Tangled Up in Blue

Early one morning the sun was shining, he was lying in bed,

Wondering if she'd changed at all, if her hair was still red.

Her folks, they said their lives together sure was gonna be rough,

They never did like mama's homemade dress, papa's bankbook wasn't big enough.

And he was standing on the side of the road, rain falling on his shoes,

Heading out for the old East Coast – Lord knows, he's paid some dues getting 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 they drove that car as far as they could, abandoned it out west,

And split up on a dark, sad night, both agreeing it was best.

And she turned around to look at him as he was a-walking away,

She said, "This can't be the end, we'll meet on another day on the avenue,

Tangled up in blue."

He had a job in the old North Woods working as a cook for a spell,

But he never did like it all that much and one day the ax just fell,

When he drifted down to LA where he'd reckoned to try his luck,

Working for a while in an airplane plant loading cargo onto a truck,

But all the while he was alone, the past was close behind,

He seen a lotta women, but she never escaped his mind and he just grew

Tangled up in blue.

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

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

And later on, as the crowd thinned out, I's about to do the same,

She was standing there in back of my chair, said to me, "What's your name?"

I muttered something underneath my breath, she studied the lines of 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.

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe.

"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 thirteenth¹ century,

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.

He was always in a hurry, too busy or too stoned,

And everything that she ever planned just a-had to be postponed.

He thought they were successful, she thought they were blessed

With objects and material things, but I never was impressed,

And when it all came crashing down, I became withdrawn,

The only thing I knew how to do was a-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 doctors' wives,

Don't know how it all got started, don't know what they're doing with their lives,

But me, I'm still on the road, 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 In the album version of this song, this shows up as "fifteenth".