Blood on the Tracks

"We live in the smoky landscape now, as the exhausted troops seek
the roads home. The signposts have been smashed; the maps are
blurred. There is no politician anywhere who can move anyone to
hope; the plague recedes, but it is not dead, and the statesmen are
as irrelevant as the tarnished statues in the public parks. We live
with a callous on the heart. Only the artists can remove it. Only
the artists can help the poor land again to feel."

-Pete Hamill, Liner notes to "Blood on the Tracks"


There are three versions of "Idiot Wind" that bares remarks. They
are three uniquely different songs, which evoke different emotions
upon listening. Now this is not unheard of in Dylandom, when the
Bard will never give us the same song twice. But what is
unparalleled with this song, as no other artist other than Dylan can
do so well, is to give us his "State of the Union" address (I think
Ginsberg has used this term before). Not just merely on a personal
level, because everyone always seems to reference Dylan's personal
life with "Blood on the Tracks". The more I listen to "Blood on the
Tracks", and "Idiot Wind" in particular, the less it has become
about love and the more it becomes about the landscape of America,
both yesterday and today - an America growing out of adolescence and
into the tumultuous age of consumerism, war, political downfall,
apathy and resignation.

The New York, Minneapolis and Hard Rain versions of "Idiot Wind" all
have very different textures to them. The first impression one gets
when listening to all three versions is that the song is about the
ending of a love affair and relationship that has gone drastically
sour. They both want what the other is unwilling and unable to give
and this has caused resentment and anger from each, "Someone's got
it in for me, they're planting stories in the press". The New York
version shows a world- weary acquiescence to this fact, and in an
almost bittersweet way, the narrator sings, "I couldn't believe
after all these years, you didn't know me any better than that,
sweet lady". But the stories in the press also signal that
something else besides love has gone south. What once was hopeful
optimism about the future has now turned to a harsh distrust and
submissive attitude toward the powers that be - there is simply
nothing he can do except sit back in disbelief. The blame is placed
on the lover and the ones seemingly in control of the narrator's
destiny, "Idiot wind, blowin' every time you move your teeth/ You're
an idiot babe/ It's a wonder you still know how to breathe". The
idiot wind blowing through the country, politicians blowing smoke in
the public's eyes, trying to blind them from the truth. The idiot
wind that said change was and is possible in a world gone terribly
wrong. In the New York version, this devastating acknowledgment
comes through clearly, "I figured I lost you anyway/Why go
on? /What's the use?" He has not only lost love, but the optimism
and innocence of his youth; along with the youth and hopefulness of
a country then in war and coming out of a decade that ended with
dark and foreboding signs of what was to come. Much like the times
we live in today.

The lone soldier on the cross who wins the war after losing every
battle is an underdog. A lone figure putting themselves out there
on the line for something, who has been in the trenches way too
long, and no one believes that he will win, and even his own faith
is dwindling. Still he keeps going. The narrator, in an eclipse of
desperation, battles between giving up and moving forward. He must
win the war. Even though he feels he has lost everything: love,
confidence, and integrity. He must mend a broken heart and spirit
and move forward doing the only thing he knows how to do. The
Minneapolis version is much more resilient in this aspect. This
pliability turns into anger at both the loved one and the world he
finds himself in - a love who has scorned him and a world that has
turned upside down - he no longer understands either of them and is
contemptuous at the hurt they have caused, "You hurt the ones I love
best and cover up the truth with lies/One day you'll be in the
ditch, flies buzzin around your eyes/Blood on your saddle" and, "Now
everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels
have stopped/What's good is bad and what's bad is good/You'll find
out when you reach the top/You're on the bottom". He once thought
love was enough, but his destiny has pulled him in another
direction. He is out there walking the wire, alone in uncharted
waters in a world he doesn't recognize anymore, but his love can't
or is unwilling to accept this.

All the person sees before him now is corruption, greed, acid lies.
He can't recognize his love anymore, she has changed, he has
changed, and the world has changed before his eyes - an idiot wind
sweeping not only through his own relationship, but through the very
fabric of America, "Idiot Wind blowin' like a circle around my
skull/From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol". A country once
full of promise turning its back on the very ideas that at one time
made it great, letting the idiot wind not only destroy his
relationship, but crushing the soul of where he lives. This
alienation is more than he can bare, "I can't feel you anymore/I
can't even touch the books you read/ Every time I crawl past your
door I been wishin' I'm somebody else instead". But he still
continues the search, in hopes that her love and beauty might save
him and that just maybe the beauty he once found in this country can
be restored, "down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to
ecstasy/ I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
and all your raging glory".

"I've been double crossed now for the very last time and now I'm
finally free", removing himself from the carnage, he declares
vehemently his independence in the Minneapolis version. He tells
his love that she can never know the pain she has put him through,
and he will never know the same about her. This acknowledgement
makes him sorry for the way things turned out, and regretful that
things couldn't have went differently. The alternate New York
verse, "You can have the best there is, but it's gonna cost you all
your love/ You won't get it for money" has the narrator telling the
woman and anyone who will listen that he cannot be bought, that a
price tag cannot replace the true value of love and that it's going
to take a lot more than money to repair what is broken between them
and the bleak times they live in.

The final verse takes a twist, when the narrator turns inward and
points the blame not only at the woman and everyone else, but he
points the blame on himself, accepting at least some of the blame
for the situation he now finds himself in, "We are idiots, babe/It's
a wonder we can even feed ourselves". They are idiots for throwing
away what they had, for buying into what was expected of them,
letting other people and things come between them. It's a wonder
they made it through, yet they survive, and will continue to move on
through the world the only way they know how to. The idiot wind the
narrator talks about is the wind that makes politics into thirty
second sound bites, the wind that makes conformity fashionable, the
idiot wind that makes the dumbing down of America acceptable, and
the idiot wind that makes money and social status more important
than love and relationships. The last version, the Hard Rain
version, is as bitter and venomous as any song that's been sung by
any artist. It is an unabashed outpouring of anger, hurt, betrayal
and loss. The person is letting the world know in no uncertain
terms that he will make it through regardless. He's been through
hell and come out the other side. This is what links all three
versions, and is really what the song and album as a whole are
about - it is a survivor's tale.