Album Review: Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma - Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad
As Jew of Oklahoma, Mark Rubin found a brilliant way to make the uncomfortable palatable on Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad. And that is to sing angry songs about antisemitism (“Dog Whistle”), the war in Gaza (“Horrors of the War”) and Russian aggression (“Bear at the Door”) over joyful, acoustic melodies that mix American roots and European klezmer music into a new sound of protestation.
They bombed the power station, so we got no light/and they bombed the water plant/not a drink in sight/so we got no medicine/no water or food/what do little kids have to do with this fued, Rubin sings of Gaza on “Blues for the Innocent.”
This is an important record, not least because it finds a Jewish man commenting on world affairs with requisite nuance while also exposing a wider audience to traditional Jewish music. Dispatches is also essential because Rubin finds the ridiculousness in the evil and shines a bright light into those dark corners, forcing his listeners to reckon with issues they might prefer to ignore.
The originals were written in a burst of existential creativity that began in late 2024 and carried on until so recently that “Goon with the Hammer” references Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Hey, hey, I’m talkin’ to you/if they can take him what else can they do, Rubin sings.
Late of the Bad Livers, Rubin mixes these songs with a selection of Jewish folk instrumentals including “Berish Katz Breakdown” (on banjo) and “Rev Dovidi’s Reel” (guitar); the murder ballad “Wild Bill Jones;” and the traditional “The World is a Wheel,” which finds Rubin singing of the fickleness of fate over plaintive accordion.
It’s a downer. But Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad is simultaneously a pick-me-up, which says much about Rubin’s understated - and criminally under-recognized - song craft.
Grade card: Mark Rubin, Jew of Oklahoma - Dispatches: Songs from a World Gone Mad - A-
5/15/25