Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
Talmudic roots of "Idiot Wind"?
198 views
Skip to first unread message
K. Hematite
Jan 31, 2022, 4:15:12 PM1/31/22
to
Dylan’s mysterious 1975 masterpiece, is he referencing the Talmud?
Seth Rogovoy, The Forward
January 31, 2022
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here.
There are dozens if not hundreds of Bob Dylan songs that could be considered “Jewish” in one manner or another. Indeed, you could write a book. (I know because I did.) The most obvious ones include “Highway 61 Revisited,” the top vote-getter on our list of the Great Jewish Songs of the Rock Era; “All Along the Watchtower,” whose imagery comes right of Isaiah; and “Wheels on Fire,” a kind of midrash on Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot.
Scratch just below the surface, and there is Jewish and/or Biblical content in “Jokerman,” “I and I,” “Forever Young,” “Tombstone Blues,” “Not Dark Yet,” “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” and even a trifle like “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” to name just a handful.
One of Dylan’s greatest songs is also my all-time favorite. “Idiot Wind” was a cornerstone of Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece, “Blood on the Tracks,” a searing, devastating examination of an American landscape riven by war (Saigon fell within weeks of the album’s release) and governmental corruption (Nixon had resigned just a few months earlier), as well as a highly personal expression of lost love (“Blood on the Tracks” is often called Dylan’s “divorce album” and his son Jakob has said listening to it is like eavesdropping on his parents’ painful conversations from that time) and rage against critics, the media (the song opens, “Someone’s got it in for me / They’re planting stories in the press”), and all those who had “double-crossed” him along the way.
Some of the song’s imagery is Jewish – the “smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door” could be a reference to the trains carrying Jews to the death camps – and some is Christian – “There’s a lone soldier on the cross” – and some combines both: “The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building burned.” Dylan’s sense of martyrdom infuses every line he sneers – and he does not merely sing “Idiot Wind,” he veritably sneers it: “You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies….”
The essential lines of the song appear in the refrain, which rolls around after every two verses, four times in all. Each time the lyrics change slightly, but what remains the same (with one exception) throughout is: “Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth / You’re an idiot babe / It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”
Now, clearly, one could rip the song and songwriter to shreds over a strain of misogyny that runs through the song, if one believes that the “you” of the song is a woman. But that’s not entirely clear, and in the song’s final couplet, the narrator implicates himself (and the listener) in this vicious indictment: “We’re idiots, babe / It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”
What always interested me most about the song was the term “idiot wind.” Where did that come from? Was it a term used in literature or poetry? Not as far as I could determine. I once had the great privilege of having dinner with renowned literary scholar Christopher Ricks, whose writings on John Donne and John Keats are as canonical as his terrific book on Dylan’s poetry, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin.” I asked Ricks if he knew of any literary precedent for this odd, idiomatic expression. He knew of none.
Which is why I was startled when I stumbled upon a phrase from the Talmud (Tractate Sotah 3a) attributed to Reysh Lakish: “Eyn adam over aveyre ela im keyn nikhnas bo ruach shtus” [emphasis mine]. This translates approximately to: “No one commits a sin unless the wind of idiocy enters into him.” The ruach shtus is the breath or wind of idiocy. Dylan relies on both meanings of ruach: “Idiot wind, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.” The use of the term implies an equation between idiocy (or madness) and sin — that the acts of stupidity delineated in the song can only be explained as the wages of sin. Dylan’s use of the central image of wind also happens to echo an earlier anthem that addressed sin and idiocy – the kind that was “blowin’ in the wind.”
In what felt back then like Dylan’s version of a State of the Union address, he sang, “Now everything’s a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped / What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good, you’ll find out when you reach the top / You’re on the bottom.” Nearly fifty years on, with the foundations of our democracy being shaken to their core and a respiratory virus threatening our health and well-being, it’s still, unfortunately, “a wonder that [we] still know how to breathe.” The diagnosis? Ruach shtus. Idiot wind.
Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward and the author of “Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet” (Scribner).
Seth Rogovoy, The Forward
January 31, 2022
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here.
There are dozens if not hundreds of Bob Dylan songs that could be considered “Jewish” in one manner or another. Indeed, you could write a book. (I know because I did.) The most obvious ones include “Highway 61 Revisited,” the top vote-getter on our list of the Great Jewish Songs of the Rock Era; “All Along the Watchtower,” whose imagery comes right of Isaiah; and “Wheels on Fire,” a kind of midrash on Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot.
Scratch just below the surface, and there is Jewish and/or Biblical content in “Jokerman,” “I and I,” “Forever Young,” “Tombstone Blues,” “Not Dark Yet,” “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” and even a trifle like “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” to name just a handful.
One of Dylan’s greatest songs is also my all-time favorite. “Idiot Wind” was a cornerstone of Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece, “Blood on the Tracks,” a searing, devastating examination of an American landscape riven by war (Saigon fell within weeks of the album’s release) and governmental corruption (Nixon had resigned just a few months earlier), as well as a highly personal expression of lost love (“Blood on the Tracks” is often called Dylan’s “divorce album” and his son Jakob has said listening to it is like eavesdropping on his parents’ painful conversations from that time) and rage against critics, the media (the song opens, “Someone’s got it in for me / They’re planting stories in the press”), and all those who had “double-crossed” him along the way.
Some of the song’s imagery is Jewish – the “smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door” could be a reference to the trains carrying Jews to the death camps – and some is Christian – “There’s a lone soldier on the cross” – and some combines both: “The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the building burned.” Dylan’s sense of martyrdom infuses every line he sneers – and he does not merely sing “Idiot Wind,” he veritably sneers it: “You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies….”
The essential lines of the song appear in the refrain, which rolls around after every two verses, four times in all. Each time the lyrics change slightly, but what remains the same (with one exception) throughout is: “Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth / You’re an idiot babe / It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.”
Now, clearly, one could rip the song and songwriter to shreds over a strain of misogyny that runs through the song, if one believes that the “you” of the song is a woman. But that’s not entirely clear, and in the song’s final couplet, the narrator implicates himself (and the listener) in this vicious indictment: “We’re idiots, babe / It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.”
What always interested me most about the song was the term “idiot wind.” Where did that come from? Was it a term used in literature or poetry? Not as far as I could determine. I once had the great privilege of having dinner with renowned literary scholar Christopher Ricks, whose writings on John Donne and John Keats are as canonical as his terrific book on Dylan’s poetry, “Dylan’s Visions of Sin.” I asked Ricks if he knew of any literary precedent for this odd, idiomatic expression. He knew of none.
Which is why I was startled when I stumbled upon a phrase from the Talmud (Tractate Sotah 3a) attributed to Reysh Lakish: “Eyn adam over aveyre ela im keyn nikhnas bo ruach shtus” [emphasis mine]. This translates approximately to: “No one commits a sin unless the wind of idiocy enters into him.” The ruach shtus is the breath or wind of idiocy. Dylan relies on both meanings of ruach: “Idiot wind, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.” The use of the term implies an equation between idiocy (or madness) and sin — that the acts of stupidity delineated in the song can only be explained as the wages of sin. Dylan’s use of the central image of wind also happens to echo an earlier anthem that addressed sin and idiocy – the kind that was “blowin’ in the wind.”
In what felt back then like Dylan’s version of a State of the Union address, he sang, “Now everything’s a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped / What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good, you’ll find out when you reach the top / You’re on the bottom.” Nearly fifty years on, with the foundations of our democracy being shaken to their core and a respiratory virus threatening our health and well-being, it’s still, unfortunately, “a wonder that [we] still know how to breathe.” The diagnosis? Ruach shtus. Idiot wind.
Seth Rogovoy is a contributing editor at the Forward and the author of “Bob Dylan: Prophet Mystic Poet” (Scribner).
