The song Bob Dylan was afraid would sound “too personal”
Bob Dylan is one of the few artists who can manage to talk out of both sides of his mouth within the span of a single song.
As much as fans like to paint him as this almighty folk-rock genius that told wise parables about the state of the world, he was as confused about where to go as the rest of us. He was put on a pedestal, but he was still human, and it was always going to be up to him whether he showed that side of himself or not.
That’s not to say that any of his tunes were lacking in emotion or anything. There’s a lot of biting commentary on the first few records he put out, but when looking at the love songs on his records, he still had a soft heart. ‘It Ain’t Me Babe’ might be a heartbreaking tune, but even if it had a lot of nastiness behind it, everyone could still hear the pain in his voice as he was saying goodbye to an ex-lover.
Then again, a lot of what goes into his lyrics is more about painting the picture than trying to portray a real relationship. There’s a good chance that he’s never going to meet the fabled Mr Jones from ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’, but having that conversation about people that only want to take pieces of his personality and twist his words in different directions is what any creative writer wants to do with their critics.
But if there was one thing that absolutely broke him, it was seeing his relationship with his wife, Sara, fall apart. He had worked hard to keep his family life out of the spotlight, and even if there were a few moments where he couldn’t get over his own star power, Blood on the Tracks was one of the first times that Dylan seemed vulnerable on a record.
He had put out far more fractured albums, but even if Self Portrait was almost designed to be terrible in some ways, this record is Dylan reckoning with his own state of mind. For the first time in his life, he didn’t sound like he had all the answers anymore, and while ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ was a fantastic way of setting the scene, ‘Idiot Wind’ was his way of getting out all of his grievances in one go.
A lot of what Dylan was saying may have been overexaggerated, but even he had his doubts about putting out a tune that vulnerable, saying, “I thought I might have gone a little bit too far with ‘Idiot Wind.’ I might have changed some of it. I didn’t really think I was giving away too much; I thought that it seemed so personal that people would think it was about so-and-so who was close to me. It wasn’t. But you can put all these words together and that’s where it falls. You can’t help where it falls.”
Even if Dylan seemed a lot more defeated than he normally was, it’s not like he was trying to earn sympathy points from his audience. He was only writing the songs that reflected where he was at the time, and by the time that he reached tracks like ‘Buckets of Rain’ towards the end of the record, he at least seemed content knowing that he could grow as a person, count his losses, and then move on.
For as much as he put into his craft, though, ‘Idiot Wind’ was always going to be a tough tune for anyone who has ever lost an old flame. There’s a lot of anger in there from Dylan, but underneath all of the biting words and commentary is someone that’s clearly struggling knowing that they may never see their other half’s face again.
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