Tangled Up in Blue

Dylan wrote it in summer 1974, after the tour with the Band and his separation from Sara. He took painting lessons from Norman Raeben, which influenced the song. The New York version was cut in eight takes at A&R Studios on 16 to 19 September 1974. The album version was recorded on 30 December 1974 at Sound 80 in Minneapolis, with Kevin Odegard and Chris Weber on guitars, Gregg Inhofer on keyboards, Billy Peterson on bass and Bill Berg on drums, engineered by Paul Martinson.

The single came out in February 1975 with If You See Her, Say Hello on the B-side and reached 31 on the Hot 100. In his memoir Chronicles (2004), Dylan said the album was based on Chekhov short stories. In a 1978 Rolling Stone interview he said the lyrics have a code and no sense of time.

Live

He first played it on 13 November 1975 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New Haven. He rewrote the lyric in 1978, adding a Bible reference, and again in 1984 for Real Live. It has been logged about 1,700 times in concert. Covers include versions by Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, the Indigo Girls, Robyn Hitchcock and KT Tunstall, and Mary Lee's Corvette covered the whole album in 2002.