Blind Willie McTell werd opgenomen in 1983, tijdens de sessies voor Infidels. Merkwaardig genoeg verscheen het niet op Infidels, maar pas in 1991 op The Bootleg Series, vol. 1-3. Er is veel gespeculeerd over de vraag waarom de song nooit op een reguliere lp is verschenen. Volgens Dylan zelf was de song maar half afgemaakt:
“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.
Het is een van Dylan’s mooiste songs, een apocalyptische visie op de geschiedenis van de slavernij in de Verenigde Staten en het tragische onvermogen van de mens idealen om te zetten in werkelijkheid (“Well, God is in His heaven/And we all want what’s His/But power and greed and corruptible seed/Seem to be all that there is”) .
Seen the arrow on the doorpost
Saying, “This land is condemned
All the way from New Orleans
To Jerusalem”
I traveled through East Texas
Where many martyrs fell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, I heard that hoot owl singing
As they were taking down the tents
The stars above the barren trees
Were his only audience
Them charcoal gypsy maidens
Can strut their feathers well
But nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
See the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
Hear that undertaker’s bell
Nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
There’s a woman by the river
With some fine young handsome man
He’s dressed up like a squire
Bootlegged whiskey in his hand
There’s a chain gang on the highway
I can hear them rebels yell
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what’s His
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I’m gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ewJYxT0ZQ
