"Political World" is an uptempo folk rock song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the opening track on his 1989 album Oh Mercy and as a single in Europe in 1990.

Dylan describes writing the lyrics of "Political World" in his Malibu home[2] in the "Oh Mercy" chapter of his memoir Chronicles: Volume One: "One night when everyone was asleep and I was sitting at the kitchen table, nothing on the hillside but a shiny bed of lights - all that changed.

In their book Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon note how Daniel Lanois's atmospheric production plunges listeners "into a dreamy, heavy, menacing but definitely original vibe.

[6] Margotin and Guesdon describe the song as Dylan offering "a pitiless condemnation of the modern world he lives in, governed by politics, where 'love don't have any place', where 'life is in mirrors, death disappears / Up the steps into the nearest bank'.

Dylan scholar Tony Attwood notes that, although the song consists of only a single chord, it is the music that resonates more than the words: "the extraordinary thing is that for once it is not the lyrics that stay with the listener first, second or third time it is sung.