Dang, can't get the Blood on the Tracks version on youtube...here is a decent clip from vimeo.
Idiot Wind is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, definitely my favorite Bob Dylan song of the 70s, probably followed by all the other songs from Blood On the Tracks, and Hurricane. I still can't believe Gotta Serve Somebody was on the K-Tel Wings of Sound album I bought, I always skipped over it. Religious Bob, nah thanks.
This is a song of anger and bitterness directed at the world while Dylan was going through a rough patch in his relationship with his wife. It starts off with a slight moment of anticipation before bursting into Someone's got it in for me They're planting stories in the press. There are so many classic lines, these are a few of my favorites:
There's a lone soldier on the cross Smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door
The priest wore black on the seventh day And sat stone-faced while the building burned
I can't feel you anymore I can't even touch the books you've read
I kissed goodbye the howling beast On the borderline which separated you from me
Idiot wind Blowing like a circle around my skull, From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
I always heard socket, not circle, in that last line. But now that I listen closely, he is saying circle. Oh well, I guess that makes more sense. I love how his voice rises through the verses, gathering caustic steam and blowing up, like I woke up on the roadside Daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are....it's like he's having a seizure at the end of each line. He really spits these words out like daggers, like he's dressing someone down in an office who royally screwed up. I would not want to be on the receiving end of such a sharp tongue.
The music is earthy, Dylan himself on the organ. Great drumming from Bill Berg.
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