Bob Dylan’s Forgotten Masterpiece: Blind Willie McTell

Photo credit: United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs (public domain)

Bob Dylan's 1980s work is often seen as inherently poor, yet Dylan fans far and wide treasure his high points as much as his low ones. While some great music was released by Dylan in this decade, much of it was not well-received at the time. “Blind Willie McTell,” arguably one of Bob Dylan’s greatest compositions, emerged from this period, as part of a lost demo from 1983’s Infidels studio sessions. 

Bootlegged until 1991, it was then released on a compilation. In the years since, it has gained acclaim as a narrative masterpiece chronicling slavery, racism and American history. The song made a consistent appearance on The Band’s tour setlists throughout the 1990s, which may have convinced Bob Dylan to bring it to his own setlists towards the end of said decade.

With harsh biblical undertones, an eerie piano and Mark Knopfler on a twelve-string guitar, Dylan weaves together hurt and pain. Dylan has the tendency to leave his best song takes or demos off his studio albums. The original recording exists as something that feels raw and melancholy, perhaps contributing to fan appeal. Other songs from the same time period share similar levels of poetic imagery, such as “Jokerman.” Nevertheless, they don’t always seem to hold together a cohesive thread tying them together. “Jokerman” as a song is still beautiful, yet it’s more akin to a walking gallery of random art. “Blind Willie McTell” appears more so as a blurred portrait of history, with just enough that is needed to convey a particular feeling. 

Blind Willie McTell himself was a roaming blues musician in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Georgia, either partially or fully blind, and after learning the guitar, he wandered in carnivals, train cars, schools, churches, farms and performed music pretty much anywhere he could. In order to avoid contractual agreements with record labels, he recorded under various nicknames for different companies. He recorded more than 120 titles, displaying to outsiders the poverty and neglect of the South. Eventually, he passed away in the late 1950s, leaving behind a great legacy of music.

At first glance, the Dylan song appears to be simply a tribute to McTell. This is nothing new for Dylan. Other tribute songs of his include “Goodbye Jimmy Reed”, “Roll On John” for the deceased Beatle, "High Water (For Charley Patton)”, or even “Song to Woody” on his first album for Woody Guthrie. The melody and structure of “Blind Willie McTell” is loosely based on an American folk song, “St. James Infirmary Blues,” which was popularized by musicians like Louis Armstrong. Through folk song tradition, tunes like these have been reinterpreted many times. If this is true, it remains upsetting in the context of Dylan’s song, as Armstrong’s song is essentially a funeral in meaning.

The chorus of the song goes as follows: “And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell,” after presenting vivid descriptions of centuries of painful history. The lyrics themselves are chock-full of allusions to racist history and other cultural events. The line “Well, I travel through east Texas, where many martyrs fell” references the violence in the postbellum South, cruelty spreading as if it were a plague, from “New Orleans to Jerusalem." The land seems biblically condemned, no matter the effort. 

An important thing to clarify is that the song does not appear to point fingers in anger, like other ‘protest’ songs of Dylan’s (for instance, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”). The subject matter here is simply tragedy. It cannot possibly ever right these existing wrongs, but it acknowledges the destructive taint of prejudice on humanity. It provides almost a sense of past haunting, or lingering ghosts that we still feel and are affected by today. The lyrics contrast violent images like one hearing cracking of whips, with symbolic history of magnolia flowers blooming (a likely nod to Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”). 

The fourth verse depicts a well-dressed man by the river holding whiskey, in all likelihood an existing white southerner. Some lyrics even mention plantations burning (referencing General Sherman’s march in Georgia) or Civil War rebels’ yelling in battle. These last lines are altered on the Bob Dylan website to “Some of them died in the battle, some of them survived as well.” While not in defense of the Confederates, it depicts them as real people. It shows that no one wins with hatred and violence, but more so with an idea of apocalyptic pessimism than a sense of rational understanding, which perhaps is nowhere to be found here. Humanity is not painted in an optimistic way.

