September 1989.Produced by Daniel Lanois, it was hailed by critics as a triumph for Dylan, after a string of weaker-reviewed albums...

. The song's lyrics describe Dylan's detachment from his world at the time of its writing. The track found on Oh Mercy is a re-working of a take recorded earlier. The original version, recorded by Dylan in March of 1989 in New Orleans, was included on the 2008 compilation album

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

 The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 - Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006. A cover version appears on Kenny Wayne Shepherds hit album "Trouble Is...

Trouble Is...

Trouble Is ... is the second album by American blues solo artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd. It features the #1 Mainstream Rock Tracks hit "Blue on Black". The album also spawned three further hits including "Slow Ride", "Somehow, Somewhere, Someway", and "Everything is Broken", a Bob Dylan cover. It...

Composition

Originally recorded as "Broken Days" in March 1989, Dylan had rewritten the song entirely by April, giving it its current name. "Everything is Broken" is one of Dylan's songs that he has reworked many times over. In an interview with Nigel Williamson (the author of The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan) and Oh Mercys producer, Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...

, he 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.