“Blind Willie McTell” by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan recorded "Blind Willie McTell" in spring 1983, while he was making Infidels, then left it off the album, and it went without an official release until 1991, when The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 finally let it out. That take is spare: Dylan at the piano, with only Mark Knopfler's acoustic guitar beside him, and the two of them share the production credit.

The song is named for the blues singer and honors him sideways, the way Dylan later would with "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" and "High Water (For Charley Patton)". Its plaintive verses paint allegorical scenes that brood on the history of American music and on slavery, each one circling back to the same refrain about McTell, over a melody loosely drawn from the jazz standard "St. James Infirmary Blues". It resurfaced on the 2007 collection Dylan.

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