Shelter from the Storm

"Shelter from the Storm" is a song by Bob Dylan, recorded on September 17, 1974, and released on his 15th studio album, Blood on the Tracks, in 1975. It was later anthologized on the compilation album The Essential Bob Dylan in 2000. Composition and recording Dylan recorded five takes of the song on September 17, 1974 at A&R Recording in New York City, with the fifth take the one that was included on Blood on the Tracks. Dylan sang, and played guitar and harmonica, accompanied by Tony Brown on bass. Both Robert Shelton and Oliver Trager describe the song's narrator's mood as "tempest-tossed", with Shelton saying that the song explores a "search for salvation through love" and has similarities to the work of W. B. Yeats, and Trager interpreting it as the narrator "taking stock of himself, the dangerous world around him, and his lost love". The song opens with anachronistic language and Christian symbolism: Dylan scholar Tony Attwood calls the song a "complexly woven tale" that is "told around three chords". He notes that the same three chords repeat in every line of every verse, which culminates in the redemptive refrain "Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm". Attwood describes the story told in the song's lyrics thusly: "He finds her when he is nothing and has nothing or both, she welcomes him in, and he wanders off and loses her, much to his eternal regret".