“There ain’t nobody like him”: The painter who inspired Bob Dylan’s ‘Idiot Wind’
“Idiot wind / Blowing every time you move your mouth,” Bob Dylan sings on what is undeniably one of his more venomous tracks. The folk star has never shied away from a straight shot, going straight at the gullet of his targets in a poetic yet sharp attack. But when it comes to ‘Idiot Wind’, the influence between the track comes from a surprisingly peaceful place: art class.
Sinead O’Connor once said of the track, “Bob Dylan gave me permission to be angry because of his song ‘Idiot Wind.’” To her, this scathing track granted her the go-ahead to be more savage as she added, “None of us would like to be the person he’s talking to [in the song]. That’s why I love Bob Dylan. He’s utterly honest. He can be real fucking nasty.”
Her description of the track is pretty apt. It is “real fucking nasty.” Across the verses, he takes shot after shot at this unknown figure, threatening them for spreading lies about him and fantasising about their grizzly end as he sings, “One day you’ll be in the ditch / Flies buzzin’ around your eyes.” But all of those poetic, imagery-packed verses spiral to a simple, plain-speaking hook, “you’re an idiot, babe.”
It feels radical somehow. It’s such a straightforward and straight-out line, delivered as exactly the insult it is. It feels almost too straight to exist in Dylan’s lyrical world, which has always been more elusive and veiled, with the true meaning of his songs buried under layers of metaphors and similies. But right here, there is no hiding. Instead, he’s delivering his opinion with no second-guessing or distractions.
Up until this point, Dylan had got nasty before, but never in this way. His 1966 album Blonde On Blonde is packed with covert insults, while his earlier track ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ is a savage takedown of society figures. But ‘Idiot Wind’ is something different, as if the singer is cutting the crap and going straight to the blow.
That empowerment supposedly came from art class, where Dylan’s other creative output, which he used for more peaceful reflection and medication, became a masterclass in anger. He’d taken up art classes after his infamous 1966 motorcycle crash. It seemed to be a new way of processing thoughts that didn’t require him to constantly be in work mode or be trying to mould those feelings into something for the masses. “What would I draw? Well, I guess I would start with whatever was at hand,” he wrote in his biography, Chronicles. “I sat at the table, took out a pencil and paper and drew the typewriter, a crucifix, a rose, pencils, knives and pins, empty cigarette boxes. I’d lose track of time completely … Not that I thought I was any great drawer, but I did feel like I was putting an orderliness to the chaos around.”
Perhaps merely making the art was enough to encourage a song like ‘Idiot Wind’. Maybe after processing his anger and frustrations through more artistic means, the lyrics could be more direct. But there was also the influence of Norman Raeben, the painter who taught him art and who, according to Dylan, reignited his passion for songwriting.
During their classes, the painter and the poet would talk, sharing philosophies on creativity, life stories and advice. Over the years they spent together, Raeben influenced Dylan greatly as he said, “There ain’t nobody like him.” Part of that influence was the artist’s sharp outlook on life.
Raeben’s widow remembered him feeling like there was “an idiot wind blowing and blinding all human existence.” As it happens, “Idiot” was one of the painter’s favourite words, seemingly being passed down to Dylan and landing right here in the song as he turned Raeben’s idea of the “idiot wind” into a symbol of spite.
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