The song Judy Collins dedicated to Joan Baez: “Mystically endowed”
Judy Collins has lived a thousand lives.
Initially wanting to be a concert pianist, Collins became one of the biggest forces in folk, altering the landscape while boosting the careers of two of the biggest names in history: Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. Part of what endeared Collins to people like Cohen was her poeticism and how she lived by the same mantra as many major folk players, with art that actually had meaning.
Like many of her peers, Collins also had a good idea of what was worthwhile and what wasn’t, and whenever she listened to a new piece of music, she knew immediately whether she would return to it or whether she’d forget about it and never listen to it again, which came through in her own work, with worlds and ideas built around that which she truly believed was worth sharing.
It took a little coaxing to get there, though. In fact, it wasn’t until the mid-1960s that a gentle push from Cohen made her start to change her mind about the kind of star she could be. His simple quip about it making no sense that she wouldn’t write her own music made her effectively run home to her piano and write her first song, ‘Since You Asked’, in around 40 minutes.
Of course, it takes a hefty amount of talent to be able to do that for the first time, which, evidently, Collins had in spades. But many of her best songs came from such sparks of inspiration, whether it was an unexpected pearl of wisdom from Cohen himself or another meeting with another major folk name, like Joan Baez.
In fact, Wildflowers is full of these moments, and the third song that she ever wrote, ‘Albatross’, was written after she visited the legendary folk singer and felt inspired to write a song about “my image of who she is”.
Discussing the track with The Line of Best Fit a couple of years back, Collins explains how much she admired Baez and why the song will always be dedicated to her. “I always dedicate this song to Joan Baez because it was after I visited her in Carmel that I wrote the song,” she said.
Adding, “It really is about my image of who she is. Of course, it’s not boilerplate. These are just the images that came to me at the time. I love Joan. I admire her, and she’s been a friend to me for 60 years now. I think she has an aura of mystery about her. The impression I’ve always had of her is of someone who is very mystically endowed.”
Collins might have felt somewhat creatively restricted at the time, having worked solely on piano. She even admitted elsewhere that she never felt she would be able to write as freely as people like Cohen, because she didn’t have the luxury of being a good guitarist. However, her craft ended up enriching the emotional power within her own music, with songs like ‘Albatross’ withstanding the test of time due to its simplistic intimacy.
A song so romantic about another major folk player never needed to have any special embellishments anyway, especially as the lyrics and melody do all the talking. “The embroidery of your life holds you in and keeps you out but you survive / Imprisoned in your bones / Behind the isinglass windows of your eyes,” Collins sings, capturing the poetic charm of everything she has to offer.
