In retrospect, it is easy to see Self Portrait as an attempt by Dylan to shed himself of the burden of being the new hippie messiah. With its collection of slick country covers, overdubbed folk jams, and sloppy live tunes, there was no way this double album could be anything but off-putting. How intentional or subconscious it was on Dylan’s part is hard to say. Either way, instead of ridding himself of his audience, he merely riled it up. Four months later, he released New Morning, which was seen as something of apology, since it was a single disc of all originals. However when the Dylan album came out in 1973 with a bunch of outtakes of covers from these sessions, it became clear that Bob was having some sort of writer’s block.

For the next few years, Bob pretty much gave up on recording altogether. This was a much longer dry-spell than the radio silence that followed the motorcycle crash. And even that was filled with all sorts of unheard Basement Tapes. However, after eight years of pretty constant activity, all Dylan managed to do in 1971 and 1972 was a couple of new songs as bonus tracks for a greatest hits compilation and a one-off return to protest music with the single George Jackson. For all intents and purposes, Bob was a washed up has-been by 1973 when he decided to make his next record.

But his next record was going to be a soundtrack to a Sam Peckinpah western, which meant that Dylan wasn’t going to have to come up with the subject matter for his next project himself. And when Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid came out, it featured very few words from the preeminent wordsmith. Instead, the album primarily consisted of instrumentals; which probably was a nice and easy way for Dylan slowly dip his toe back in the album making world.

However there was one song with words, that was going to change everything and issue in the next phase of Bob’s career and a return to form in a lot of ways.