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 1:20:22 PM2/1/22
to
I still, though, can't get into the song. It's so churlish. And when he starts out with "They say I shot a man named Gray /
And took his wife to Italy" I think, what is he talking about? Is he just saying, "They'll say anything about me, however groundless"? Or is there some significance in the name "Gray"? But if so, why "I can't help it if I'm lucky"? I think that first verse needs reworking.
I see that on the "More Blood, More Tracks: Bootleg Series Vol 14" take 6 of "Idiot Wind" is much sparer and less angry (see here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5faKzawYFUfk3IRRe6ERXl). There was a post back when "More Blood, More Tracks" came out where someone gave a sequence through the discs that reproduced the NYC original recording of the album. (The bootleg itself doesn't present it in that sequence.) But I can't find it, and I never got the bootleg anyway (and Spotify seems to have only that sampler linked to above). Maybe it wasn't in a post, but was in a link to a review from a post. I'd really like to hear the original NYC sequence.
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 1:39:43 PM2/1/22
to
I guess for $7.90 one couldn't go wrong. But I can't believe it's the real thing.
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 1:44:22 PM2/1/22
to
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 1:20:22 PM UTC-5, Willie wrote:
https://soundcloud.com/bestbobboots/idiot-wind-original-new-york-session?in=bestbobboots/sets/blood-on-the-tracks-original
I think that's the same as the take 6 on Spotify.
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 1:46:17 PM2/1/22
to
K. Hematite
Feb 1, 2022, 2:23:37 PM2/1/22
to
https://johnnyborgan.blog/2018/10/29/the-making-of-a-holy-grail-more-blood-more-tracks-bootleg-series-volume-14/
"Then it´s back to the magnum opus, “Idiot Wind”. After all these years, Dylan´s vocal on the last of the takes this day is one of my all time favorite vocal performances of his. It might also be on this version we best can measure the distance between September and December, between New York and Minneapolis, and maybe between the I and the You in the song. With the “spooky” organ overdub this is the version that makes it to the test pressing, but not to the final release. Was it too naked, too blue, too dark, too personal, too private? I really don´t want to go into a discussion of what version is “the best” – the difference is too big to even start it. It´s two different stories. What´s obvious for me, also considering my love for the released album, this one is the one that hits me hardest. The compassion, the sorrow, the colors are like a full rainbow in this version. The more aggressive and more raging version from the original album is something completely else. A masterpiece, that one, too. The key to understanding the answer behind the two versions of the albums might be possible to find.
Or maybe we’ll never know for sure.
"There seems to be an understanding that this version, with the organ overdub, is the version released on “Bootleg Series, Volume 1-3”. It clearly is the same vocal take, but in my ears I can´t find other than this is without the organ. Of course, it´s a version beautiful beyond words, also without it."
K. Hematite
Feb 1, 2022, 2:31:53 PM2/1/22
to
On Tuesday, 1 February 2022 at 13:20:22 UTC-5, Willie wrote:
> I see that on the "More Blood, More Tracks: Bootleg Series Vol 14" take 6 of "Idiot Wind" is much sparer and less angry (see here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5faKzawYFUfk3IRRe6ERXl). There was a post back when "More Blood, More Tracks" came out where someone gave a sequence through the discs that reproduced the NYC original recording of the album. (The bootleg itself doesn't present it in that sequence.) But I can't find it, and I never got the bootleg anyway (and Spotify seems to have only that sampler linked to above). Maybe it wasn't in a post, but was in a link to a review from a post. I'd really like to hear the original NYC sequence.
Alex Ross, at the end of his New Yorker review in November 2018, suggested how to assemble the test pressing from the "More Blood, More Tracks" box set.
