It was recited live during his April 12, 1963 performance at New York City's Town Hall[1] and was officially released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 after circulating on bootleg releases for years.
Dylan sets the scene by describing the stressors of everyday life and the myriad of challenging choices we have to make.
He finishes by suggesting that, for him, Woody Guthrie is as much a source of hope and beauty in the world as God, or religion.
[2] The poem's winding, stream-of-consciousness style has been compared to Dylan's 2016 Nobel Lecture.
[5] However, at the end of the concert, Dylan returned to the stage to recite one of his poems in public, "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie", which he has never done since.