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What was the first Bob Dylan song covered by Joan Baez?

Thu 3 October 2024 17:30, UK

Let’s get this clear from the start: Joan Baez made Bob Dylan. By the time the two met, Baez was already the star of the folk scene as the Barefoot Madonna had the music world enamoured by her voice and poetry. Meanwhile, Dylan was still a complete unknown, trying his hardest to get a foot in the door. When Baez first sang one of his songs, she not only opened it for him but beckoned him out onto the world’s stage and into the limelight.

The relationship between the musicians from then on is a complex one, spanning decades. When they first met, they seemed to fall into a complete and utter mutual infatuation that was powered by their deep love for one another’s music. As Dylan said, “She had that heart-stopping soprano voice, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind”. From there, they began dueting all around the world at folk festivals. Baez began dedicating more and more time in her set to singing Dylan’s songs. It felt like they connected on some effortless level; anything they turned their voices to together sounded incredible. “I thought our voices really blended well; we could sing just about any kind of thing and make it make sense,” Dylan said, “To me, it always sounded good, and I think it sounded good to her, too.”

But then things went south. After giving him her stage, Dylan suddenly became a star. It seemed that with the door she’d opened for him, the world had taken the love she had for his music and turned it into something bigger, making a God-like myth of the man she knew. As she’d later write in her devastating take ‘Diamonds and Rust’, “You burst on the scene / Already a legend,” going on to detail the ways he turned on her with his new celebrity as she sang, “My poetry was lousy you said.”

It seemed that with his new fame, Dylan cared less for Baez and struggled off their years-long will-they-won’t-they relationship. “I think that his fame happened so fast, and it was so huge, that I kind of got lost in the shuffle,” said Baez. Even Dylan admits that. “I was just trying to deal with the madness that had become my career, and unfortunately, she got swept up along, and I felt very bad about it,” he said, adding, “I was sorry to ever see our relationship ever end.”

But while it ended tragically, it began with a song as Baez put her voice to his words for the first time.

So, which Bob Dylan song did Joan Baez sing first?

Baez and Dylan first met in April 1961. Dylan was a new kid in Greenwich Village, while Baez was already the queen of the scene. When they met, she told the new kid that she liked his track ‘Song to Woody’, and a friendship began, initially bonded over their mutual love for Woody Guthrie.

Then, in May 1963, during her set at the Monterey Folk Festival, Baez brought Dylan out to sing one of his songs together for the first time. They sang ‘With God on Our Side’, a then-unreleased track that would end up on his 1964 record Times They Are A-Changin’. But before it’s release, the song became a staple in Baez’ sets as herself and Dylan sang it together along with others.

Around the same time, she’d also regularly sing ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright’ and more. Later on, she’d record some of these tracks, and a compilation called Baez Sings Dylan would be released, which would include live recordings and studio outtakes. Dylan, in turn, wrote Baez into several of his songs like ‘Oh Sister’ or ‘She Belongs to Me’.