Album: Blood On The Tracks (1975)

Charted: 31

License This Song 

• Early one mornin' the sun was shinin'
  She was layin' in bed
  Wondrin' if she'd changed at all
  If her hair was still red
  Her folks they set their lives together
  Sure was gonna be rough
  They never did like
  Mama's homemade dress
  Papa's bank book wasn't big enough
  And he 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
  
  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
  And he drove that car as far as they could
  Abandoned it out west
  Splitting up on a dark sad night
  Both agreeing it was best
  She turned around to look at him
  As he was walkin' away
  Saying over his shoulder
  We'll meet again some day
  On the avenue
  Tangled up in blue
  
  We had a job in Santa Fe
  Working in an old hotel
  But he never did like it all that much
  And one day the axe just fell
  So he drifted down to New Orleans
  Lucky not to be destroyed
  We got him a job on a fishin' boat
  Docked outside of Delacroix
  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
  
  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 was just about to do the same
  She was standing there in back of my chair
  Said, don't tell me let me guess your name?
  I muttered somethin' under 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
  
  I lived with them on Montague Street
  In a basement down the stairs
  There was music in the cafes 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 it all came pressing 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  I became withdrawn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
  
  So now I'm goin' back again
  I got to get to them somehow
  All the faces 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 Writer/s: Bob Dylan
  Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 44

• Marge from Mars, UsaI read that a record label will automatically sue an entity if they use another’s published work without permission and the artists have no say in the matter, so maybe that’s it. After all, you can’t just borrow your neighbors car without permission and hope their flattered because you used it for church. I think TUIB is a story about Bob Dylan’s life with his wife at the time and his past serious relationships. “ we drove that car as far as we could, abandoned it out west” to me means - husband and wife kept the relationship going as long as they could and once they moved out West, something changed and they abandoned any hope of the marriage being fixable. Lol, I also think he should change it to “ we split up on the docks that night” that’s what I always thought he wrote. Bob Dylan is the best.
• Tangled Up In Bob from Greensboro, NcI have to disagree with all the one-sided reaction to Dylan suing Hootie and the Blowfish (I think they settled out of court). Yes the song “I Only Want to be with You” is unmistakably a glowing tribute to Dylan and borrows both musically and lyrically from Tangled up in Blue. But I think they went too far when they took an ENTIRE verse from “Idiot Wind”. “People say I murdered and man named Grey and took his wife to Italy…I can’t help it if I’m lucky”. That is a long-ass quote not a passing reference. At that point, they needed to simply add Dylan as one of the songwriters so he could get some royalties. It was the WRONG thing to do not to give him writing credit when you take that much. And they were banking on him being so “flattered” that he’d pass up what was surely a big payday since that song was a huge hit. I admired Bob for calling them out on it. Don’t flatter me and stiff me at the same time! Do the right thing and just share the credit.
• Rnmorton from West Chester PaThese are not the lyrics I hear on the commonly-played Sirius version. It is all first person as to the story teller and some other lines are altered from this version. Anyway, just a great song (particularly in the Sirius version).
• Peggy from Bklyn Heights NyI was in Capulets on Montague St ...many times and many ( 40+) years ago when you were there sitting on a bar stool and strumming away !! A wonderful lifetime ago!! I wish you well. Bklyn heights is Still a wonderful little place and sadly Capulets is no longer there but now a popular Italian restaurant ... but not lucky enuf to have Bob Dylan making music there! God bless ...:
  Come Visit .... you would have fond memories I would hope!
• John from Catskill Mountains, Sullivan County, NySong has nothing to do with Joni Mitchell's "Blue"
  One thing about Bob's writing you should know is that he substitutes the word "blue" for love. It's why you hear the word blue in a lot of his songs.
  Basically TUIB is about the subject of the song having his head all f--ked up because of a lost love affair he just can't get over. The breaking up, the taking back, on again, off again, carrying a torch with the tiniest of flickers and never totally severing those emotional ties.
  The subject of the song like many of us never fully gets over this first true love. Something permanently breaks when it ends that never gets repaired "as good as new". That's because we are so naive we lay it all out on the line 100% believing love with this person is forever. After all she told you many, many times in the heat of passion she will love you forever and it becomes creed, etched in stone. When it ends you are devastated to the point that you never lay it all 100% on the line with anyone else again.
• Ken from New YorkIt's funny how you hear things. Like most, I guess, I'd heard the song countless times and eventually learned the words, but not necessarily in sequence..I apparently didn't listen closely enough and since I remembered "workin' for a while on a fishing boat right outside Delacroix" I had the waterfront in mind. With that in mind, even though the verse precedes the verse with working on a fishing boat, I always assumed it was "split up on the docks that night" instead of "a dark sad night".
  Now, even though I know it's "a dark sad night", I still sing "on the docks that night".
• Bill from St. Louis, MoThere is a theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers.
  'Tangled Up in Blue' may be the story of Jesus and the Magdalene reincarnating together over and over.
  
