It’s amazing that in all his rage which is wonderfully displayed in this song he can still write a line like “you’ll never know the hurt I’ve suffered or the pain I rise above, and I’ll never know the same about you, your holiness or your kind of love, and it makes me feel so sorry”. So smart, so well wrought and self confronting. That’s what artistic genius is all about. Feeling your truth while understanding the deeper truth of the situation and the world.

That vocal delivery. Spitting out those invectives.

Who else could write a song with this kind of incredible personal venom and yet make it come out with such clear lyrics and beautiful melody. His delivery, with the emphasis on the really angry parts, is unique to him.

An amazing song that I've listened to literally hundreds of times. And, yes, he owns up to his part in the demise of their relationship. This goes so deep into his psyche.

Where john lennon First heard tangled up in blue. He said dylan is several years ahead of us all again

"I can´t help it if I am lucky" Just brilliant!

I love that this song is about the media, his ex-wife, and himself all at the same time. And also how he sings the word slowly very sloowwwllllyyyy.

He did great work before and great work after, but this is his pinnacle IMO. As you say, his vocals are somewhere between palatable and unfathomable, his lyricism is sharp like a stilletto, and of course it’s great electric rock. This is what I think of when I think of Dylan. Probably a top 10 album all time.

This was anger & spite, songs on the album cover every emotion felt in a breakup through to magnanimity & optimism. When a lyrical genius like Bob Dylan is feeling that pain & turmoil, his mind buzzing, his heart pumping, you get a masterpiece & Blood On The Tracks is a absolute masterpiece.

"If You See Her, Say Hello" is an intensely personal song. THANK YOU.

Please do "Simple Twist of Fate." "Youre a Big Girl Now" " Shelter From the Storm" Some of the best 70s Dylan songs. Period.

I bought his alternative “Blood on the tracks” last year after listening to this for 30 years! The alternate version of idiot wind has been in a vault somewhere for 45 years and it’s that amazing! These archive albums are fantastic.

This song is every bit as great as Hard Rain, Desolation Row, Like a Rolling Stone, Visions of Joanna.

You have a new subscriber in this older person (73) who grew up with some of the greatest music ever - 60’s and 70’s - that I still love and listen to today. I truly appreciate your considered, insightful critiques, and especially your honest enthusiasm when discovering this great music, the important lyrics, and its creators. Have a great journey 🙏🏼😎

I usually much prefer studio for Dylan. But after listening to this, you should REALLY watch it live from 1976, even if just for yourself. You can see the rage and disgust on his face. Quite a performance.

I often say this is one of the most intense love songs. The way he comes along to talk about her beauty and her love, then hooks it around and says, yeah, we're both to blame here.

I first heard this back in 1975 when I was 17 years old, and my socks are still in the stratosphere to this day - an amazing piece of writing and performing - as others have said, the live '76 version is a must.

Great analysis. One of my favorite songs for 30 years and you’ve added some new layers of meaning. Thanks.

This is my favourite Dylan album.

Bob follows up this spilling of guts with tender songs of remembrance and love. He pulls us in.

I have listened to this so many times and it never fails to me. Watching your reaction made me look up who was playing the organ on this track - much to my surprise it was none other than Dylan himself.

It's probably a little much. But this is cool, and real for 1978. Really, everyone was playing folk-rock which was inspired by Dylan: "Lady-killers load ice on me behind my back, while imitators steal me blind".

My first studio album by B.D., a masterpiece with his companions The Band, vocally still with "round bows". In addition to the well-known radio songs, he first inspired me with his live retro side on The Concert For Bangla Desh 1971/George Harrison. At that time he set new accents with Desire 1976 and Slow Train Coming 1979, without "giving himself away", evident in the voice.

This is one of my favorite albums of all time. Every tract is pure gold.

What a song genius songwriter 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿👍😄🎸

Interestingly, this Dylan's second attempt at this song. He had previously recorded an alternative version of the Blood on the Tracks album in New York City with spare, acoustic accompaniment. The stripped down versions of "Tangled Up in Blue" and "Idiot Wind" can be found on The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 as well as a more comprehensive collection called "More Blood, More Tracks," which details the entire Blood on the Tracks sessions. I highly recommend checking them out!

His live version of this on the 2nd portion of the Rolling Thunder Review tour, is high energy, angry, gritty. He throws the emotion of this song at you. He plays electric guitar along with others in the band. There's a documentary, I believe by Martin Scorsese about the Rolling Thunder Tour that included several other musicians mixed in at different shows like Joan Baez, Roger McGuin.

Excellent reaction video, Syed! The first time I listened to this (the record version from Blood on the Tracks), I thought it was one of the meanest songs ever written - until the last verse, when he said We, not You.

Great song from a great album. While not my favorite song on this album, this is my favorite album of his from the 70s. There are still many really good songs to cover on this album.

