Songfacts®:

• Rod Stewart composed this ballad, sung from the point of view of an aging farmer who has survived the worst winter in 14 years. The farmer pays tribute to his loyal wife, who stayed by his side throughout that winter and all the others.
  
  The subject matter is rather distant from Stewart's real life, but the song still holds a place in his heart. "I love this song to death," he wrote in his Storyteller compilation. "I believe it to be one of my finest efforts, written in Muswell Hill, North London, in 1969 - a long, long way away from the buffalo and Great Plains of America that the song depicts. It just shows you what a little imagination can do when writing songs. Acoustic guitar by Martin Quittenton deserves merit."
• Ray Jackson of the British folk/rock group Lindisfarne played the mandolin on this track. Stewart forgot Jackson's name and referred to him as "the mandolin player in Lindisfarne" on the sleeve credits.
  
  Jackson also played the mandolin on "Maggie May," Stewart's first hit.
• Stewart was doing more songwriting by this time; his earlier songs were mostly blues covers. "Mandolin Wind" is the only track on his third album, Every Picture Tells a Story, that he wrote by himself. He also penned the title track with Ronnie Wood and "Maggie May" with Martin Quittenton.
• The song fades out at the 3:28 mark but then comes back because the farmer has more to say. He gets even more emotional, letting his wife know he felt guilty when they didn't have enough to eat that winter exalting in his love for her.
• Stewart was also a member of the Faces at this time, and his bandmate Ronnie Wood was a key contributor to his early solo work, including on the Every Picture Tells A Story album. Wood played guitar on this track.
• Don't get this song confused with "Mandolin Rain" - that one came 15 years later by Bruce Hornsby & the Range.