164: Bob Dylan, ‘Tangled Up in Blue’

‘Tangled Up in Blue’ — NY Sessions, Take 1
‘Tangled Up in Blue’ — NY Sessions, Take 2
‘Tangled Up in Blue’ — Minnesota, Official Release

Bob Dylan, 1974, the man of a thousand faces, as multifaceted and puzzling as life itself.

Nine monolithic albums in eight years (1963-70) that not only described but actually prescribed the lives of an entire generation, then a creative drought of four years. What was he doing in those interim years?

Well, he married in 1965 and had four children. In ‘Sign on the Window’ from “New Morning”, one of the greatest songs on the last in his string of great albums, he sings “Build me a cabin in Utah/Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout/Have a bunch of kids who call me “Pa”/That must be what it’s all about.”

But then came 1973-1974. A new album for a new record company, “Planet Waves” for David Gefen’s Asylum, commercially mediocre, artistically uneven. The “After the Flood” tour with The Band, more shouted than sung.

In the midst of all this activity, Dylan began to study painting with 73 year-old Russian-born Norman Raeben, the son of Sholem Aleichem. He stressed perceptual honesty rather than conceptualization. “Bob”, Norman said to Dylan, “look at that round coffee table. Now, show me how you would paint it.” He thought the scruffy Dylan was destitute, and told him that if he’d clean up the studio after class he could crash there. Raeben berated his students in class, with a kill-or-cure indifference to their feelings.

“He put my mind and my hand and my eye together in a way that allowed me to do consciously what I unconsciously felt,” said Dylan. This metamorphosed into a songwriting technique employing a fragmented narrative of time, place and person. Events, personae, and sequences Bob and shift. It is left to the listener to struggle to reconstruct some coherence, some linear narrative. He never quite succeeds, because the images are built for slipping and sliding, defying mere denotations. But the energy generated in the leap between the given and the sought for creates a kinetic aesthetic experience, ever-changing, transcending time and place, forever young.

Dylan on Raeben: “I had met magicians, but this guy is more powerful than any magician I’ve ever met. He looked into you and told you what you were. And he didn’t play games about it.”

The experience with Raeben seems to have brought trouble to Dylan’s domestic paradise. “Needless to say, it changed me. I went home after that and my wife never did understand me ever since that day. That’s when our marriage started breaking up. She never knew what I was talking about, what I was thinking about, and I couldn’t possibly explain it.”  (‘Idiot Wind’: ‘Even you, yesterday, you had to ask me where it’s at. I couldn’t believe after all these years, you didn’t know me better than that, sweet lady.’)

The technique and the trauma engendered an artistic achievement of monumental scale in the resulting 1974 album, “Blood on the Tracks.” It is a collection of ten songs, mostly written in D, employing lots of major seventh chords (giving the overall tone of sweet, pained wistfulness) and performed on an acoustic guitar in open tuning with minimal accompaniment – a bass, sometimes a steel guitar, sometimes a touch of organ (very reminiscent of the format he employed on the softer acoustic songs on Bringing It All Back Home). He first recorded the songs in New York City in September, 1974. Then three months later, he redid the songs in Minnesota with a bunch of his brother’s buddies.

The officially released version of the album is a mix, five recordings from New York (‘Simple Twist of Fate’, ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’, ‘Meet Me in the Morning’, ‘Shelter from the Storm’ and ‘Buckets of Rain’), five from Minnesota (‘Tangled Up in Blue’, ‘You’re a Big Girl Now’, ‘Idiot Wind’, ‘Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts’, ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’). The NY takes are softer, gentler, more sincerely loving, more nakedly pained. The Minnesota takes have a harder surface, faster tempi, more aesthetically distanced. Uniformly, the New York takes are superior. Some of the Minnesota takes are respectable, none improve on the originals.

That would be impossible. They’re pretty perfect. “Blood on the Tracks” is widely considered a peak achievement for Dylan, for the music of our times. It was ranked number 16 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Bill Wyman (of The Rolling Stones) considered it “…his only flawless album… It is his kindest album and most dismayed, and seems in hindsight to have achieved a sublime balance between the logorrhea-plagued excesses of his mid-1960s output and the self-consciously simple compositions of his post-accident years.” Logorrhea? Bill Wyman??

Dylan famously said, in a radio interview with Mary Travers, “A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It’s hard for me to relate to that. I mean, it, you know, people enjoying that type of pain, you know?” Well, ‘enjoy’ certainly doesn’t begin to encompass the rich experience which can be derived from “Blood on the Tracks”. If you’re going to revisit it or learn it, I urge you to seek out the bootleg New York sessions.

