Bob Dylan “Tangled Up in Blue” released

Tangled Up in Blue Bob Dylan

Writer(s): Bob Dylan (see lyrics here) Recorded: December 30, 1974 Released (as album cut): January 17, 1975 Released (as single): January 20, 1975 First Charted: March 8, 1975 Peak: 31 BB, 43 CB, 62 HR, 2 CL, 4 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 38.5 video, 98.96 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The early ‘70s marked a downturn for Bob Dylan, a time when “some critics declared that his genius was fading.” SS In 1975, he “returned with a vengeance [with] Blood on the Tracks…and its hit single ‘Tangled Up in Blue,’…one of the most densely layered, endlessly compelling singles to ever crack the Top 40.” SS This is Dylan at his best, “the epic, stream-of-consciousness storyteller.” SS “Tangled Up in Blue” is “a triumphant, if occasionally opaque opening to the otherwise-less-than-exuberant Blood on the Tracks.” DT The album is frequently referred to as “the divorce album,” but Dylan has denied that it was a document of his disintegrating marriage with Sara Lowndes. There are certainly self-referential details in “Tangled Up in Blue” but Dylan has also “disguised the charagers enough to remove it fro the historical to the metaphysical.” TC Ultimately the song’s message is “that we live lives governed by the winds of fate.” TC He famously said on stage once that the song took him “ten years to live and two years to write.” SS It reportedly was initially inspired by a weekend Dylan spent absorbing Joni Mitchell’s Blue album. It is marked by “one of Dylan’s most perfectly realized lyrics, and the one that he seems the least happy with.” DT “Part of the mystery of the song is the shifts in perspective as though the narrator is sometimes a protagonist and sometimes an observer, and the action takes place in the present and the past simultaneously.” TC He said, “When you look at a painting, you can see any part of it or see all of it together. I wanted the song to be like a painting.” TC It is a painting which Dylan continually retouches, considering how often he’s changed it in concert. DT He recorded it twice in September 1974 and redied it again in December. On the latter recording, folk guitarist Kevin Odegard suggested “kicking the tune up from the key of G to an A, into the higher reaches of [Dylan’s] vocal range…[which] gave the song more urgency.” SS Dylan has said the version on 1984’s Real Live is the best. TC In the end, “the details in the song are flexible. It’s the emotional core that’s constant.” TC Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Bob Dylan TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Page 469. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 236-7. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 217. Related Links: First posted 5/23/2024.