Remembering When Joan Baez Explored Her Complex Feelings About Bob Dylan With a Hit Single in 1975

As the leading younger artists during the American folk music boom in the early 60s, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan found themselves linked in the public consciousness. For a while, they forged a romantic bond as well.

A decade or so later, Baez took stock of her past and present with Dylan in a searingly honest song. It resulted in one of the biggest hits of her career and one of her finest moments as a songwriter.

The Early Days

Joan Baez had already established herself as a star on the folk music scene when Bob Dylan emerged as a scruffy underdog. Baez immediately recognized Dylan’s songwriting talent and iconoclastic performing skills. She helped him get across with the folk audience by singing his songs and having him perform with her.

At some point, the two struck up a romantic relationship, although one that was far from steady and was interspersed with relationships that the two were having with others around that time. When Dylan left behind the folk music scene in the mid-60s, it roughly correlated with the end of their tryst.

But it was far from the end of their contact with each other. Dylan would periodically reach out to Baez now and again out of the blue. One of those times that he reached out fired something up in Baez. It led her to switch the focus of a song she’d been writing and use it to reflect on Dylan and her odd relationship with him.

Some Days are “Diamonds”

The impetus for “Diamonds & Rust” was a phone call that Dylan placed to Baez. At the time, he was developing the songs for his landmark 1975 album Blood On The Tracks. On this particular call, he wanted Baez’s opinion on a new song he was writing called “Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts”.

“Where are you calling from?” Baez asks in “Diamonds & Rust”. “A booth in the Midwest.” This call sparked in her memories of when they first met. She talks about how he emerged “an unwashed vagabond” and remembers a romantic evening in Washington Square.

But Baez also speaks plainly about the mixed feelings accompanying her remembrances. “You who are so good with words,” she sings. “And at keeping things vaguely/’Cause I need some of that vagueness now/It’s all come back too clearly.” Even within that gorgeous, crystalline voice, traces of frustration and pain emerge.

Dylan’s Reaction

“Diamonds & Rust”, the title track to Baez’s 1975 album, sparked a career resurgence for the legendary singer. The song hit the Top 40, and the album sold more for her than any since her folk heyday.

And what did Bob Dylan think about all this? When he hired Baez to sing on his Rolling Thunder Review tour in 1976, he asked her about the song. Baez played it coy, insisting that the song wasn’t about him, despite all evidence to the contrary.

In later years, however, she acknowledged the actual inspiration. “Diamonds & Rust” shines for how well it expresses the panoply of feelings that overwhelmed Baez after receiving that surprising phone call.

(Photo by David Redfern/Redferns)