Shelter from the Storm

Blood on the Tracks is the record Dylan made in the wake of the collapse of his marriage to Sara Lownds. “Shelter from the Storm” is the song on it that most fully admits what has happened — ten verses of what the lost relationship had been, delivered in past tense, each verse ending with the same stubbornly-present-tense refrain.

The arrangement is stripped almost to nothing: Dylan, two guitars, a bass, that voice. The song is grief for a shelter that still exists in memory and that no longer, in any practical sense, exists at all. Every line is the same acknowledgment dressed slightly differently. That repetition is the point. That is what losing someone who is still alive actually feels like.