  'Wond'rin' if she'd changed at all
  If her hair was still red'
  
  The Magdalene's hair is traditionally said to be red.
  
  'Split up on a dark sad night
  Both agreeing it was best'
  
  The best what? Incarnation together?
  
  '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"
  
  Reincarnation; meeting up again.
  
  'So I drifted down to New Orleans'
  
  Orleans, France is an area of Magdalene worship.
  
  'Right outside of Delacroix''
  
  Delacroix means 'Of the Cross"
  
  '…she never escaped my mind, and I just grew'
  
  Memory of the Magdalene never leaves him.
  
  'She was standing there in back of my chair'
  'Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
  '…She studied the lines on my face…'
  '…she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe'
  
  Luke 7:38 : 'As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.'
  
  Magdalene was the 'Power behind the throne'; Gnostic Gospels: 'Why does he love her more than he loves us?'
  
  Studying the lines of the face to see what the person has been through; to see the personality.
  
  Magdalene bent down to wash the feet of Jesus.
  
  'Then she opened up a book of poems
  And handed it to me
  Written by an Italian poet
  From the thirteenth century'
  
  Some thirteenth century Italian poets lauded the Magdalene
  
  '…revolution in the air'
  There was revolution in the air in Jesus' time.
  
  'Some are carpenters' wives…Don't know how it all got started
  I don't know what they're doin' with their lives'
  
  According to the myth, Jesus and the Magdalene married; Jesus was a carpenter. How did the cycles of reincarnation get started?
  
  '…We always did feel the same
  We just saw it from a different point of view'
  
  
  The different points of view are views from various incarnations together.
• Nicole from Massapequa, NyI think it was ridiculous for Dylan to sue Hootie & the Blowfish for using "Tangled up in Blue"....That song itself was named that after Dylan repeatedly listened to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" album. Such a hypocritical move on his part.
  
• Greg from Las Vegas, NvStefan, the Italian poet may be Cecco Angiolieri, as Si Fosse Fuoco has a powerful punch like Tangled Up in Blue; however Cecco was a 14th century poet. Otherwise maybe it was Franco Sacchetti or Leon Battista Alberti, which are from the 15th century, but neither has the punch of Cecco.
• Lee from Clearwater, Fl, Flhere's the quote: "People get that way about Joni Mitchell songs. Bob Dylan once told me that he'd written "Tangled up in Blue," the opening song of the much-celebrated Blood on the Tracks, after spending a weekend immersed in [Joni Mitchell's] Blue (although I think he may have been talking about the whole album, not just the song)." http://bit.ly/35pOlBx
• Lee from Clearwater, Fl, FlI'm a little surprised no one has mentioned this, but I read that the title refers to the fact that Dylan was really into the Joni Mitchell album "Blue" at the time. My two cents.
• Ron from Pittsburgh, Pa"some are carpenter's wives" is a reference to Laura Nyro who was part of the New York music scene in the late 60's. Nyro admired Dylan and made sure he knew it whenever they ran into each other at parties. She abruptly retired and disappeared for a few years from recording music and married carpenter David Bianchini in 1971.
• Mike from Brooklyn, NyThe sixth verse is a direct reference to John Lennon. Lennon moved into Ringo's Montague Square apartment with Yoko after Cynthia kicked him out. John and Yoko were working on the "Revolution 9" sound collage for the Beatles' "white album" at that same time.
• Stefan from Campinas, BrazilDoes anyone knows which italian poem does he refers to in the middle of the song??
• Lestrad from No, LaIt's in the Uppre Ninth. think that's the one you're referring to, Dave.
• Lestrad from No, LaThere is a Montegut St. in New Orleans.
• Gimel from Miami, FlThis good fellow Bob Dylan is, presentless, wrapped in a demeanor which is truly like the wind which cannot be contained nor avoided. A real genius, who in spite of all his fame and wealth, is, quoting Soren Kierkegaard, "one against the crowd!"
• Jim from Dayton, OhAll this talk about Dylan being a chump or coward over suing Hotties is'nt fair to Bob (I'm not sure its even true) It's true that Jimmi Hendrix had a great admiration for Bob Dylan and Dylan lated admited he like Jimmi's arrangement of All Along The Watchtower better than his own and from then on when Bob would play All Along The Watchtower he always played it with Jimmi's arrangement of the song. Thats respect going both ways.
• Hans from San Jose, Ca"I lived with them on Montague Street
  In a basement down the stairs" might refer to Ringo's basement place in London where Lennon/Ono lived.
  
