30 Days of Dylan #30: Tangled Up In Blue

May 2011 sees the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan. To celebrate, we're taking you on a journey through the lesser celebrated avenues of his back catalogue. A journey down Highway 61 that won't stop off at 'Blowin' In The Wind', 'All Along The Watchtower' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door' but will call by...

Tangled Up In Blue (1974)

And in the end we’ll enjoy an out-and-out Bob Dylan classic, complete with record company approved video footage. It has been a bit galling, I must say, the heavy handed restrictions that Bob’s people seem to have imposed on his music across internet streaming services. I know Bob can pretty much do as he wishes but I personally feel it’s a shame that this is one way in which he hasn’t moved with the times. I mean, I’m someone who ten years ago was a committed record & CD collector looking towards a future where I’d probably need to build seventeen sheds just to house my music collection but nowadays I don’t know if I’ll ever buy music in a physical format ever again. For music fans this new model is simply the best thing ever, the sheer accessibility of everything is mouth watering and it’s just a shame that Bob Dylan and The Beatles have so far resisted full immersion into the new environment; it would be a better place for having them around and in time, they definitely will be. I’ll also hold my hands up and admit there were songs that I’d intended for the 30 day rundown that couldn’t be included because of the lack of availability; 1971’s ‘George Jackson’ and the ‘Infidels’ outtake ‘Tell Me’ spring instantly to mind but there were others. Still, I’m not unhappy with the way these 30 days/30 songs have turned out and in many ways it’s been more fun hunting around for a decent cover version when the original Dylan recording I’d set out for wasn’t available. With ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ itself I’d love to offer up the ‘Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3’ version for your enjoyment, which I genuinely believe to be the better take, but it doesn’t really matter, you can’t go far wrong whichever take you prefer. This is a song head and shoulders above normal standards. For me this is Bob Dylan’s masterpiece, I’ve had a twenty year relationship with the song and it still endures, which for a piece of music in essence so basic is incredible. But every time you go back to this song there’s a chance some new nuance could reveal itself. It works like a great abstract work of art, shifting perspectives that mask heart wrenching revelations about the mess of blues Dylan was attempting to illustrate. But then if the details always slightly escape you, maintaining that elusiveness in the dialogue that’s impossible to nail down with the narrator shifting from first to third person, the feel of the piece reveals all.