10 Rock Songs That Waited Years Before Being Released

Much of the rock and roll classics seem to be like capturing lightning in a bottle. No matter how artists might like to finetune their songs every now and again, these are the kind of songs that almost seem like they took no time at all, taking basic chords and making something classic. That’s not always how it works out though.

For all of the great parts that these songs have on their own, they were actually brought together over a long stretch of time, with the artist sitting on it until it was the right time to put it out. If you have that kind of lightning in a bottle energy, why not lead with something like this? Well, sometimes you have to take into account the timing as well. These songs may have been great in the first place, but the production might not have been the right fit until they actually got big enough to get someone in the studio.

There are also times where you have bands that have just the right melody to win you over, only to spend years with the song trying to get just the right amount of experience into the tune. In most cases, it’s not the song’s fault that it never got released that timely. It just comes down to the artist in question, and sometimes you have to live a little more before you’re ready to take on songs like these.

If we’ve learned anything from his career, Bob Dylan is not a musician that should be rushed. If he has a classic under his belt, he’s only going to put it out when he thinks it’s fully realized, otherwise we get projects like Self Portrait that feel like an intentional middle finger to the audience. Blood on the Tracks was the big divorce record though, and Tangled Up in Blue took him years to live in before actually singing.

In between studio sessions, Dylan had also started taking different courses in New York City, which managed to completely upend his style of writing. When finally laying down each verse of this song, Dylan practically frames the story of these two lost lovers trying to find each other in a complete narrative. Going from the first verse to the final verse, you can see the full romantic plotline play out, talking about how he helped her out of a bind with a lover that she didn’t like until eventually falling apart themselves and hoping to find each other again somewhere along the line.

Even when the final version was done, Dylan was still having a few doubts, down to rerecording the entire song with a new band after hearing feedback from his friends that it sounded too sad. Relationships like this don’t always end the happiest though, and Tangled Up in Blue is a real take on how to make peace with all that heartache still trapped inside you.