Tangled Up in Blue Lyrics
Push comes to shove "Tangled Up In Blue" and The Beatles' "In My Life" are my all-time favorite songs. The lyrics to "Tangled Up In Blue" are truly a thing of genius.
Imo the phrase "tangled up in blue" essentially refers to his life-long struggle with the sorrow and frustration of having lost this woman, the love of his life. No matter what he is doing with his life - various jobs and relationships and life circumstances - this woman he loves but lost many years ago is always on his mind. He can't ever truly shake her memory.
Every line is greatness but the final verse is my favorite, particularly "All the people we used to know/ they're an illusion to me now/some are mathmeticians/some are carpenter's wives/don't know how it all got started/I don't know what they do with their lives" and "we always did feel the same we just saw it from a different point of view/tangled up in blue".
How does one write something this incredibly inspired?
WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP USING THE WORD DEEP? You sound like Steven Tyler in American Idol last season. He said it almost every comment. We get everything is deep to you, you don't need to keep saying it. EPIC, RAD, NARLEY, FUCK SAKE MAN
WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP USING THE WORD DEEP? You sound like Steven Tyler in American Idol last season. He said it almost every comment. We get everything is deep to you, you don't need to keep saying it. EPIC, RAD, NARLEY, FUCK SAKE MAN
I'm NOT BUT YOU GUYS ARE RETARTED. SHE HAS ANOTHER BOYFRIEND AND IS TRYING TO PLAY NAIVE AND DUMB AND LIKE WHAT SHE IS DOING ISNT WRONG. I thought you were smarter and better than that. oNE DAY YOU[LL REALIZE. hOPEFULLY SOONER THATN LATER. I LOVE YOU ALWAYS Toodles
I'm NOT BUT YOU GUYS ARE RETARTED. SHE HAS ANOTHER BOYFRIEND AND IS TRYING TO PLAY NAIVE AND DUMB AND LIKE WHAT SHE IS DOING ISNT WRONG. I thought you were smarter and better than that. oNE DAY YOU[LL REALIZE. hOPEFULLY SOONER THATN LATER. I LOVE YOU ALWAYS Toodles
THIS GAME ENDS TONIGHT FOR ME AND RIGHT NOW. I don't deserve this bullshit. You want to choose someone over me, who chooses someone else over you. It's not hard to understand. I'm here if you need me. ALWAYS
THIS GAME ENDS TONIGHT FOR ME AND RIGHT NOW. I don't deserve this bullshit. You want to choose someone over me, who chooses someone else over you. It's not hard to understand. I'm here if you need me. ALWAYS
'this is a song that took my ten years to live and two years to write.' - uncle bob
I think some of these comments might be reading a little too much into the verse "I must admit I felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe." I think it's pretty straightforward sexual imagery. Remember, she's a topless dancer. When she bends down in front of him, her breasts are dangling before him, and her butt is in the air, in a rather exposed, proceptive position. Very sexy, and very lyrical that Dylan can conjure up such imagery without using language as blunt as in my description.
Don't forget where her bending down to tie his laces puts her face in relation to his body.
Don't forget where her bending down to tie his laces puts her face in relation to his body.
I totally agree with your position on this line. Thank you. You are the first person here to say this. I thought I was going to have to be the first one. The reason Dylan felt "uneasy" was excactly the reason you give here. I have always thought that about this line of the song. Although, granted, he may have felt even a little more uneasy if she had been facing away from him when she did this, though. But I don't see how this could be physically possible to do (as much as I have tried to imagine it....
I totally agree with your position on this line. Thank you. You are the first person here to say this. I thought I was going to have to be the first one. The reason Dylan felt "uneasy" was excactly the reason you give here. I have always thought that about this line of the song. Although, granted, he may have felt even a little more uneasy if she had been facing away from him when she did this, though. But I don't see how this could be physically possible to do (as much as I have tried to imagine it. It just doesn't work physically).
I have always had a theory about that intriguing sixth verse--seems it might include a reference to the famous relationship between Verlaine and Rimbaud to which he refers directly in "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." Verlaine, I believe, did deal in slaves (literal slaves) later in his life, and "music in the cafes and night and revolution in the air" could refer to the Paris Communard uprising of 1871, which Verlaine and Rimbaud lived through. The only thing that doesn't quite fit is the Montague Street bit....
