Blind Willie McTell (song)

"Blind Willie McTell" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Named for the blues singer of the same name, the song was recorded in the spring of 1983, during the sessions for Dylan's album Infidels; however, it was ultimately left off the album and wasn't officially until 1991, when it appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. The melody is loosely based on the jazz standard "St. James Infirmary Blues". For the song, Dylan, seated at the piano and accompanied by Mark Knopfler on acoustic guitar, sings a series of plaintive verses depicting allegorical scenes which reflect on the history of American music and slavery. Each verse ends with the same refrain: "Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell". There was also an electric version of the song recorded with Mick Taylor playing slide guitar.

McTell in 1940

Following three albums with overt Christian themes, Infidels struck most major rock critics as dealing largely with secular concerns, and they hailed it as a comeback. When bootleggers released the outtakes from Infidels, the song was recognized as a composition approaching the quality of such classics as "Tangled Up in Blue", "Like a Rolling Stone" and "All Along the Watchtower". According to Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin, the song is regarded by many as "Dylan's one indisputable masterpiece of the early eighties."[3]

"Blind Willie McTell" was a concert staple for the Band throughout the 1990s.[4] They also recorded it for their 1993 album Jericho. Dylan later claimed in a Rolling Stone interview that hearing the Band's version of the song inspired him to begin performing it at his own concerts:

Dylan can't possibly be sorry that the world has had the benefit of hearing, for instance, "Blind Willie McTell", – an outtake from 1983's Infidels that has subsequently risen as high in most people's Dylan pantheon as a song can rise, and that he himself has played live since. Can he? Bob Dylan – "I started playing it live because I heard the Band doing it. Most likely it was a demo, probably showing the musicians how it should go. It was never developed fully, I never got around to completing it. There wouldn't have been any other reason for leaving it off the record. It's like taking a painting by Monet or Picasso – goin' to his house and lookin' at a half-finished painting and grabbing it and selling it to people who are 'Picasso fans.'

Dylan started performing the song live in the summer of 1997, and an August 17, 1997, concert performance appeared on various releases of his "Love Sick" single in June 1998.

Michael Gray's book Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan (2000) includes a chapter on this song and its musical and historical background.[5]