"Dylan dropped acid in the limelight," sings Tex-Mex singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo on "Headstrong Crazy Fools," savoring the recklessness of youth with a James Jamerson bass line and a Lou Reed rhyme scheme. Escovedo nods to his forebears here, as on 2008's Real Animal. "Bottom of the World" and "San Antonio Rain" echo "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," young Dylan's means applied to different ends: those of a 61-year-old rock & roll lifer staring down hard-luck cases with unsparing empathy. If the songs don't always transcend their references, they rarely feel less than lived.

Listen to 'Big Station':

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• Video: Alejandro Escovedo's "Man of the World (Live)"

“He Will Break Your Heart”

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."