Bob Dylan: Tangled Up In Blue Meaning

Song Released: 1975

Tangled Up In Blue Lyrics

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...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   REMareback

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   Jul 8th 2008 !⃝

   I can't believe nobody has discussed this song, it's one of my favourite Bob Dylan songs.
   It's about the breakdown of Dylan's marriage, he said it took him two years to write and ten years to live. It pays no attention to time, mixing up a time line with each verse.
   First Verse: It's the present, he woke up in bed and reflected on what went wrong.
   Second Verse: It's the past, as they broke up, it's the exact details of the break up.
   Third Verse: It's directly after the second verse, what happened to him after they broke up.
   Fourth Verse: It goes back to the very beginning of the time line, when he first met the girl.
   Fifth Verse: Follows from the fourth, when he first met her.
   Sixth Verse: After they met it's detail of their life together, and how it didn't work out.
   Seventh Verse: It's back to the present, how he's going after her, and hints that all their arguments weren't worthwhile.
   So in chronological order it's:
   4th Verse, 5th Verse, 6th Verse, 2nd verse, 1st verse, last verse.
   And the meaning of Tangled up in Blue as a phrase, it means stuck to the same girl, whether he likes it or not, why it's blue I don't no. Tangled doesn't entirely give a positive image, you don't really want to be tangled in something.
   
   This was my first interpretation on this website, please tell me how it was, was it a load of garbage or was it a decent interpretation?

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Nov 21st 2011 !⃝

   My two-cents about the lyrics:
   
   I see the recurring phrase "Tangled Up In Blue" almost like a 'click' on a camera shutter, capturing a moment in the narrator's relationship with the woman. So, as they are splitting up, she says "We'll meet again someday on the avenue" and there is a "click", a mental snapshot of the moment.
   
   In the middle stanzas the story starts: he goes into a topless bar looking for a thrill and unexpectedly sees a dancer whose FACE is the part of her anatomy that he is starting at. She returns the favor by "studying the lines on his face", again, both looking at each other faces, not as "customer/dancer" but as "man/woman" attracted to each other. In fact, as she bends down to "tie the laces on his shoes" (that is, to get a big tip in her G-string by showing him her ass and private regions), he is already uneasy about thinking of her as just a piece of meat. "Click"
   
   In that stanza, he is attracted to her body, but immediately in the next stanza he is attracted to her soul. She gives him a book of poems by an "Italian poet
   From the thirteenth century", a reference to Dante's "Vita Nuova" (about Dante's soul-mate, Beatrice). "Click"
   
   I take the verse about "he started into dealing with slaves" to be a verse about a pimp engaged in the prostitution business, with the implication that the pimp has dragged his wife from working in a topless bar to being a prostitute. The narrator has to rescue her from that. "Click".
   
   The basic recurring phrase, "Tangled Up In Blue", is never fully explicated, which I think is good. It could refer to a certain sadness ("blue") throughout their relationship, but I think it's more likely to be a "metonymy", that is, a 'part' which stands for the 'whole'. In this case, something about "blue" is standing in for the woman and/or both of them in the relationship. It could be something like a blue dress that makes the narrator think of her. If you're into biography when analyzing a poem, it's worth noting that Bob Dylan and his ex-wife Sara Dylan both have blue eyes (as does their eldest son). It is also noted that Sara worked as a Playboy bunny before she met Bob.
   
   What I love about the song is how is expresses that "cubist" nature of long-term relationships, in which you simultaneously see parts from all different time snapshots at the same instant. For example, when I met a woman friend of mine at an airport last year, I saw her as a high school student that rode around in a borrowed convertible car that I drove one summer, and saw myself walking away from her on the one date we went on at 17, and saw her when I gave her a hug outside her house in Chicago when I tracked her down again after a 35 year absence, etc. etc, etc. Every one of those images was there at the same time, overlaying each other in my memory, "tangled up in blue".
   
   Anyway, that's what I get out of the song and why I admire it so much. It expressed something to me that I was only vaguely aware of, and now it's in the forefront of my mind. Thanks, Mr. Dylan.
3. LanceLawson

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   Apr 5th 2021 !⃝

   During the exact point in time Tangled Up In Blue was released I was in a relationship with a woman who's employment was very very closely tied to the type of work described in Tangled Up In Blue. It was impossible to know when or if the person was crossing the line or had crossed the line of sex for $$$$. But you learned to not ask anything you were not prepared to know. Reserve judgment and live the moment is how you embrace such creatures.
4. anonymous

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   Nov 19th 2020 !⃝

   There are so many levels to this song. I agree it is multiple women and Dylan has said as much but they are 'tangled up' in his song/memory.
   Blue is a feeling, a song style, but to me also means blue, like working blue. There are several allusions to sex work: the topless bar, the slaves, the carpenter's wives could be Mary Magdelene. The women are tangled up in blue (sex work) too.
5. anonymous

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   Nov 14th 2020 !⃝

   stuck (tangled) with the blues is how I would interpret the actual title ... he’s sad and longing, and he can’t quit the feeling
6. anonymous

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   Nov 7th 2020 !⃝

   Lol. Great tune. I just take it at face value. Life goes on...several women were part of that life.
7. anonymous

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   Oct 22nd 2019 !⃝

   OK, here's my interpretation:
   
   It's about the mess between love, sex and money. The entanglement between our higher and lower natures (both parties). It could be seen as personal or societal relationships where signals and needs get "crossed" and we have a hard time finding the way (which makes us "blue")
   
