Tangled Up in Blue

Early one morning the sun was shining, I was laying in bed,

Wondering 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 standing on the side of the road, rain falling on my shoes,

Heading out for the East Coast – Lord knows, I've paid some dues getting through,

Tangled up in blue.

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 a-walking away,

I heard her say over my shoulder, "We'll meet again someday on the avenue,

Tangled up in blue."

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 lucky was to be employed,

Working for a while on a fishing 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.

She was working in a topless place and I stopped in for a beer,

I just kept looking at the side of her face in the spotlight so clear,

And later on, when the crowd thinned out, I was 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 something underneath my breath, she studied the lines of my face,

I must admit, felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,

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 fifteenth century¹,

And every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal,

Pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul, from me to you,

Tangled up in blue.

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 it finally––the bottom fell out, I became withdrawn,

The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on like a bird that flew,

Tangled up in blue.

So now I'm going 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 doing with their lives,

But me, I'm still on the road, a-heading for another joint,

We always did feel the same, we just saw it from a different point of view,

Tangled up in blue.

¹ Other sources transcribe this as "thirteenth century".