The heartfelt songs Bob Dylan and Joan Baez wrote about each other
In the entirety of music history, there is no end of complex couples and love triangles to unpack. Out of them all, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s messy, decades-long connection has to be one of the most fascinating.
That’s partly due to the mystery surrounding it. Especially when it comes to Dylan, the musician has forever evaded any questions about his personal life. Beyond a few facts the world knows, he has always buried the truth about his life amidst lies, poetry, and lyricism, so actually deciphering who a song is about has become a frustrating mission for fans.
But, as Joan Baez’s role in Dylan’s life was often on stage for the world to see, there is no denying the tether between them. It could be argued that without Baez, there would be no Dylan, as she played a major role in introducing him to the folk world. Yet, in turn, he seemed to pay her back for that favour with heartache as their connection appeared like a difficult game of will-they-won’t-they that spanned years, crossed tours and found its way into several songs.
While Baez is more forthcoming about Dylan’s role in her songs, having laid out the truth about some of her lyrics across interviews or her autobiography, Dylan has always kept his mouth shut about his muses. However, in the interplay between their work, seemingly existing in conversation with one another through a series of nicknames and codified images, they both appear as key characters in one another’s music, especially in these more direct tracks…
Songs Bob Dylan and Joan Baez wrote about each other:
‘To Ramona’ – Bob Dylan (1964)
When Bob Dylan and Joan Baez first met, politics and passion for protest was one of the things that drew them together. In the early 1960s, when Dylan was a folk artist through and through and Baez was the ‘barefoot Madonna’ found lending her angelic voice to issues of social injustice, the pair were both busy trying to use their art for good. But, as time went on, Dylan withdrew from that world and, in turn, seemed to withdraw from Baez too.
“I’ve never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world. I’ve gone through all that,” Dylan would later come to say, becoming disillusioned with the world he once played in. In ‘To Ramona’, it could be that Dylan was trying to get his friend and complex lover to see that, too. Embedded into a typically tricky Dylan heartbreak song, singing of two people pulled away by unknown circumstances or different lives, the characters also seemed pulled away by different beliefs.
“But it grieves my heart, love / To see you tryin’ to be a part of / A world that just don’t exist,” he sings, perhaps addressing Baez in a plea to get her to realise that music maybe isn’t some magic healing too as he continues, “It’s all just a dream, babe / A vacuum, a scheme, babe / That sucks you into feelin’ like this.”
Of the song’s subject, Dylan said, “Well, that’s pretty literal. That was just somebody I knew”. In Baez’s eyes, she was the “somebody”, as she wrote in her autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, that ‘Ramona’ was a nickname Dylan gave her early on in their connection.
‘She Belongs To Me’ – Bob Dylan (1965)
Perhaps one of the kindest songs Dylan has ever written about a lover in his life, ‘She Belongs To Me’ is a celebratory, glorifying love song that presents the woman in question as a kind of God and the men around her as fools to her beauty and power.
Recorded in early 1965, this was really at the eye of the storm of Dylan and Baez’s complex relationship. At the tail end of his connection with Suze Rotolo, right before his secret marriage to Sara Lownds, the two folk singers spent this mid-60s period locked into each other’s orbit as they performed duets together and suggestions of Baez’s influence or role as his muse crept up in several songs. But when it comes to ‘She Belongs To Me’, he makes no real secret of Baez’s impact.
“She wears an Egyptian ring; it sparkles before she speaks,” he sings, connecting to the fact that Baez wrote about Dylan buying her a “red Egyptian ring” at the height of their connection. “She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist / She don’t look back,” the lyrics go, touching on Baez’s position as an established name and a future-thinker. Later on, this song would give the name to Don’t Look Back, a documentary focussing on this time period where Baez was a key part of his life.
‘Visions of Johanna’ – Bob Dylan (1966)
While Dylan’s songs involve a degree of mystery surrounding their topic, ‘Visions of Johanna’ is one of the most ambiguous. Across its seven-minute run time, Dylan introduces a triangle of characters: Johanna, Louise and Louise’s lover. With so many words and so much going on, there’s a lot to unpack. That feels purposeful as Dylan, who has forever evaded the press about his personal life, seems desperate to throw people off.
But the most common reading of the song is that ‘Visions Of Johanna’ deals with the messy situation between Dylan, Baez and his new wife, Sara Lownds. Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin aptly and hilariously writes that the track is “one of the oddest songs ever written by a man who has just tied the knot”, as Dylan seems to be writing about being “entwined” with his lover while “visions of Johanna conquer” his mind.