Time for a deep dive into his song. Originally recorded in New York the song is much quieter and more sad than angry. It was rerecorded several months later in Minnesota which is the version you listened to. He first performed it in 1976. The live version on the Hard Rain album amps up the rage to a frightening level, probably because Sara was in the audience., having dropped in on the tour to confront him about his various affairs. He didn't perform it again until 1992 when the song became a very pensive, gentle and sad tale.

You need to watch the live version of this!

Excellent review, as always. I was particularly impressed with how you researched the Talmud and the quotation about idiocy and sin.

You must also listen to the slower, reflective version on Bootleg 1-3, just acoustic guitar, some lyric changes I love it too

Dylan was not receiving great songs through a 'channel'. He worked endlessly towards perfection. Dylan was continually misdirecting his listeners. Bob had a longtime friendship with Leonard Cohen, who said of Bob something close to, "Giving Bob Dylan a Nobel Prize is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the biggest mountain." Cohen told Bob how how many years (3-5 years) it took him to finish Hallelujah and then he asked Bob how long it too him to write one particular song. I forget which song. Bob replied, "About 15 minutes." In addition to his lyrics, vocals and the crafting of his on stage perona, Bob wrote books, and found, cut and welded large beautiful metal works. His work in the visual arts included portraits and landscapes - pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, oil, pastels and charcoal. When Bob dies, the skies and a large part of humanity will be crying. Penn Jillette: Beatles Bootlegs, Bob Dylan and Artistic “Genius” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i7RiaL19ycvWhqs.html

Blood on The Tracks is my favorite Dylan album. Been a Dylan fan since first seeing him live in 1984. Such a great storyteller.

This was Dylan shitting on the press and obsessed fans/haters who couldn't leave him alone and not pry into his life, making up stories. So angsty, so hilarious, so much righteous indignation. A lot of the verses are also directed as his ex-wife, who seemed to (from his perspective) allow the stories to interfere with their marriage and the way she saw him. The final two lines could be seen as him acknowledging his culpability in it all.

If you want to hear more wordy, story-driven Dylan, definitely do a video of Brownsville Girl, one of his longest and densest songs!

Oh, have you listened to Positively Fourth Street yet? If not, well, get ready! It's so nice to see you enjoying Dylan more and more. I wasn't quite sure when I saw your first video but he's grown on you. Yay!!!

I’m so loving your reactions to Dylan

Bob Dylan has a wonderful way of telling a story that the Sheep can follow and the wolves cant quite grasp, but the Shepard's hear a completely different narrative hidden in plain sight

The sing is a catharsis. It starts off with Dylan describing his anger at his treatment by the press and the fawning fans he dealt with who would even come up to his home in Woodstock to bother him. Then, he describes his anger at Sara and the dissolution of his marriage. At the end, he realizes his own role in all of it and is left sorry about the misunderstandings and frailties which wrecked the marriage. With this, his sympathy and love for Sara come through. This kind of brutal honesty laid bare in public is rare for anyone, but Dylan does it with artistry.

You need to hear the superb first version of this song. I couldn’t say which is better, both astonishing.

I liked your interpretation. I think there’s a lot of people it could be about. Maybe it’s a compilation including himself. Great reaction. More Dylan please .

Anger covered by sarcasm covered by imagery, all covered by a critique of societal norms. Signature Bob Dylan.

Long live Dylan❤❤❤

Genius.

Regarding your observation of his opaqueness, perhaps Joan Baez said in best in "Diamonds And Rust": "You who are so good with words and at keeping things vague."

The last song on his next album, _"Street Legal",_ _"Where Are You Tonight"_ is much nicer take on this break up. And a truly underappreciated song of his.

Your videos are so so good, my friend, I hope you'll do more soon

There's the test pressing version, which is nothing like the album take and is my favourite ever version. It still isn't actually available officially, other than on a limited vinyl release, despite being one of his greatest recordings!

Syed, "Blood on the Tracks" is my favorite Bob Dylan album, and along with Fleetwood Mac's "Rumors" and Richard and Linda Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights", one of the great albums about the devastating loss of a marriage. "Blood on the Tracks" is an all-time top 10 album for me, acoustic driven and consistently great song after song. I bet it'll be one of your most favorite Dylan albums once you experience it in its entirety. It's probably his most popular album of his career. Biographers have written that Sara was the love of Dylan's life and he's never been the same without her. They had a son named Jacob Dylan who has a nice rock band called the Wallflowers. Jacob has some of his father's songwriting talent. Please consider "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall", a 1963 song that has top tier Dylan poetry. Every line could be the best line in most songs. To me, it's a kindred spirit to the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" and Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks". That he wrote this masterpiece so early in his career was a foreshadowing of his talent. NOTE: (Richard Thompson is an English guitarist and songwriter who's a favorite guitarist to anyone who finds his music. Incredibly talented Eric Clapton level guitarist with songs of great heartbreak and biting humor.)