For our Song of The Week, we have the pleasure of saying a few words about the iconic, seductive, elusive, indelible song that opens the album, ‘Tangled Up in Blue’. All Dylan’s passion – both the love and the pain, strongly weighted towards the latter – and the wit and the wisdom and the humor are there. We often forget what a master craftsman of lyrics Dylan is. He’s not just deep or profound. He has a command of the technique of writing lyrics that is often obscured by his many other talents.

Dylan riffed his writing abilities on ‘Tangled Up in Blue’. From the start, he invented new lyrics at every turn. Here’s Take 1 from New York. Here’s Take 2. In both, you can hear the clicking of his jacket buttons against the guitar. And you can feel the pounding of his heart. Here’s the official release, the Minnesota version. At the bottom, you can see the lyrics of Minnesota (mostly first person) juxtaposed with those from New York (mostly third person).

In contrast to Dylan’s notoriously casual studio work  in the 1960s, when he would just start playing and expect the musicians to follow, adding verses, extending breaks, in 1974 he took care to craft his songs carefully. The 2018 “Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks” gives us 87 rehearsal and alternate take tracks from the studio, including nine of ‘Tangled Up in Blue’.  Here’s a fascinating track showing Dylan rehearsing and experimenting.

Serious people have made a study of comparing variant versions of the evolving lyrics of song over the years.  Here’s one. Here’s another. Here’s a third. There are many more. And what is so remarkable is that every switch, every shift, works. They’re all great, they’re all legitimate. Do you get that? He writes a magnificent song, and then recreates the lyrics every time he sings it!! Not even Charlie Parker did that.

The song seems to tell a story, even though the details can’t be pinned down. Dylan plays with pronouns, with personae. ‘He’ and ‘I’ and ‘she’ and ‘they’ are elusive, indecipherable, shifting, a dance of veils.

In the first verse, he’s remembering her: the song is a flashback. At the end, he’ll say that he’s going back to her. They wanted to get married, but her parents didn’t approve. He’s hitching East. Why? Who knows. Let your imagination work. The humor—I was wondering if she’d changed, if her hair was still red. Oh, Bobby.

Second verse. He extricates her, they run off, they split. ‘I heard her say over my shoulder’—he doesn’t even turn around. But he’s saying this all with unbounded love. Boy, is there a whole world right there.

Third verse. Lumberjack cook, the ax fell. Rhyming ‘employed’ and ‘Delacroix’. Jeez.

Fourth verse. She’s dancing topless in the spotlight. He’s gaping at the side of her face. Right. ‘Later on as the crowd thinned out, I was just about to do the same.’ It don’t get no better than that. ‘I muttered something underneath my breath.’ Ok, it just did. He ‘gets uneasy’ when this topless dancer hitting on him ‘bends down to tie his shoes’.  I have nothing to say, I’m just shaking my head in appreciation and enjoyment.

Fifth verse. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321, author of The Divine Comedy. In subsequent versions, this changed to Jeremiah and Baudelaire and others. This stoned, topless, brazen red-head introduces our Horatio Alger to Dante.

Verse Six. Who knows who is in the scene—2 people? 3? But the fragments are indelible: ‘There was music in the cafés at night/And revolution in the air.’ That is the 1960s encapsulated in a single image. ‘Keep on keeping on’. That’s life.

Last verse. What is ‘tangled up in blue’? It’s a chaotic pastiche, a vortex of glimpses of situations that makes absolute emotional sense. It’s a perfect union of fifty states of mind. It’s a song.

We know exactly where we are in every bar, be it a measure of beats or booze. Until the next one, then we’re somewhere wholly other. We’re on a six-minute road trip, in flux, heading for another joint at every moment. But we always feel the same, we just see it from different points of view. And we all know why. Because we’re all so tangled up in blue.

