WHICH VERSION DO YOU LIKE MOST?
BEN SIDRAN - TANGLED UP IN BLUE
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Early one morning the sun was shining
ReplyDeleteI was laying in bed
Wond'ring if she'd changed it 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 meet
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 it up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best
She turned around to look at me
As I was 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 happened 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 her side of her face
In the spotlight so clear
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's 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 on 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
"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 thirteenth 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
I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs
There was music in the caf,s 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.
So now I'm going back again
I got to get her somehow
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives
Don't know how it all got started
I don't 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.
"Then she opened up a book of poems
ReplyDeleteAnd handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century"
I believe this book to be "The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti," translated by Ezra Pound. Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, 1912.
I have to say I like KT Tunstall's rendition the best. She brings out the melody and keeps the tune.
ReplyDeleteI think the first stanza of the poem is the weakest, the second is probably the most mysterious (and I think the most accomplished), and although I think that each stanza can stand alone as a story, the third the fourth and the fifth flow seamlessly into one story, and build to the conclusion.
most say it was petrarch.
ReplyDeleteor dante.
i agree: calvacanti:
Di questa donna non si può contare:
ché di tante bellezze adorna vène,
che mente di qua giù no la sostene
sì che la veggia lo 'ntelletto nostro.
Tant' è gentil che, quand' eo penso bene,
l'anima sento per lo cor tremare,
sì come quella che non pò durare ….
of her one couldn’t sing
other than her coming in a beauty
that our lowly minds couldn’t sustain
what our intellects saw
so gently noble is she that when she fills my mind
my soul feels my heart shiver
so it can’t continue …
Voi che per gli occhi mi passaste ‘l core
e destaste la mente che dormìa,
guardate a l’angosciosa vita mia
che sospirando la distrugge amore
E’ ven tagliando di sì gran valore
che’ deboletti spiriti van via
riman figura sol en segnoria
e voce alquanta, che parla dolore.
Questa vertù d’amor che m’ha disfatto
Da’ vostri occhi gentil presta si mosse:
un dardo mi gittò dentro dal fianco.
Sì giunse ritto ‘l colpo al primo tratto,
che l’anima tremando si riscosse
veggendo morto ‘l cor nel lato manco.
You whose look pierced through my heart,
Waking up my sleeping mind,
behold an anguished life
which love is killing with sighs.
So deeply love cuts my soul
that weak spirits are vanquished,
and what remains the only master
is this voice that speaks of woe.
This virtue of love, that has undone me
Came from your heavenly eyes:
It threw an arrow into my side.
So straight was the first blow
That the soul, quivering, reverberated,
seeing the heart on the left was dead.
i agree: she's hot.
she went to high school in kent ct.
ReplyDelete1/4 chinese 3/4 scotish.
raised in scotland
Yeah, they say it was Petrarch or Dante because those are the only 13th century Italian poets they know.
ReplyDeleteBut the subject matter and the lyric format of Cavalcanti fits the song much better.
And the translation by Ezra Pound is the clincher. That's just the sort of thing to which Bob Dylan would make an allusion.