Great insight on the Talmudic wind of idiocy. That adds value to what Dylan was trying to say. Thanks.

Idiot Wind is S tier angry Dylan right up there with Positively 4th Street. idiot Wind has lines for days

Watching some of you young people, discovering Dylan as a person who discovered him in the late 70s it makes me very happy Blood on the tracks is way up there bringing it all back home tremendous but it’s really hard because the separation of time it’s almost like in sports trying to compare things that 15 years goes by 10 years 20 years.

The ending of this means absolutely everything, do take heed. After laying everything nakedly bare & excoriating all the faults of his ex-wife that tormented a good man, all very valid & on point, perhaps, by switching from you to we he acknowledges that after all his rightful righteous indignation he is just as much to blame as her. Or maybe that blame itself is as irrelevant as his righteousness. I've been down the same road in an abusive relationship so I hear the message. As a good well-meaning person, after all the invectives are released & no matter how true they are, you always eventually arrive back at humbling yourself & wondering if you are crazy & you were the abusive one mistreating HER somehow in someway.

Check out the angry version from the Hard Rain album or 1976 live (same) and the sad version from the Hard Rain New York Sessions

Leonard Cohen said about Dylan's Nobel Prize "It's a bit like pinning a badge on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain."

"I Dreamed i Saw St Augustine" is the Dylan song to review. One of his best. THANK YOU for this, though.

Some of his earlier takes of this song are sadder and more haunting. Same song (with a lot of different lines) but a completely different feeling. By the way, sitting through the entire album from beginning to end is well worth it!

Hi Syed, please listen to the live version from the 1976 album "Hard Rain" and/or the video of the same performance from Fort Collins, Colorado which is floating around here on KZfaq. Momumental...the lyrical invective is raised to another level in front of this lucky audience. There are interesting lyrical revisions too, which Dylan is wont to do, even up until this day. I think you will really enjoy it. Really enjoy your channel. Nice one !

The inclusion of Chestnut Mare leads me to believe that some of his venom in this is towards Roger McGuinn of The Byrds.

You've got to do Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, one of the best Dylans or even best written songs ever.

Thanks!

Dylan wrote from life. No formula. Extremely varied. Life goes in cycles, many cycles repeating.

You got it spot on. He's addressing his ex-wife. It's all the anger & spite from his divorce directed against her, i.e. she's the babbling idiot who he's accusing of never having understood, respected or loved him, and he's spitting that out bitterly to her face. Every song on the "Blood on the Tracks" is a reaction to his divorce. But they're all different reactions - some hurt, some sad, some terribly depressing, some reminiscent, some sweet, some hopeful, all self-pitying to a degree. This one is the "angry reaction". You're right on the the change of tone at the end. A slight acknowledgement of his own responsibility for the mess to grind down the edge of the message. Funny note: the original song was written for a slower tempo & more melodically. But when it came time for recording, Dylan upped the tempo and blasted the lines out. It was not only written angrily, he was in quite a mood when he recorded it.

for me one of the best dylan tracks

You really need to listen to Joni Mitchell, who I think of as a female Bob Dylan. Her lyrics are in many ways much more accessible than Dylan's, confessional and personal to an almost almost excessive degree, to the point where her lover Graham Nash felt she was making herself TOO vulnerable to her audience. She makes Taylor Swift look like as a poser.

But the scathingness comes full circle in the last verse when he says, "We are idiots, babe." In Homeric Greek, too, the main word for idiocy (or delusion, ruin, and blind folly, rash action and reckless impulse that would led people down the path of ruin) Ἄτη (Até) originally meant 'wind' (actually related to English 'wind' and to Latin 'ventum').

I enjoy you insightful analysis of songs. May I recommend anther band you will probably like: "The Band" They were Bob Dylan's backing band when he went on his "electric" tour. Eric Clapton was a big fan of The Band. He spoke at their induction into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame. I hope you keep making great videos.

None of the music is pre planned, by the way they play the song lots if different ways, and Dylan plays it slightly different every time as well , often changing lyrics as well The counter to this is his only acoustic Acoustic version, The New York sessions Its less angry and more vulnerable and hurt

Yes!! 🙏!

There’s an earlier bootleg version with a completely different vibe and dome different lyrics. Also worth checking out for comparison.

There's an excellent live version on youtube.

From blame and murderous intent towards her to a sudden ending of realising blame for both! Great breakdown 👍🏼

Liked before listening... already knowing this is going to be good,

Furthermore, you must also understand that he was everything and everywhere up until 1966 roughly he apparently had a motorcycle accident and he didn’t tour for eight years. He came out in the early 70s or maybe the mid 70s on fire blood on the tracks. desire just great work.

