Happy Birthday, Bob

Still my favorite Bob Dylan tune: “Tangled Up in Blue” from Blood On the Tracks (1975). Hard to believe the guy is 70 today. Then again, it’s hard to believe I’m pushing 50; so, there’s that.

When that album came out in January 1975, I was 12 going on 13 and in the seventh grade. When you’re that age and somebody writes lyrics like this, it makes an impression:

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 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I became withdrawn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 …

If it’s the 1970s and you write a lyric like “There was music in the cafés at night/And revolution in the air” you can’t not expect a twelve year old boy to get sucked in.

Oh, and here’s a cool factoid: Each verse of “Tangled Up in Blue” is a sonnet (more or less). The give away is:

She opened up a book of poems

And handed it to me

Written by an Italian poet

From the thirteenth century

And everyone of them words rang true

And glowed like burnin’ coal

Pourin’ off of every page

Like it was written in my soul

From me to you

Tangled up in blue …

I always assumed that was a reference to Petrarch, perhaps the most famous writer of Italian sonnets, but Petrarch lived from 1304 to 1374, which was, of course, in the fourteenth century. It could be a reference to Giacomo da Lentini, a thirteenth century Italian poet who is often given credit for originating the sonnet form, but I suspect Dylan just was referring to Petrarch but was off by a century. You know, poetic license and all that. Literally, in this instance.

Ironically (or not), it turns out that the lyrics of “Tangled Up in Blue” actually fit the Shakespearian sonnet format, not the Petrarchan format, because Dylan ends each verse with a rhyming couplet. But, hey, it’s the thought that counts.

Anyway: Happy Birthday, Bob! And thanks for giving me a reason to get my literary geek on.

© 2011 David P. von Ebers. All rights reserved.