"early one mornin the sun was shinin,
i was layin'in bed
wonderin if she'd changed at 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 standin on the side of the road
rain fallin on my shoes
heading out for the east coast
lord knows i've paid some dues.
gettin through,
tangled up in blue.

she was married when we first met
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 up on a dark sad night
both agreeing it was best.
she turned around to look at me
as i was walkin 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
workin for a while on a fishin' 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 workin in a topless place
and i stopped in for a beer,
i just kept lookin at the 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 somethin 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 burnin coal
pourin 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 cafes 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i became withdrawn,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 keepin' on like a bird that flew,
tangled up in blue.

so now i'm goin back again,
i got to get to 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 know what they're doin with their lives.
but me, i'm still on the road
headin' for another joint
we always did feel the same,
we just saw it from a different point of view,
tangled up in blue."
--bob dylan; "tangled up in blue"; blood on the tracks.

that song has replaced "watershed" as my new shower song.  i listen to it twice every morning, at least.  don't know why, but i remember a talk fallon and i had, about our favorite singer's voices.  she likes david gray, i like dylan.  she said how when you hear his voice, you know.  you know he's been there, he's seen it all, he's lived through it, and he wrote a song about it.  when you hear dylan's words from his own lips, you know he's felt this connection with a girl.  he's traveled all over, and she keeps popping up, on the road, she's there, like his shadow.  his words, and to some degree his voice, tell a story.  what the words don't fill in, his tone does.  his smoked out voice, the voice of a man who's smoked a thousand cigarettes and drank in a thousand towns in this country.  he's been all over, and somewhere, this redheaded girl keeps on popping up.

they're connected.

why doesn't anyone write songs that tell stories anymore?

anyway.  the house show was cool today.  sheetz, lou, matt, nikki and i spent all day driving around, looking for wrestlers in reading, but there were none around.  so, we ended up skipping out on school for nothing.  which i was fine with.

fallon's addicted to 89.1 now, too.  last night, they were talking about the correlation betwixt a girl's underwear choice and the likelihood of receiving sex from her.  or something.  i swear, you could smell the marijuana in that little college radio broadcast booth from my car's speakers.  somehow, they got onto the topic of women's underwear and the relationship they have with the emotional issues the girl carries into any relationships she has with men.

i think.

it's the most inane conversation i've ever heard, but when you're listening, it's hard to turn it off.  and then they'll go into a david bowie song, and i REALLY won't be able to turn it off.

i'm gonna finish up jen's section on the site, and then bebop on over to bed.