Tangled Up in Blue
Encyclopedia
"Tangled Up in Blue" is a song by Bob Dylan
. It appeared on his album Blood on the Tracks
in 1975. Released as a single, it reached #31 on the Billboard Hot 100
. Rolling Stone
ranked it #68 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The lyrics are at times opaque, but the song seems to be (like most of the songs on the album), the tale of a love that has, for the time being, ended, although not by choice; the last verse begins:
and ends
Dylan continually re-worked the lyrics even after the album was released; the version on his live album Real Live
(and throughout the '84 Europe tour) has radically different lyrics. In the first studio version (NYC sessions, September '74) and often in live performances he has sung some of the verses from a third-person perspective (usually "he was laying in bed," but sometimes even "she was laying in bed"), as opposed to the first-person point of view in the Blood on the Tracks version.
, Jerry Garcia
, Mike McClure
, Half Japanese
, Robyn Hitchcock
, the Indigo Girls
, K.T. Tunstall, Ani Difranco
, The String Cheese Incident, Jennifer Charles
and The Whitlams
on their Eternal Nightcap
album of 1997.
In the Hootie & the Blowfish
song "Only Wanna Be with You
", the singer (Darius Rucker
) mentions that he is "tangled up in blue". "Yeah I'm tangled up in blue / Only wanna be with you / You can call me your fool / Only wanna be with you " The reference extends a string of mentions of Bob Dylan in the song, beginning at the start of the second verse: "Putting on a little Dylan ...". The song's rhythm itself seems to be inspired by Dylan's original track.
The alternative rock band, Queens of the Stone Age
, make a play on "Tangled Up in Blue" with their song, "Tangled up in Plaid", from their album Lullabies to Paralyze
. Aside from the similarity of its title, the Queens of the Stone Age song has no real relation to "Tangled Up in Blue".
The band Cameo
described the song as 'definitive' in their musical development and frequently opened concerts with a funk version of the song. Barb Jungr
and Louis Durra
have recorded jazz versions.
The Belgian TV-host Bart Peeters
, who is also a singer-songwriter, made a Dutch version of the song. The lyrics are modified by him, and as a result he tells a more personal story about how he met his wife. The Dutch title is "Prachtig in het blauw". ([looking] beautiful in blue)
Texas Country artist Hayes Carll
includes the lyics " You was openly frustrated / you said Dylan's overrated / while singing Tangled Up In Blue " in his 2011 song "Another Like You".
The song is a playable track on Rock Band 2
, as the most difficult song in the vocal section, and the final song for the player to complete in the "Impossible Vocal Challenge".
Science fiction author Joan D. Vinge
published Tangled Up in Blue in 2000 as the fourth book in her Hugo Award winning "Snow Queen" trilogy.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
. It appeared on his album Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's 15th studio album, released by Columbia Records in January 1975. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records....
in 1975. Released as a single, it reached #31 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
ranked it #68 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Lyrics
"Tangled Up in Blue" is one of the clearest examples of Dylan's attempts to write "multi-dimensional" songs which defied a fixed notion of time and space. Dylan was influenced by his recent study of painting and the Cubist school of artists, who sought to incorporate multiple perspectives within a single plane of view. As Neil McCormick remarked in 2003: "A truly extraordinary epic of the personal, an unreliable narrative carved out of shifting memories like a five-and-a-half-minute musical Proust." In a 1978 interview Dylan explained this style of songwriting: "What's different about it is that there's a code in the lyrics, and there's also no sense of time. There's no respect for it. You've got yesterday, today and tomorrow all in the same room, and there's very little you can't imagine not happening".The lyrics are at times opaque, but the song seems to be (like most of the songs on the album), the tale of a love that has, for the time being, ended, although not by choice; the last verse begins:
- So now I'm goin' back again,
- I got to get to her somehow...
and ends
- We always did feel the same,
- We just saw it from a different point of view,
- Tangled up in blue.
Dylan continually re-worked the lyrics even after the album was released; the version on his live album Real Live
Real Live
Real Live is a live album documenting Bob Dylan's 1984 tour of Europe, released at the end of that same year by Columbia Records. Most of the concert was recorded at Wembley Stadium on 7 July, but "License to Kill" and "Tombstone Blues" come from St James' Park, Newcastle on 5 July, and "I and I"...
(and throughout the '84 Europe tour) has radically different lyrics. In the first studio version (NYC sessions, September '74) and often in live performances he has sung some of the verses from a third-person perspective (usually "he was laying in bed," but sometimes even "she was laying in bed"), as opposed to the first-person point of view in the Blood on the Tracks version.
Covers and references
The song has been covered by various artists, including Great WhiteGreat White
Great White is an American hard rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1978. The band gained popularity during the 1980s and early 1990s. The band released several albums in the late 1980s and gained airplay on MTV with music videos for songs like "Once Bitten, Twice Shy"...
, Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
, Mike McClure
Mike McClure
Mike McClure is a singer/songwriter/producer from Tecumseh, Oklahoma. He is currently the frontman for the Mike McClure Band. McClure is a founding member of The Great Divide, and was a member until he and the band parted ways in 2002...
