Aug 16, 2024 · The cultural significance of “Tangled Up in Blue” extends beyond its place within Dylan’s discography. 

Elsewhere I found a note that said, “The enduring appeal of Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” lies in its unique ability to balance total narrative clarity with total emotional uncertainty.  Released as the opening track of his monumental 1975 album Blood on the Tracks, the song is widely considered one of music’s most profound narrative journeys.

“Inspired by the modern art concepts of painter Norman Raeben, Dylan structured the song like a painting where the past, present, and future coexist simultaneously. Rather than moving chronologically, the narrative uses shifting first- and third-person pronouns (“I” transitions to “he”) and fluid, non-linear timelines. This creates a “cubist word-painting” that mimics the messy, fragmented nature of human memory.”

So here again we have a review of a Dylan song as if it is a piece of poetry – which clearly it isn’t: it is a SONG.   I am not quite sure why commentators don’t get that, but they seem not actually to listen to the song as a song.    So in the next few lines I am gong to try and write about Tangled up in Blue as a SONG not as a piece of literature….   It may seem an irrelevant difference to you, in which case you can of course turn away – but I would ask one thing.   If you know a review of this song that really does treat it as a song, not as a piece of poetry possibly with a bit of music jangling around, could you write in and direct me (and anyone else interested) to such review/s.

So for me the opening

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

Now to begin with on the original recording Bob does seem to have retuned his guitar away from the norm, but I am going to ignore that because I know from experience that for most people if the chords sound like anything recognisable, they are the standard chords.   So it sounds like

E                  D
Early one mornin' the sun was shinin',
E               D
he was layin' in bed
E               D
Wond'rin' if she'd changed at all
       E        B      A
If her hair was still red.

Now the point about this is that these are fairly standard chords for a rock song with a touch of blues, but many of us will hear that something a bit different about the way the chords are played.  For in reality on the recordings the guitars are playing the chords in very slightly different ways using a capo which adds to the overall effect of the sound.  It is a tiny nuance that I suspect many people won’t hear, but which those who have had a musical training or who have played in a rock band will realise a “something different” although may take a few moments to work out.   (Or perhaps I should admit it and say “It certainly took me a fair number of moments to work out”).

So what Bob has done is he has put slight nuances into what is a fairly basic chordal introduction to the music of the song, while actually keeping the both the musical accompaniment and the lyrics fairly straightforward (except for that nuance with the guitars).

Now what makes this so particularly clever in terms of a composition is that most listeners don’t actually pick up on these minor nuances, but put together, they give the impression of the ordinary (just a couple of regular chord changes, and he’s just lying there thinking about the woman), and yet beneath it all there is something different, which even if we don’t have any musical knowledge just gives us a tingle when listening.

And then we get the final twist (and remember we are still only in the first verse of a seven verse song, in which each verse consists of 13 lines)….

In short these nuances (including the fact that the verse is 13 lines long) give us, along with the lyrics themselves, the feeling of something unusual happening throughout.  There is no safe “base point”; no point to which we can return and think “I’m home”  except at the end of each verse where the music does come back to its home base (the “tonic”), before venturing on again.

Then there is one more factor that makes us aware that all is not as it seems.   For the song begins

Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’
I was layin’ in bed

but quite suddenly, and without any explanation we find this is not where he is at all, for without any warning we hear

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

How do we get from lying in bed to the side of the road?   We ae never told.

Now put together these musical nuances and the lyrical leap and this is a song about confusion and imaginative uncertainty, and yet the music is clear in terms of where it is.

Of course one doesn’t have to do the analysis of the song to love it and enjoy it, but what frustrates me is that many people seem to want to review the song in terms only of the lyrics.   And yes of course I appreciate that many people who love the song as I do are not musicians, but surely that does not mean that if one is trying to explore the song there should not be some sort of attempt to show what Bob is dong here, to get the effect that makes the song so enjoyable, so interesting and indeed I would say so emotional.

I guess I did hope that maybe Artificial Intelligence might be bright enough to delve into such matters and explore why this song is so popular and why it works so well.   Or come to that why Bob performed it 1685 times between 1975 and 2018.   Or maybe I am just being odd (or as my parents used to say “just plain difficult”) in asking these questions.

But for me the question “Why is this song so good?” can only be answered with reference to the lyrics and the music.   Especially since it was possible to do this with it….