Tangled Up in Blue (1975)

"Tangled Up in Blue" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The opening track of his 15th studio album Blood on the Tracks (1975), the song was released as the album's sole single and reached No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Dylan and produced by his brother David Zimmerman, the song concerns relationships from different narrative perspectives. Dylan has altered the lyrics in subsequent performances, changing the point of view and details in the song.

The track, first recorded in September 1974, was re-recorded on December 30 at Sound 80 in Minneapolis. The new version was released on Blood on the Tracks on January 20, 1975. The song received widespread acclaim from music critics, with particular praise for the lyrics. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 68 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. A number of alternate versions have been released, including multiple studio out-takes on The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (2014). Dylan has performed the song live more than 1,600 times.

Background and recording

The song was written in the summer of 1974, after Dylan's comeback tour with The Band that year and his separation from Sara Dylan, whom he had married in 1965. Dylan had moved to a farm in Minnesota with his brother, David Zimmerman, and there started to write the songs that were recorded for his album Blood on the Tracks. In the spring of 1974, Dylan had taken art classes at Carnegie Hall and was influenced by his tutor Norman Raeben, and in particular Raeben's view of time, when writing the lyrics. In a 1978 interview Dylan explained this style of songwriting: "What's different about it is that there's a code in the lyrics, and there's also no sense of time. There's no respect for it. You've got yesterday, today, and tomorrow all in the same room, and there's very little you can't imagine not happening". Richard F. Thomas, Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, has written that Dylan has been "characteristically vague" on the use of any specific painting techniques emulated while he was writing the words for the songs on Blood On The Tracks. Novelist Ron Rosenbaum said Dylan told him that he'd written "Tangled Up in Blue" after spending a weekend listening to Joni Mitchell's 1971 album Blue.

Dylan first recorded "Tangled Up in Blue" in New York City on 16 September 1974 during the initial Blood on the Tracks sessions at A&R Studios. Eight takes were recorded in New York from 16 to 19 September, mostly featuring Tony Brown on bass alongside Dylan on guitar and harmonica, and containing some minor variations in lyrics, as well as differences in vocal delivery, and tempo. Two of the versions later released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (Deluxe edition) also include Paul Griffin on organ. That December, working from a suggestion from his brother that the album should have a more commercial sound, Dylan re-recorded half the songs on Blood on the Tracks, including "Tangled Up in Blue" on 30 December at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

David Zimmerman was the producer for the Minneapolis Blood on the Tracks recordings, but was not credited on the album. The re-recorded versions were radical departures from the original recordings, and each new recording included changes to the lyrics from the earlier versions. This recording featured a full band: Kevin Odegard (guitar), Chris Weber (guitar) Gregg Inhofer (keyboards), Billy Peterson (bass), and Bill Berg (drums), with Dylan singing, and on guitar and harmonica. These musicians were based locally and had arrived at Zimmerman's invitation, and Dylan had not met them before they started working together on 27 December.

The Minneapolis version was included as the opening track on Blood on the Tracks, released on 20 January 1975, and in February as a single backed with "If You See Her, Say Hello". The single reached number 31 on the Hot 100 chart. Outtakes of "Tangled Up in Blue" from the New York sessions were released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 and in 2018 on the single-CD and 2-LP versions of The Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks, while the complete New York sessions were released on the deluxe edition of the latter album. The deluxe version of The Bootleg Series Vol. 14 also included a remix of the December 1974 master issued on Blood on the Tracks.