Blues music itself, sung and spread by musicians like McTell, is said to have spawned out of the simple need for catharsis and joy from people who faced some of the greatest injustices in history. Many forms of popular music were inspired, derived, or grown out of blues music, which emerged in the African American South. It can even be said by some that most popular music is linked or traced back to blues in one way or another. 

To understand more about “Blind Willie McTell,” we may need additional context regarding Dylan’s place in his life at the time. There have always been biblical undertones in his music, but from 1979 to 1981, he had converted to Christianity officially (he was born Jewish), and in 1983, he had just emerged from that period in a move back to more secular work. While Bob Dylan cannot exactly speak to the Black experience, he did have his role in the 1960s civil rights movement and this may be Dylan attempting to understand his place in this world, as well as America’s place. Yet this song is no doubt entrenched in themes of religion.

“Blind Willie McTell” offers a journey in nature that appears to be about salvation versus damnation in Dylan’s eyes at the time, expressed right from the opening lines “I seen the arrow on the doorpost, Saying this land is condemned.” He references tribes moaning, which can be taken as African tribes, native american tribes or perhaps even the tribes of Israel. He mentions the undertaker’s bells, meaning a burial manager. The last verse even references God, saying that we all want what is God’s, in this world of despair and greed. In the last lines of the song, he looks out the window of St. James’ hotel in New Orleans, the recognized birthplace of the blues.  With everything tied back to Louis Armstrong’s “St. James Infirmary Blues” music, it suggests that a sense of relief or catharsis is needed to subdue pain in life, especially pain this great.

If we are looking at the piece from a religious sense, then Dylan is asking if America itself, and in turn, if he and humanity could ever reach salvation for these historical sins committed. It appears that humans will always find a way to be tempted by power, corruption and greed. Not much in the depressing lyrics seems to scream out an answer to all that is being sung about, and this is simply characteristic of Dylan, who typically favors cryptic language. The song wraps up with Blind Willie McTell once more, singing the blues better than anyone else.

Dylan was shaped, molded, and spawned from the music of the blues, absorbed as a child by musicians like Muddy Waters and Charley Patton. Hank Williams, founding father of country music and himself another inspiration for Dylan, also originally learned guitar from a local blues street singer. So while the chorus may seem unrelated and irrelevant, by the end of the song, it appears to be an answer to the suffering that is presented. Being inside the St. James Hotel, it is clear that Dylan does not live in New Orleans, and he is not as authentic as the blues movement itself, but he passively observes in pursuit of meaning. Blind Willie McTell was part of the blues, too, and performed anywhere he could, not for fame or money, but just because it remained soothing to the soul. If there is anything good that can come out of such terrible injustice and pain, perhaps it was the blues. 

Even the idea that this was a forgotten demo further pushes the sense of ambiguous mystery, as this piece was never released on an actual studio album. Other future renditions of “Blind Willie McTell” include other instruments, and it almost distracts from the lyrics, at least to me. The arrangement in the original recording remains raw and touched, simply piano, the 12-string guitar, and the despair of Dylan’s voice. The song builds in volume so that by the end, the piano is intense and loud, bursting with tender emotion and torment.

Many of Dylan’s songs evoke wonder and mystery, but there is something about this song that remains captivating and addictive. I admit, when I first heard this song and didn’t know anything about it, I wasn’t impressed either. Yet as you keep hearing it, especially if you know the meaning behind it, you cannot help but be gripped by its strong presence of grief and search for meaning. Blind Willie McTell was blind, but perhaps he could see what a lot of people couldn’t: the answer to the salvation that Dylan seems to yearn for.

There never is an easy answer. It remains mind-bending to consider what Dylan is able to accomplish in less than 250 words in terms of telling a story. Yet this is not just a story, it’s a tapestry of generations of racism, abuse and historical trauma that simply cannot be shaken. At least to me, the song is wailing in torment, saying, look at what we did, and are doing. All we can do is stare out that window, looking into the city of New Orleans for meaning. Because nothing stays bad entirely, otherwise we wouldn’t have the blues.