I have listened to Bob Dylan since I was a child. My mom would play the bootleg recordings in the house (she had a burnt CD of Volume 1) and I would fascinate over tunes like ‘Bear Mountain Picnic’ and ‘Who Killed Davey Moore?’. Much of the meaning of the songs went right over my head but the voice, the lyrics, the playing - it was one of the few musical experiences that felt totally immersive for me without a single qualifier. It was everything I wanted to listen to and everything I wanted to play.
I had heard this song, “Idiot Wind” on ‘Blood On The Tracks’ probably in my late teenage years or my early twenties, but I’ll admit that it didn’t really reach me until my dear friend Joe Henry told me to listen to the bootleg version. Joe knew what he was doing, showing me that recording. Upon listening, it changed me as a songwriter. I wont explain why because I can’t explain why.
You can find two slightly different bootleg versions of this song and they will be both be different lyrically to the record version from ‘Blood On The Tracks’. I have gotten really connected to this version:
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