• Nathan from Grant, AlI don't know that it has any actual basis on anything besides my own interpretation of this song, but it seems like it's a sort of love story. It always makes me see sort of a couple who fall in love while the woman is married and maybe the new man kills the husband or beats him up after a divorce. Afterwards the man and woman drive as far as the gas tank will take them. Then they just abandon the car and walk away from a deserted roadside. They promise they'll meet again one day, but they have to leave so they don't go to jail. The story continues to tell each of their individual paths. Neither of them EVER forgets the other no matter what they have to do. Years later they end up back together and don't realize it at first. They go back to the woman's place and talk for a bit. The man resorts to "slavery" or pimping the way I think about it, and the woman has to sell herself to make money. Except maybe the stripper wasn't the first woman mentioned. At any rate, the man decides he has to get back to his love no matter what and leaves to find her in some bar somewhere out across the world. He plans to continue until he finds the woman he fell in love with.
• Apeek19 from Atlanta, GaDylan can be a coward capable of things like sueing hootie 9despite my love for him
  ). However, there is no legal record that a suit happened so it could just be an internet rumor.
• Henry from Baltimore, MdThis is the song that makes people say that Like A Rolling Stone is perhaps Dylan's greatest song.
• Tony from Toledo, OhI think of songs like this and Paual Simon's THE BOXER when I remember getting out into the world like joining the US Army at 17. I was the youngest kid in my HS class, I'll bet.
  At Aberdeen Proving Grounds, a group of soldiers invited me to go with them to an enlisted bar. And there was this topless and very lovely cigarett girl. I know I did not even smoke but she looked so sexy that I bought a pack of Camel's from her just because I liked her so much. She stood in front of me just like the girl in the song here and started staring at me. And with TANGLED UP IN BLUE in mind, I wodered if she was going to bend over and tie the laces of my boots?! It was kind of like life imitating art. But I never got a date with her. But I can remembere how shameless and un self conscious she seemed parading around the NCO club with nothing on but a g-string! She did not have a care in the world!
• Angie from Jacksonville, FlI have to agree with Jared from Westmont, NJ. I mean, it's not like Hootie and the Blowfish were maliciously ripping off Dylan; they were paying tribute. It kind of sucks that a guy like Bob Dylan gets off on suing people that admire him.
• Erik from Bloomfield Hills, MiBlood On The Tracks is such a great album, Dylan's best. Way to stick it to Hootie, Bob! They don't belong anywhere NEAR a Dylan song.
• Linda from Brooklyn, Nyi'd just like to point out that there are many nice places in Brooklyn, not just montague strret is THE nice area
• Dave from New Orleans, LaThe Montague St mentioned in this song is not a reference to an area in New York. It's a street here in New Orleans, in the now-famous 9th Ward (courtesy of Katrina). I've seen no proof that Dylan ever actually lived on Montague St., but it's known that he used to spend a lot of time here in the French Quarter.
  
  "Delacroix" is Delacroix Island, a small fishing community just outside New Orleans, probably wiped out from the hurricane (man, what irony). :-( Bob pronounces it as "Dellacroy" in the song, but the correct pronunciation is "Dellacro" (long O).
  
  Great song.
• Keir from Aberystwyth, WalesCheck out the version he plays on Real Live (I think a recording at Wembley Stadium in '86), it just blows you away. Bob himself (in Cameron Crowe's interview for the sleeve notes on Biograph) said he didnt think he had it right when he recorded it for Blood, but the Real Live version was how he really wanted it to come across.
• Miles from Vancouver, Canadasimply a wonderful tune!
• Doug from Balintore, Scotlandthis is my second favourite Dylan song next to "you're gonna make you lonesome when you go" -the lyrics are great, it's basically a poem
• Johnny from Los Angeles, CaNathan gets a laugh from me. This song does have great lyrics, it is not one of my favorite Dylan songs. Jared, Bob Dylan doesn't care about the money. he was just mad that someone "stole" his song. Maybe he didn't see it as a tribute? I don't know. This song is very good lyrically and musically.
• Jared from Westmont, Njomg...im beyond shocked right now...Dylan's all about the music but he sued someone when the did a tribute, to himself nontheless. I don't know, I'm a bit hurt as a fan right now, killing music for money...that hit hard, Bob.
• Ashley from Yarmouth, CanadaOh my, Bob Dylan sued someone? He seems like a savage man. I dont know why, but I get the feeling he was... not just cause he sued someone. He just seems savage. In a loving way. I love this song... it makes me sooo sparkley. I just LaLaLaLova Bobby D. <3
• Ralph from Middletown, NyMatthew, that is true on Dylan's construction of the song. However, I don't think it is a direct storytelling on his life but a series of images to evoke a mood. John Herdman years ago wrote an excellent book called "Bob Dylan: Voice Without Restraint". This book basically stated that Dylan's lyrical method was more about mood and emotion than it was in being literal. So, for "Tangled..", while the specific moments he sang about might have never really happened, they did evoke a mood, a place, an atmosphere. I think paintings can do the same thing.
  