> I see that on the "More Blood, More Tracks: Bootleg Series Vol 14" take 6 of "Idiot Wind" is much sparer and less angry (see here: https://open.spotify.com/album/5faKzawYFUfk3IRRe6ERXl). There was a post back when "More Blood, More Tracks" came out where someone gave a sequence through the discs that reproduced the NYC original recording of the album. (The bootleg itself doesn't present it in that sequence.) But I can't find it, and I never got the bootleg anyway (and Spotify seems to have only that sampler linked to above). Maybe it wasn't in a post, but was in a link to a review from a post. I'd really like to hear the original NYC sequence.
"To assemble the original “Blood on the Tracks” from the eighty-seven takes on “More Blood, More Tracks,” select tracks 69 (CD 5, No. 3), 71 (CD 5, No. 5), 34 (CD 3, No. 3), 76 (CD 5, No. 10), 48 (CD 4, No. 2), 16 (CD 2, No. 5), 11 (CD 1, No. 11), 59 (CD 4, No. 13), 46 (CD 3, No. 15), and 58 (CD 4, No. 12)."
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 2:41:28 PM2/1/22
to
Wow, I like that NYC version SO much better than the released version. That great swirling/swelling organ on the choruses. His gentle voice.
Verse three is quite different. In the released version it's this:
"I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven’t known peace and quiet for so long I can’t remember what it’s like
There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door
You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars
After losin’ every battle"
In the NYC version it was this:
"I threw the I-Ching yesterday, it said there might be some thunder at the well
Peace and quiet's been avoiding me for so long it seems like living hell
There's a lone soldier on the hill watching falling raindrops pour
You'd never know it, to look at him but at the final shot he'd won the war
After losing every battle."
Verse six is also quite different. In the released version it's this:
"I noticed at the ceremony, your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can’t remember your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes
don’t look into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day and sat stone-faced while the
building burned
I waited for you on the running boards, near the cypress trees, while the
building burned
springtime turned
Slowly into Autumn"
In the NYC version it was this:
"I noticed at the ceremony that you left all your bags behind
The driver came in after you left he gave 'em all to me and then he resigned
The priest wore black on the seventh day waltzed around while the building burned
You didn't trust me for a minute babe I've never known the Spring to turn so quickly
Into Autumn"
More big differences in the next verse. The released version:
"I can’t feel you anymore, I can’t even touch the books you’ve read
Every time I crawl past your door, I been wishin’ I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks, down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars, hounded by your memory
And all your ragin’ glory"
The NYC original:
"We pushed each other a little too far and one day it just jumped into a raging storm
A hound dog bayed behind your trees as I was packing up my u-ni-form
Figured I'd lost you anyway why go on what's the use
In order to get in a word with you I'd a-had to come up with some excuse
That just struck me as kinda funny"
Then, the released version goes:
"I been double-crossed now for the very last time and now I’m finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me
You’ll never know the hurt I suffered nor 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"
While the NYC version had gone:
"I been double-crossed too much at times I think I've almost lost my mind
Lady killers load dice on me behind my back while imitators steal me blind
You close your eyes and part your lips and slip your fingers from your <???>
You can have the best there is but it's gonna cost you all your love
You won't get it for money"
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 2:46:38 PM2/1/22
to
K. Hematite
Feb 1, 2022, 2:51:35 PM2/1/22
to
On Tuesday, 1 February 2022 at 13:20:22 UTC-5, Willie wrote:
> I still, though, can't get into the song. It's so churlish. And when he starts out with "They say I shot a man named Gray /
> And took his wife to Italy" I think, what is he talking about? Is he just saying, "They'll say anything about me, however groundless"? Or is there some significance in the name "Gray"? But if so, why "I can't help it if I'm lucky"? I think that first verse needs reworking.