   … So, that's MY two cents :)
8. anonymous

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   Aug 16th 2019 !⃝

   when a writer of Dylan's generation uses the word 'blue' it always carries the inherent reference to the 'blues', one of the dominant musical forms of the generation. Roy Orbison uses it in Blue Bayou, and Joni Mitchell does in her Album'Blue'. But there are many others who have used it in this way. The use of the word 'tangle' is interesting. I think it indicates a state of being caught up in a given situation, but not necessarily hobbled or crippled by it. Often as not a blues song describes feelings that are in the moment and which dominate it, such as Stormy Weather for example. Dylan is here describing a situation where he still has freedom of action and thought, but in which he is constantly reminded of his loss and the need to resolve it. But he is tangled up in it, not incapacitated by it.
9. anonymous

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   Aug 4th 2019 !⃝

   Tangled up in blue... all knotted up in sadness.
10. anonymous

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    Sep 3rd 2018 !⃝

    I knew Dylan & his best buddies back in the day. It’s about pussy. Pussy wrapped up in beautiful poetry & song. (Oops politically incorrect?) Well, if that’s how you feel? You wouldn’t want to hang out with Bob or his buddies...
11. anonymous

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    Aug 30th 2018 !⃝

    This entire song is based on historical elements that reflect a person in the late 18th century. EVERYTHING easily refers to a British colonist during the Revolutionary War period and his exploits as he becomes not only a man, but a soldier, somewhat reluctant to fight for the Cause (the Americans.) Of course the blue uniform of the colonists is in stark contrast to the redcoats of Britain, but this gentleman is telling his tale of a Revolutionary War soldier who, as many were, somewhat reluctant to fight against the King's Army, but knew to do so was the only path to freedom and liberty. All the other fluff that is described would be something a man during this era would either do, see, partake in, or read.
12. anonymous

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    Dec 28th 2017 !⃝

    When I HEAR this song I hear the story of a deep love that comes and goes--It isn't words that are the sole reason for this but the length of it. OF course it is a ballad and so it CAN be longer with license and still I HEAR a love song that talks about moments with her, thinking about her and feeling her.
    
    When I sing and play it, I feel a sadness and also a poets license to make lyrics rhyme. IT is the playing the song that hangs with me-- the tune made difficult by chords that don't have to be used and can be easily replaced with a basic d to c- d to c to a then a cord played like a full on the third fret-- this does take away the small guitar sound but makes the beat strong-- This is NOT a happy song but a song of life and a woman. It does not translate well to a women singing the song.
    This is the way that men loved when they loved deeply-- they are distracted and have resentments toward all.
    One of my favorite songs of all time and it needs DYLAN to sing it the way Dylan sings it.
    This is Dylan song. I do like the interpretation that uses the fact that blue is often the nick name for red-hair people-- His Sara was beautiful and would cause music in a musician's mind that would come in strings about everything-- like an orgasm. Justice
13. anonymous

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    Oct 30th 2017 !⃝

    I don’t think you can make literal interpretations of most of Dylan’s songs. They are impressionistic and filled with juxtapositions of various images, both imagined and real, which may or may not fall into
    particular time frames. The closest thing to being “tangled up in blue” is probably being “stuck inside a mobile with those Memphis blues again.” He weaves together recitations of actual events ( perhaps meeting Sara who had worked at a “topless” place/ although the bunnies were clothed) with fanciful recollections ( working on a boat outside Delacroix). Sometimes he uses words because they sound good together without a concrete relationship like many painters. And sometimes things just pour out that he cannot explain as to where they came from or necessarily what they mean. But usually they engender a feeling or sense in the listener that one cannot quite verbalize but is somehow understood anyway. Desolation Row is the perfect gem for this. I am not sure exactly what “sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet “ means for certain but I think I know that guy anyway.
    
    Enjoy. It is always challenging and fun to explore his literary world hence the Nobel Prize
14. anonymous

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    Oct 30th 2017 !⃝

    I don’t think you can make literal interpretations of most of Dylan’s songs. They are impressionistic and filled with juxtapositions of various images, both imagined and real, which may or may not fall into
    particular time frames. The closest thing to being “tangled up in blue” is probably being “stuck inside a mobile with those Memphis blues again.” He weaves together recitations of actual events ( perhaps meeting Sara who had worked at a “topless” place/ although the bunnies were clothed) with fanciful recollections ( working on a boat outside Delacroix). Sometimes he uses words because they sound good together without a concrete relationship like many painters. And sometimes things just pour out that he cannot explain as to where they came from or necessarily what they mean. But usually they engender a feeling or sense in the listener that one cannot quite verbalize but is somehow understood anyway. Desolation Row is the perfect gem for this. I am not sure exactly what “sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet “ means for certain but I think I know that guy anyway.
    
    Enjoy. It is always challenging and fun to explore his literary world hence the Nobel Prize
15. anonymous

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    Jun 26th 2017 !⃝

    You for get Blue is the colour of Misery. Think about that in TANGLED UP IN BLUE.
16. anonymous

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    Mar 21st 2016 !⃝

    It's Dylan trying to come to grips with an epic love of his life. "Some are mathematicians, some are congressmen's wives." His way of reckoning the entire situation within himself by comparing/contrasting; and yet still in a quagmire; unable to break free from her. His pain is deep and he carries it with him at all times. Tangled up in blue, caught in the past.
17. anonymous

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    Jan 15th 2016 !⃝

    as with a painting,the artist leaves it to you to determine what it says.you are correct as is everybody else is.this song is mona lisa

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