  I must say that the slower version of this song is just as interesting. I am glad the Bootleg 1-3 series was released years ago to let people hear the first version of this song, which is the slower version.
• Nathan from Defiance, OhDon't trust anybody named Hootie.
• Stefanie Magura from Rock Hill, ScHeah. the verses are in a random order. That's if your listening to the song for the first time. Dylan wants you to figure out what it's about after you've listened to it.
• Christian from Richmond, WiThe Alternate version of this is even better
• Kate from Armidale, AustraliaThe Whitlams did an absolutely awesome cover of this on Eternal Nightcap. Check it out!
• John from Waterville, MiIm from Hibbing Minnesota.
• Hugh from Kansas City, MoHey Joe of Weatherly, PA,
  Learn some punctuation, will ya?
  How did this entry make it paste the "bad grammer" aspect of the 'Comment Guidelines'?
• Joe from Weatherly, PaYeah hootie did steal that but listen I am no hootie fan but if i remember correctly their song and tangled up and blue song the same not the lyrics but the sound and tone but I can't remember that much they weren't any good hootie that is dylan is a lyrical genious
  
• The D Man from Saint Petersburg, Flbest Dylan tune ever!!!
• Matthew from New York, NyThis song was supposed to be musical painting. Dylan had been painting a lot at the time and marvelled at how the eye doesn't look at the picture as a whole, but rather glances randomly from section to section of the pianting until a mental image of the full piece has been created. He wanted to write a song that connected random verses in an unsequential order that allowed the listener to piece together the full "picture" after the song was completed. Tangled Up in Blue was supposed to be a picture of his first marriage. Mixed in were stories of how he and his wife first met, their financial struggles, their emotional struggles, their happy times, and their divorce. Once the song is finished you can have a pretty good idea of what Dylan's marriage to his first wife was like from Dylan's point of view. Because of this technique, I consider this to be among Dylan's finest lyrics.
• Shaggy from Bristol, CtHootie stole the lyric from Idiot Wind. I said I shot a man named gray... took his wife to italy... she inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me... I can't help it if I'm lucky

More Songfacts:

I Write The SongsBarry Manilow

Barry Manilow didn't write his #1 hit "I Write The Songs." Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys wrote it.

(Walking) In the RainThe Ronettes

Ronnie Spector nailed the vocal for The Ronettes song "(Walking) In the Rain" on the first take -- unheard of in the perfectionist producer Phil Spector's world.

We Belong TogetherMariah Carey

Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" was the best-selling song of the 2000s in the US.

Paper PlanesM.I.A.

"Paper Planes" was inspired by M.I.A.'s hassles trying to get a visa to enter America.

Then He Kissed MeThe Crystals

The '60s hit "Then He Kissed Me" was covered by The Beach Boys as "Then I Kissed Her."

Uptown FunkMark Ronson

"Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson was 2015's best-selling single in both the U.S. and U.K.

Editor's Picks

Yacht Rock QuizFact or Fiction

Christopher Cross with Deep Purple? Kenny Loggins in Caddyshack? A Fact or Fiction all about yacht rock and those who made it.

Butch VigSongwriter Interviews

The Garbage drummer/songwriter produced the Nirvana album Nevermind, and Smashing Pumpkins' Gish and Siamese Dream.

80s Music Quiz 1Music Quiz

MTV, a popular TV theme song and Madonna all show up in this '80s music quiz.

Jon Oliva of Trans-Siberian OrchestraSongwriter Interviews

Writing great prog metal isn't easy, especially when it's for 60 musicians.

The FratellisSongwriter Interviews

Jon Fratelli talks about the band's third album, and the five-year break leading up to it.

Victoria WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

Despite appearances on Carson, Leno and a Pennebaker film, Williams remains a hidden treasure.