"Blind Willie McTell" is a mysterious song, making it difficult for me to pinpoint the best city to place it in. The song is also brilliant and powerfully visceral, however, so I must at least make a sincere effort to try.

The most tempting place to start with is the Saint James Hotel mentioned in the line "I'm staring out the window of the Saint James Hotel." The only problem is that there are multiple Saint James Hotels in the United States, and Dylan doesn't specify which it is.

One of the hotels is the historically significant Saint James Hotel in Red Wing, Minnesota, Bob Dylan's home state. The problem with assuming it is the hotel in question is Dylan is often not actually speaking "from himself" when he uses the first person in his lyrics. He's often, probably usually, putting himself in a character and singing from that perspective. Also, the rest of "Blind Willie McTell" is clearly about the South, so a Minnesota location doesn't make a lot of sense.
With mentions of New Orleans and East Texas, the "sweet magnolia blooming" and "big plantations burning," a Southern location seems the most logical guess for the Saint James Hotel location. Intriguingly, New Orleans has a Saint James Hotel that was built in 1833, making it a good candidate. Even here, though, we have no evidence this is the hotel referred to in the lyrics, beyond the simple fact that New Orleans is in the South and has a hotel with the rather common name of the "Saint James."

Thus, Songplaces readers, I've elected to make neither Red Wing nor New Orleans the songplace for Dylan's masterpiece "Blind Willie McTell." Instead, I'm going to play it safe by focusing on Thomson, Georgia, the birthplace of the blues musician that would become known as Blind Willie McTell.

William Samuel McTier was born on May 5, 1898. He played and recorded under multiple names, including Blind Sammie, Pig and Whistle Red, Red Hot Willie, and many others. The name he'd become best-known as is Blind Willie McTell. He was active up until the 1950s, but his heyday was in the '20s and '30s.

McTell never made a lot of money, but his legacy lives on to this day. He has been referenced in songs by the Allman Brothers ("Statesboro Blues") and Bob Dylan, and has been cited as a formative influence by the White Stripes, Taj Mahal, and many others.

There's a raw power in McTell's music, and it's easy to see how he's been mythologized and idolized by musicians. With just one man, a guitar, and no computer trickery, McTell was able to craft songs that will haunt America's soul forever.

McTell passed away from stroke in Milledgeville, Georgia, on August 19, 1959, and was buried in his hometown of Thomson. He'd lived a hard life, as befitting an old-school blues legend. Hailed today by many music giants, he died rather anonymously - a fan had to pay for his gravestone.

Bob Dylan recorded two McTell songs, "Broke Down Engine" and "Delia," on 1993's World Gone Wrong. "Blind Willie McTell," meanwhile, was recorded for the Infidels sessions, but not released until years later when the outtakes were put on the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series. Remarkably, Dylan never intended to release the song at all, at least according to a Rolling Stone interview. Rather, he expressed irritation that it ever got "leaked" in the first place. This is pretty astounding, considering that most hardcore Dylanphiles consider it one of his masterpieces, with rock critics as notable as Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams calling it one of Dylan's greatest ever.

Thomson is still there in Georgia, by the way. On the day of this writing in 2020, it's got a little under seven thousand residents living within its four square miles. If you go there and walk near Jones Grove Church around midnight, some people claim, you can hear the faint sound of a twelve-string being picked and a man singing ragtime. No one else can sing that way, witnesses say.

Just ask Bob Dylan.

August 12, 2020
Jeff Suwak Blind Willie McTell Songfacts
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