Not Verlaine but Rimbaud did. Maybe the French connection of NO suggests it. There is a Montague Street in NYC, I think, but also one in NO?
Not Verlaine but Rimbaud did. Maybe the French connection of NO suggests it. There is a Montague Street in NYC, I think, but also one in NO?
Might Delacroix, then, be a reference to the poet Delacroix?
Might Delacroix, then, be a reference to the poet Delacroix?
1-She just does. They were untied when he was there at the nightclub watching her dance, and she comes after her show and speaks to him. Sexy. And he's all nervious. Excellent writing. 2-When things started going wrong, she started prostituing herself, being pimped by another friend who used to be a part of the gang while they were together
Anyway, I sometimes think that they'r all different women, but he sees them all as one inmortal female.
There's an awesome idea to consider. All the women of your past being different in body, but deep down, the same soul. The same one.
@cavern nice interpretation. Going back to Blonde on Blonde's Visions of Johanna, where there are at least two different women, both of whom embody Sara to one degree or another (his then pregnant first wife whom he was then living with in NYC), Dylan is clearly prone to melding real women with archetypical female figures as in Tangled Up in Blue. What a lyrical and musical (song writing) genius he is.
@cavern nice interpretation. Going back to Blonde on Blonde's Visions of Johanna, where there are at least two different women, both of whom embody Sara to one degree or another (his then pregnant first wife whom he was then living with in NYC), Dylan is clearly prone to melding real women with archetypical female figures as in Tangled Up in Blue. What a lyrical and musical (song writing) genius he is.
Ah MarshmallowPeep, though Dante's Divine Comedy may not be the most romantic work, it was most definitely not his only one. He wrote several books, including Convivio, and La Vita Nuevo in which he describes his undying love for a girl named Beatrice which follows Tangled Up in Blue somewhat closely.
Is it just me or does anyone else ever think that Dylan may well be singing to a woman he actually had a relationship with, but at the same time hes singing about his own personal journey and relationship with the human race as a whole. The woman personafies the human race. He heads out to the east( capitalist 'right') and gets her out of a jam, using a little to much force( suggesting his naivity about his hopes for saving her[and people being able to live as sosialists]) then they drive out west( sosialist left) as fast as they could, abandon the car and go their seperate ways( when the initial rush has all run out). The poet is a figurative representation of Dylans muse. he lives with them both( his relationship with human race and his muse[the three parts of what is his artistry]) in a basement( within/absorbed in) Montague street in Greenwhich village. This refers to his time living there and playing in the cafes at night, when he developed as an artist. When he says finally the bottom fell out hes talking about that period of his life, living in greenwhich village, playing in cafes with the revolutionary atmosphere in the air. 'Tangled up in blue'
A woman is seldom really a woman, more than likely several women! What are partners if they're not reflections of who you think you are?
A woman is seldom really a woman, more than likely several women! What are partners if they're not reflections of who you think you are?
I believe the "women" are "the human race" and the song is about Bob's career from the early 60s to the mid 70s. "Heading out for the East Coast" -> "Going to New York" "Abandoned it out West" -> "The San Francisco singer-songwriter Scene!" "As I was walking away" & "I had a job in the great north woods" -> "Bob's temporary retirement in the North (Woodstock)" "So now I’m goin’ back again - I got to get to her somehow" & "But me, I’m still on the road" - "Bob starts his endless World Wide tour"...
I believe the "women" are "the human race" and the song is about Bob's career from the early 60s to the mid 70s. "Heading out for the East Coast" -> "Going to New York" "Abandoned it out West" -> "The San Francisco singer-songwriter Scene!" "As I was walking away" & "I had a job in the great north woods" -> "Bob's temporary retirement in the North (Woodstock)" "So now I’m goin’ back again - I got to get to her somehow" & "But me, I’m still on the road" - "Bob starts his endless World Wide tour"
probably my favorite bob dylan song. it is so good. the lyrics are pure poetry. one of the best stories ever put to music.
snobbish? ok MASTERMUSICIAN!
Centuries be damned, it's gotta be La Vita Nuova--I came to the same conclusion thirty years ago.
I've always thought that was too direct for this elliptical song. Suggested replacement for "Written by ... century":
"Written by a saint on a chocolate bar On the South Side of Calvary"