, Half Japanese
Half Japanese
Half Japanese is a punk rock band formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in their Coldwater, Michigan bedroom around 1975. Their original instrumentation included a small drum set, which they took turns playing; vocals; and an out of tune guitar...
, Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar....
, the Indigo Girls
Indigo Girls
The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
, K.T. Tunstall, Ani Difranco
Ani DiFranco
Ani DiFranco is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, guitarist, poet, and songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums, and is widely considered a feminist icon.-Biography:...
, The String Cheese Incident, Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles
Jennifer Charles is an American singer, musician, composer, and poet. Along with Oren Bloedow, she co-founded the New York band Elysian Fields.-Biography:...
and The Whitlams
The Whitlams
The discography of The Whitlams consists of six studio albums, two live albums, one compilation album, and eighteen singles.-Studio albums:-Live albums:-Compilation albums:-Singles:-Videos:-Music videos:-Awards:...
on their Eternal Nightcap
Eternal Nightcap
Eternal Nightcap is the third studio album by Australian rock band The Whitlams, first released by Black Yak Phantom in 1997.- Music :Eternal Nightcap includes typical rock songs , piano ballads , classic pop tunes , and even a Bob Dylan cover version .-...
album of 1997.
In the Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band that enjoyed popularity in the second half of the 1990s. They were originally formed in 1986 at the University of South Carolina by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld, and Mark Bryan. The band has recorded five studio albums to date, and has...
song "Only Wanna Be with You
Only Wanna Be With You
"Only Wanna Be with You" is a rock song released in July 1995 by Hootie & the Blowfish, the third single from their breakthrough album, Cracked Rear View. It peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, #3 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and #2 on the Billboard...
", the singer (Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld and Dean Felber...
) mentions that he is "tangled up in blue". "Yeah I'm tangled up in blue / Only wanna be with you / You can call me your fool / Only wanna be with you " The reference extends a string of mentions of Bob Dylan in the song, beginning at the start of the second verse: "Putting on a little Dylan ...". The song's rhythm itself seems to be inspired by Dylan's original track.
The alternative rock band, Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, United States, formed in 1997. The band's line-up has always included founding member Josh Homme , with the current line-up including longtime members Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo , alongside Michael Shuman and...
, make a play on "Tangled Up in Blue" with their song, "Tangled up in Plaid", from their album Lullabies to Paralyze
Lullabies to Paralyze
Lullabies to Paralyze is the fourth studio album by hard rock band Queens of the Stone Age, released on March 21, 2005. The album debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, and sold 97,000 copies in America during its first week of release, eventually topping over 342,000 copies as of March, 2007...
. Aside from the similarity of its title, the Queens of the Stone Age song has no real relation to "Tangled Up in Blue".
The band Cameo
Cameo (band)
Cameo is an American soul-influenced funk group that formed in the early 1970s. Cameo was initially a 13-member group known as the New York City Players; this name was later changed to Cameo to avoid a lawsuit from Ohio Players, another group from that era. Since then, Cameo has recorded several...
described the song as 'definitive' in their musical development and frequently opened concerts with a funk version of the song. Barb Jungr
Barb Jungr
Barb Jungr is an English singer-songwriter, composer and writer, of Czech and German parentage. She is perhaps best known as a chansonnière, or singer of chansons—in the sense of classic, lyric-driven French songs; in the broader sense of European songs in the cabaret style; and in the even...
and Louis Durra
Louis Durra
Louis Durra is an American jazz pianist and composer living in Los Angeles. His biological father was saxophonist Trevor Koehler.-as leader:* The Best Of All Possible Worlds -- CD, 2011* Mad World EP -- CD, 2011...
have recorded jazz versions.
The Belgian TV-host Bart Peeters
Bart Peeters
Bart Peeters is a Belgian singer, drummer, television presenter and actor. Peeters studied Germanic philology and drama in Antwerp. There, he met Jan Leyers and Hugo Matthysen, with whom he worked later...
, who is also a singer-songwriter, made a Dutch version of the song. The lyrics are modified by him, and as a result he tells a more personal story about how he met his wife. The Dutch title is "Prachtig in het blauw". ([looking] beautiful in blue)
Texas Country artist Hayes Carll
Hayes Carll
Joshua Hayes Carll , known as Hayes Carll, is a Texas Country singer-songwriter from The Woodlands, Texas ....
includes the lyics " You was openly frustrated / you said Dylan's overrated / while singing Tangled Up In Blue " in his 2011 song "Another Like You".
The song is a playable track on Rock Band 2
Rock Band 2
Rock Band 2 is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems. It is the sequel to Rock Band and is the second title in the series. The game allows up to four players to simulate the performance of popular songs by playing with controllers modeled after musical instruments...
, as the most difficult song in the vocal section, and the final song for the player to complete in the "Impossible Vocal Challenge".
Science fiction author Joan D. Vinge
Joan D. Vinge
Joan D. Vinge is an American science fiction author. She is known for such works as her Hugo Award-winning novel The Snow Queen and its sequels, her series about the telepath named Cat, and her Heaven's Chronicles books.-Biography:...
published Tangled Up in Blue in 2000 as the fourth book in her Hugo Award winning "Snow Queen" trilogy.