This is an awesome song on an awesome album. Definitely the best or at least one of the best Dylan albums. It’s my favorite. If you have the money, and you like Dylan, the Bootleg series Volume 14 is well worth the money. Dylan recorded the Blood on the Tracks album in one city, didn’t like it, and re-recorded it in another city! The Bootleg you get both so it’s like two albums. Some of the Bootleg series I think is as good as the originals. You can stream at least part of the bootleg. It depends. Some streaming services only give you a sampler. Others give you the whole thing. ❤❤❤

Brilliant.

Go back to the album and listen to the love songs that follow Idiot Wind.

A brilliant "diss track" before there was such a thing (although Positively 4th Street preceded it by a few years). A standout track, even among the GOAT's output. Absolutely love the way he adds a couple of extra syllables to the word "idiot" - really sounds like he means it, right? Really loving your channel, Syed - Dylan and the Beatles and whatever else you check out. It's all good!

You should consider comparing Blood On the Tracks with the Bootleg More Blood More Tracks. Same songs but a different sound and feel. These two are a story unto themselves. Additionally the Rolling Thunder Revue has the same songs, yet again slightly rearranged but delivered with a full band live on stage.

Sometimes darker music or that has a dark tone doesn't mean it is great or good music.....Boston...YES....Moody Blues are musicians Art music that bring people hope and light in a very artistic high level way.!!!!!

Please play more dylan songs.....u actually think about what u say....u are awesome

My favorite Dylan tune!

Yeah, my favorite Dylan song all-time. Funny and angry. Good analysis.

Yeah .. this album not only contains some of Dylan's greatest songs but some of his finest vocals too. The word 'Masterpiece' gets tossed around often nowadays but this album is on the Mount Rushmore of great albums.

Hey, how about doing your take on "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"?, and also "Black Diamond Bay".

Blood on the Tracks is an intense record. Every track could be a deep dive on its own, full of Dylan's brilliant imagery.

Pretty strong and interesting insights much appreciated. I’ve listened to this album so many times and the amazing part to me about this song is he’s flipping on ‘Blowing in the Wind’ to idiocy and it becomes ‘Idiot Wind’. To me a sign of an astonishingly good writer they can take something iconic they’ve done and flip it to a completely new context. I think he does this out of frustration with his public perception or misconception and the song is about his most intimate female partner sort of doing the same thing. His resolution in the end, hey I’m just like you just trying to get through the day and feed myself can’t you see I’m kind of an idiot too ✌🏼☘️

If you do watch the live version, please know that his wife is standing onstage..

Bob was pist! Wow! Great reaction as usual

Hey Syed! If you want to introduce your audience to some great modern day rap/hip hop you should start doing some reactions to Ren, an artist who has really blown up on the reaction channels (all eras and genres) since the release of "Hi Ren" in December. His lyrics and delivery are brilliant. He also performs in multiple genres, both solo and in collaborations. His Bob Marley cover of "I Shot the Sheriff/Road to Zion/Hip Hop" that he does with his band The Big Push on the streets of Brighton England is incredible (he has many videos busking on the streets of Brighton with great audio quality). "Hi Ren" should be the starting point, which deals with his own battles with mental health and Lyme disease that has had a huge emotional impact on those who react. It also deals with the inner dialogs of an artistic type person. Once you have shown his brilliance in his songs that are not heavy on the rapping and hip hop, you can then introduce his more pure hip hop songs. The hip hop reactors say he is "next level" and has inspired them to up their game. He has also brought in new fans, such as myself, to the art of rapping and hip hop. Very meaningful lyrics that apply to the times we live in.

Listen to "Sarah" from the Desire album

Incredible

On BOTT he plays with the myth of the ‘red headed woman’- untamable: in Idiot Wind it’s ‘Chestnut mare’ In Tangled Up it’s ‘If her hair was still red’ in You’re going to make me lonesome when you go- it’s ‘Crimson hair across your face’ in Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of hearts’ it’s ‘The cabaret was empty now, a sign said, “Closed for repair," Lily had already taken all of the dye out of her hair’ -so there’s ambiguity, who is who? There’s a murder, and two women; was one masquerading as the other?

I like how he changes the narrative at the end to "us" and "ours" and "we."

syed i like your way of breaking into a dylan songs and lyrics analysing, I want from you if you can to listen to one more cup of coffee , it's dylan with beautiful voice and mysterious images ,thank you

We all do stupid stuff. Understand, apologise and forgive.

Does anybody think that any of the verses are the voice of the woman in the crumbling relationship?

Oh man! It's me commenting a year after you've put the video up. That song is so fiercely angry and denigrating, Keep it up and please come back from wherever you are.