| Author | Message | ||
     Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2297 Registered: 10-2006 |
If you have a moment, could you go to the original BOTT version of Tangled up in blue (make sure no subtitles activated!) as linked below, slide along to around 3 minutes 12 in (unless you feel like listening to the whole thing again, and why not, it is endlessly listenable), then let me know: which century do you hear Bob sing here?? You might of course know the song so well that you already have an idea which century it is, but if so, try to place any preconceived notions aside, and listen again! Thanks a lot! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKcNyMBw 818 | ||
| Burgers Member Username: Burgers Post Number: 226 Registered: 05-2005 |
Sounds like thirteenth to me | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1566 Registered: 04-2005 |
Fifteeneth to me ! I'm not going to go out and buy 27 CDs of the 1974 tour with The Band (never saw the attraction of the original live album), but isn't Dylan still an enigma ? Impossible to figure out. I'd still go for any evening from the 1966 tour, when the time machine is finally up and functionning  | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2298 Registered: 10-2006 |
Thanks guys! Dylan is one of those inexhaustible 20th century figures I find myself going back to, like Mahler, Woolf, Beckett, Auden, Plath, the Beatles… In this present case, because my wife had to get some music for her online reading group’s “Instagram story” (no idea), “something American… on the road… relationships” she said, and Tangled was the first thing I thought of. When she heard it, she was overwhelmed: “What a FANTASTIC song!!” (shows you how much attention she pays to what I listen to…) I ended up listening to it several times, plus some other versions and covers (including Tedeschi Trucks who give it a nice epic feel, but make a mess switching the singers when the piano guy is doing just fine: he also contributes a lovely, deft solo). But this “century” thing is bugging me, especially after a bit of research… More contributions gratefully accepted!! | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10729 Registered: 05-2005 |
15th. Definitely. | ||
| Pádraig Collins Member Username: Pádraig_collins Post Number: 10730 Registered: 05-2005 |
After further listens: 13th. Possible. | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2300 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ha! That, Mr Collins, is indeed the crux of the matter! | ||
| Simon Withers Member Username: Sfwithers Post Number: 799 Registered: 08-2005 |
13th. Definitely maybe. | ||
| Andrew Kerr Member Username: Andrew_k Post Number: 1567 Registered: 04-2005 |
The official site does state "From the thirteenth century" https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/tangled-b lue/ | ||
| Stuart Wilson Member Username: Stuart Post Number: 2301 Registered: 10-2006 |
Yes, 13th is the usual number to come up, even on one of the earlier versions, that “button clicking” thing from the NY sessions, I think, he sings it quite clearly there. That’s why I was surprised when I came back to the BOTT track and it sounds like 15th! The lyrics have been radically reworked, of course, but, unless he just mis-sung, I don’t suppose there’s any reason to play with the identity of the Italian poet. So I suppose we’re stuck with Dante! But which Dante? I like the idea of linking the song’s “great north woods” to that “dark forest, half-way through life” at the start of Inferno, but describing the Divine Comedy as “a book of poems” is a bit odd. Maybe A New Life then, which contains most of his sonnets to Beatrice and the tale of how they came to be written (“like it was written in my soul from me to you…”). Bob, doubtless, will not be telling. |