1 Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’ I was layin’ in bed Wond’rin’ if she’d changed at all If her hair was still red Her folks they said our lives together Sure was gonna be rough They never did like Mama’s homemade dress Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough And I was standin’ on the side of the road Rain fallin’ on my shoes Heading out for the East Coast Lord knows I’ve paid some dues gettin’ through Tangled up in blue	Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’ He was lyin’ in bed Wond’rin’ if she’d changed at all If her hair was still red Her folks they said their lives together Sure was gonna be rough They never did like Mama’s homemade dress Papa’s bankbook wasn’t big enough He was standin’ on the side of the road Rain fallin’ on his shoes Heading out for the old East Coast Lord knows he’s paid some dues gettin’ through Tangled up in blue
2 She was married when we first met Soon to be divorced I helped her out of a jam, I guess But I used a little too much force We drove that car as far as we could Abandoned it out West Split up on a dark sad night Both agreeing it was best She turned around to look at me As I was walkin’ away I heard her say over my shoulder “We’ll meet again someday on the avenue” Tangled up in blue	She was married when they first met Soon to be divorced He helped her out of a jam, I guess But he used a little too much force They drove that car as far as we could Abandoned it out West Split up on a dark sad night Both agreeing it was best She turned around to look at him As he was walkin’ away She said “This can’t be the end, We’ll meet again someday on the avenue” Tangled up in blue
3  I had a job in the great north woods Working as a cook for a spell But I never did like it all that much And one day the ax just fell So I drifted down to New Orleans Where I happened to be employed Workin’ for a while on a fishin’ boat Right outside of Delacroix But all the while I was alone The past was close behind I seen a lot of women But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew Tangled up in blue	He had a job in the great north woods Working as a cook for a spell But he never did like it all that much And one day the ax just fell So he drifted down to LA Where he reckoned to try his luck, Workin’ for a while in an airplane plant Loading cargo onto a truck But all the while he was alone The past was close behind He seen a lot of women But she never escaped his mind, and he just grew Tangled up in blue
4 She was workin’ in a topless place And I stopped in for a beer I just kept lookin’ at the side of her face In the spotlight so clear And later on as the crowd thinned out I’s just about to do the same She was standing there in back of my chair Said to me, “Don’t I know your name?” I muttered somethin’ underneath my breath She studied the lines on my face I must admit I felt a little uneasy When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe Tangled up in blue	She was workin’ in a topless place And I stopped in for a beer I just kept lookin’ at the side of her face In the spotlight so clear And later on as the crowd thinned out I’s just about to do the same She was standing there in back of my chair Said to me, “What’s your name?” I muttered somethin’ underneath my breath She studied the lines on my face I must admit I felt a little uneasy When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe Tangled up in blue
5  She lit a burner on the stove And offered me a pipe “I thought you’d never say hello,” she said “You look like the silent type” Then she opened up a book of poems And handed it to me Written by an Italian poet From the thirteenth century And every one of them words rang true And glowed like burnin’ coal Pourin’ off of every page Like it was written in my soul from me to you Tangled up in blue	She lit a burner on the stove And offered me a pipe “I thought you’d never say hello,” she said “You look like the silent type” Then she opened up a book of poems And handed it to me Written by an Italian poet From the thirteenth century And every one of them words rang true And glowed like burnin’ coal Pourin’ off of every page Like it was written in my soul from me to you Tangled up in blue
6  I lived with them on Montague Street In a basement down the stairs There was music in the cafés at night And revolution in the air Then he started into dealing with slaves And something inside of him died She had to sell everything she owned And froze up inside And when finally the bottom fell out I became withdrawn The only thing I knew how to do Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew Tangled up in blue	He was always in a hurry, Too busy or too stoned. And everything that she had planned Just had to be postponed. He thought they were successful She thought they were blessed With objects and materiel things, But I never was impressed. And when it all came crashing down I became withdrawn The only thing I knew how to do Was to keep on keepin’ on like a bird that flew Tangled up in blue
7  So now I’m goin’ back again I got to get to her somehow All the people we used to know They’re an illusion to me now Some are mathematicians Some are carpenters’ wives Don’t know how it all got started I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives But me, I’m still on the road Headin’ for another joint We always did feel the same We just saw it from a different point of view Tangled up in blue	So now I’m goin’ back again I got to get to her somehow All the people we used to know They’re an illusion to me now Some are mathematicians Some are carpenters’ wives Don’t know how it all got started I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives But me, I’m still on the road Headin’ for another joint We always did feel the same We just saw it from a different point of view Tangled up in blue

Copyright © 1974 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:

087: Bob Dylan, ‘Black Diamond Bay’

126: Bob Dylan, ‘Tears of Rage’ (The Basement Tapes)

204: Bob Dylan, ‘Idiot Wind’ (NY Sessions)

 

262: Bob Dylan, ‘Went to See the Gypsy’ (“Another Self-Portrait”) 

 

Tags: Bob Dylan