Bob Dylan’s delivery drips with sarcasm on the opaque lyric of Idiot Wind, from my favourite album Blood On The Tracks, but the meaning remains elusive.

This song did not just blow my mind when I first heard it – it blew into my mind after I went out for a walk this morning, being buffeted by the wild and windy gusts of Storm Bert.

It comes from the first Dylan album I ever heard: Blood On The Tracks is still my favourite, and his delivery of Idiot Wind’s bitter, vengeful lyric is dripping with sarcasm.

As ever the meaning of the song is characteristically opaque, making it open to many interpretations.

Many have sought to understand. Some – most – think the lyric is a venemous address to his wife Sara at a time when they were going through a bitter break-up, though if that’s the case he points the fingers as much at himself.

Others have seen it as a socio-political commentary on the Vietnam War – and yet more think it’s an allegory about the American Dream turning sour.

As for himself, Dylan’s explanation was characteristically enigmatic and ambiguous, insisting: “It didn’t pertain to me. It was just a concept of putting in images that defy time – yesterday, today and tomorrow. I wanted to make them all connect in some kind of a strange way.”

I’m not sure we need an explanation. Dylan touches on the aura of mystery around him, and his songs, in the lyric itself.

“People see me all the time,” he sings. “And they just can’t remember how to act. Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.”

The simpler original version, recorded in New York in 1974 with acoustic guitar and an overdubbed organ, is also a memorable moment in the Dylan canon.