I recall bursting out in laughter the first time I heard that cut back in 1975. Dylan humor had become a lot scarcer since the 1960s, so this was a welcome moment for me. The key lines for me were the following: "She inherited a million bucks/And when she died it came to me." The "I can't help it if I'm lucky" that followed was almost Wildean. Was he just lucky that he inherited a million bucks, or was he also lucky that Gray's wife died? ("“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell [or Mrs. Gray?] without laughing.”) Or perhaps if everything that happened wasn't just sheer dumb luck, just how innocent was the narrator in all these events that ended up leaving him a million dollars richer? Were those stories "planted in the press" perhaps true? Maybe, as the press reported, he really did shoot Gray and run off to Italy with Gray's wife? And how did Gray's wife just happen to die so conveniently? "Hey, don't look at me--I can't help it if I'm lucky!"
> And took his wife to Italy" I think, what is he talking about? Is he just saying, "They'll say anything about me, however groundless"? Or is there some significance in the name "Gray"? But if so, why "I can't help it if I'm lucky"? I think that first verse needs reworking.
K. Hematite
Feb 1, 2022, 3:42:49 PM2/1/22
to
On Tuesday, 1 February 2022 at 13:20:22 UTC-5, Willie wrote:
>> Or is there some significance in the name "Gray"?
Gray is the color of ambiguity, as in "a gray area" or "shades of gray."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCF1IatF8TU
Maybe a hint that "Idiot Wind" can be taken a lot of different ways (as what Dylan song can't?). The acknowledgment at the end of the song that "we're idiots, babe" implicates Dylan himself (or at least the narrator) in the rampant idiocy, making him perhaps an unreliable narrator, subject to doubt or disbelief.
Willie
Feb 1, 2022, 10:30:59 PM2/1/22
to
nate
Feb 3, 2022, 8:52:36 PM2/3/22
to
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 2:51:35 PM UTC-5, K. Hematite wrote:
> "Hey, don't look at me--I can't help it if I'm lucky!"
Where did I hear George Harrison, of the Wilburys at the time, introduce him as "we just call him Lucky"?
> "Hey, don't look at me--I can't help it if I'm lucky!"
I laughed then...thinking of the line.
pcallas
Feb 5, 2022, 11:53:15 AM2/5/22
to
Rachel
Feb 5, 2022, 2:52:51 PM2/5/22
to
xoxox
(i think the supermarket is still there....)
nate
Feb 6, 2022, 10:34:41 AM2/6/22
to
On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 11:53:15 AM UTC-5, pcallas wrote:
\> > I laughed then...thinking of the line.
but he was nicknamed Lucky Wilbury....
thanks, my brain wasn't workin' so good.
- nate
\> > I laughed then...thinking of the line.
> I think that was when he introduced Dylan at the 30th anniversary concert.
yes, it was then.
but he was nicknamed Lucky Wilbury....
thanks, my brain wasn't workin' so good.
- nate
nate
Feb 6, 2022, 10:38:15 AM2/6/22
to
On Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 2:52:51 PM UTC-5, Rachel wrote:
\> hi peter the normal! :-) and nate!! :-)
- nate
\> hi peter the normal! :-) and nate!! :-)
>
> xoxox
>
> (i think the supermarket is still there....)
hi Rachel!
> xoxox
>
> (i think the supermarket is still there....)
- nate
Rachel
Feb 6, 2022, 6:32:46 PM2/6/22
to
some of the best ever.
(and show you around, my old schools, etc...)
(and we can't leave without dropping in to hoagie haven!!!)
Rachel
Feb 8, 2022, 1:00:24 PM2/8/22
to
Zod
Feb 8, 2022, 6:38:41 PM2/8/22
to
Rachel
Feb 8, 2022, 6:40:37 PM2/8/22
to
Rachel
Feb 9, 2022, 1:09:22 PM2/9/22
to
General Zod
Feb 9, 2022, 7:01:56 PM2/9/22
to
Just Walkin'
Feb 12, 2022, 11:13:01 PM2/12/22
to
Ya' gave me chuckle cheeks. Thanks.
General Zod
Feb 15, 2022, 7:20:08 PM2/15/22
to
On Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 1:20:22 PM UTC-5, Willie wrote:
0 new messages