Musical Interlude ~ Idiot Wind

Idiot Wind appears on the 1975 album, Blood on the Tracks, Dylan's 15th. 

The lyrics of both versions of this song, the studio cut and the bootleg outtake, have been knocking around in my head for a long time. This video clip is the bootleg version, a much longer, less polished and also less abrasive take in my opinion. It's a full nine minutes long, but there are so many excruciating lines in such a stark deadpan delivery, punctuated by the man's antiphonal, insinuating, ancient-sounding harmonica that is almost another vocal, that it doesn't feel too long by any means--in fact, though there are no lyrics after the seven minute mark in this one, the studio take of seven and a half minutes seems rather edited and formal in comparison, though it contains some excellent lines not heard here, in particular, "I can't even stand to touch the books you read..." (--that one always gets me.) The first part of the first verse remains puzzling to me, and if anybody has any thoughts about why this very intimate song begins with a throwaway smartass punchline, feel free to expound in the comments.

Anyway, here it is, the quintessential crashed and burned anti-love poem.

"...Idiot wind, blowin every time you move your jaw,

from the Grand Coulee Dam to the Mardi Gras...

...You close your eyes and  part your lips, and slip your fingers from your glove.

You can have the best there is but it's gonna cost you all you love, 

you won't get it for money.."

Bob Dylan - Idiot Wind - Bootleg Series Vol.2 - MyVideo

Musical Interlude ~Journey Through Dark Heat~Dylan

I'm too tired to write today, but never too tired to listen to someone else who can do it like this. There are too many lines in here to pick from but I'm going to quote a few--the woman who's "drifting...like a satellite,"  the  "babe in the arms of a woman in a rage," who  "winds back the clock and turns back the page/on a book that  nobody can write.."  and  "..there's a lion in the road/there's a demon escaped..."  not to mention, " there's a white diamond moon on the dark side of this room, and a pathway that leads up to the stars/ if you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, just remind me to show you the scars...."

and finally for all you Gemini's (of whom Dylan is one, of course): "I fought with my twin, that enemy within/ ’Till both of us fell by the way.."

So without further ado :

This is from the 1978 album, Street Legal