Wow! Great discussion on Idiot Wind and DTW. Like Charlie2, I think Idiot Wind is an attack on everything from the music business, to the press, to Sara, to fame, to the whole society...a society that Bob has seen in bleaker and bleaker terms, as the decades rolled on. Take a look at his liner notes in the album "World Gone Wrong". He makes very clear his feelings about how decadent society has become, and how much the music has suffered as a consequence of that.

An earlier version of "Idiot Wind" was "Dirge" on Planet Waves...addressing much the same issues, with about an equal amount of venom. It's in sharp contrast to the rest of the album, which is mostly bucolic and celebratory love songs about a relationship gone right for a change.