"This took me 10 years to live, and two years to write," Dylan often said before playing "Tangled Up in Blue" in concert. His marriage was crumbling in 1974 as he wrote what would become the opener on Blood on the Tracks and his most personal examination of hurt and nostalgia. Dylan's lyrical shifts in perspective, between confession and critique, and his acute references to the Sixties experience evoked a decade of both utopian and broken promise. His plaintive vocal and the fresh-air picking of the Minneapolis session players, organized by his brother, David Zimmerman, hearkened to an earlier pathos: the frank heartbreak and spiritual restoration in Appalachian balladry. Dylan has played this song many different ways live but rarely strays from the perfect crossroads of this recording, where emotional truths meet the everlasting comfort of the American folk song.
Early one morning the sun was shining
I 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 my love 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
Saying "Jimmy, 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.
"Tangled up in Blue" is a multi dimentional narrative on relationships. It charts Dylan's life at a time where he was reeling from love lost. The Telegraph has described the song as "The most dazzling lyric ever written" 3 years later was to see Dylan divorce from his wife. The lyrics are a sort of confession and potant story of a turbulant relationship. Keeping with the theme of confession and a narrative of relationships we turn to the relationship that Peter has with Jesus. In our devotional passage this morning in John 21 we find Jesus and Peter on the shore reflecting about their friendship and hearing Peter's confession about this.
This is not the only time in the Gospel of John that Jesus and Peter have a discussion after finishing a meal. Notice that this exchange took place “after breakfast” (21:15), and that Simon had just stripped off his “outer garment” (21:7). There was another conversation between Jesus and Peter in the presence of other disciples that took place right after a meal? The discussion in the upper room in John 13:3-5? After the last supper, Jesus removed his “outer garments” and gave an object lesson to the disciples.
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. (John 13:36-38)
In response to Peter’s boast that he would follow Jesus to death, the Lord told Peter that he would deny Him three times. This is exactly what happened according to John 18:15-18, 25-27. In a curious detail, he did so while warming himself by a “charcoal fire” (John 18:18). Turning back to John 21, notice what had been built on the shore where this conversation occurred. “They saw a charcoal fire in place” (21:9). The setting of Peter’s three denials is now the setting for these three questions.
The specific questions Jesus asks Peter to begin the dialogue in John 21:15. “Do you love me more than these?” Back in John 13, Peter had no problem boasting of the extent of his love for Jesus. But this time, how does Peter respond. “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” No longer does Peter boast as he did in Matthew 26:33, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” He loves Jesus, but is unwilling to assert that he loves Him more than the other disciples do.
And just as Peter denied Jesus three times, now Jesus questions him three times about his love. This explains why in v. 17 Peter was “grieved” because Jesus “said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me’” – it reminded him of his three-fold denial. More importantly, in asking these three questions, Jesus offers Peter the opportunity to reaffirm his love and friendship three times. With each question and every reply, Jesus assures Peter that he still has an important task to accomplish, to feed the disciples that will come after.
This once brash and boastful Peter failed to follow Jesus to the cross, the forgiven and renewed Peter will be able to do so.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:18-19)
The details highlighted by any conventional English translation offer a simpler and more elegant reading of this exchange. Peter’s three-fold denial is replaced by a three-fold question, a three-fold confession, and a three-fold commission.
This is Jesus and Peter's multi dimentional narrative. This is Jesus and Peter's tale of love lost and love found. This like Dylan's song "Tangled up in Blue" charts the living narrative of mistakes and confession. Each of us have a back story like Dylan and Peter that make us the People we are today. Dylan can say "It two years to write and ten years to live" for Peter it took only moments to deny and the rest of his life he bore the scars.
Relationships leave in indelable mark on us. Some for the worse some for the better. In dylans song "Tangled uop in Blue" there is not outcome to his confession. In the story of Jesus in Peter the outcome is restoration, Peter will go on (armed with his scars) to be faithful and true disciple and teacher of the Jesus story long after Jesus is gone.
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