While he tries to hide that behind his characters, Baez’s figure creeps in. In the final verse he sings, “And Madonna, she still has not showed,” referencing the folk singer’s nickname as the ‘barefoot Madonna’. Singing about noticing the absence of Johanna in the shape of his new lover as the “ghost of ‘lectricity”, Baez herself later referenced this track in her own response, seemingly claiming the song as an ode to her.
‘To Bobby’ – Joan Baez (1972)
Baez’s messages to Dylan really only came after the fact. When their relationship was at its prime, as they were dueting around the festivals together, they largely sang Dylan’s songs or classic folk covers. It wasn’t until their connection had gone somewhat sour that Baez’s feelings towards the musician seemed to come out in her own work.
‘To Bobby’ was the first and certainly the clearest as she literally names and shames him, seemingly referencing ‘To Ramone’ in the title. “Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby? / They’re crying for you,” she sings on the track, which serves as a plea for Dylan to return to political writing. “You left us marching on the road and said how heavy was the load,” her lyrics go, dealing directly with Dylan’s rejection of protest music or tackling social injustice in his work.
In the liner notes to the record the track sat on, she wrote, “In 1972, if you don’t fight against a rotten thing, you become a part of it,” clearly seeing Bobby as part of the rot as she launched this disappointed ode his way.
‘Diamonds and Rust’ – Joan Baez (1975)
Dylan and Baez’s complex relationship was not a short flash in the pan. This confusing connection lasted well over a decade, as something sparked it up again in 1975. But by now, Baez seemed to have grown weary of it, finally finding her voice about the whole situation as she released ‘Diamonds and Rust’, her powerful opus on Dylan that blasts his legacy, his treatment of her, and her heartache over the whole, drawn-out affair.
From the start and their days at folk festivals (“You burst on the scene already a legend”), her desire to be with him through tough times (“the Madonna was yours for free, yes the girl on the half shell could keep you unharmed”), through to her seemingly cruel treatment of her (“my poetry was lousy, you said”), Baez manages to pack a whole relationship into this song that is still so tight, so concise and so poetic. No doubt, if Dylan had ever critiqued her talent as a writer, this track made him swallow his words.
‘Winds Of The Old Days’ – Joan Baez (1975)
But if ‘Diamonds and Rust’ dealt with the anger stage of grief, ‘Winds Of The Old Days’ on the same album settled into a state of saddened acceptance. While the opening number begs to be freed of Dylan’s ghost and memory, this more tender, loving track seems to thank him for it, recognising his impact on her life despite the hurt.
“Idols are best when they’re made of stone / A saviour’s a nuisance to live with at home,” she sings, willing to chalk Dylan’s difficult nature up to his talent. But then she shares her gratitude for him as she adds, “Stars often fall, heroes go unsung / And martyrs most certainly die too young / So thank you for writing the best songs / Thank you for righting a few wrongs.”
It’s also in this track that Baez claims ‘Visions Of Johanna’, referencing Dylan’s own lyrics as she sings, “Ghosts of Johanna will visit you there / And the winds of the old days will blow through your hair.”
‘Oh, Sister’ – Bob Dylan (1976)
However, while Baez seemed keen to put it all to bed in 1975, joining him on the Rolling Thunder Revue as a way of refreshing and restarting their friendship through collaborating again, something clearly sparked up again.
The tour seemed destined to be a mess emotionally. Dylan and Baez were billed together once more, putting their connection to the test by sending them out on the road again. Baez was newly divorced, Dylan’s relationship with Lowndes was in its final days but still his somewhat estranged wife was on the road with them too. But, if theories around ‘Oh, Sister’ are correct, Dylan seemingly wanted more attention from Baez.
“Oh, sister, when I come to lie in your arms / You should not treat me like a stranger,” he begins, bemoaning someone for not giving him the attention and love he craves as he continued, “Oh, sister, am I not a brother to you / And one deserving of affection?” While that could really be about anyone, Baez’s next move made the message clear…
’O Brother!’ – Joan Baez (1976)
In a direct response to Dylan’s song, Baez launched ‘O Brother!’ that same year. “And I’ve known you for a good long while / And would you kindly tell me, mister / How in the name of the Father and the Son / Did I come to be your sister?” she sings as the central lyric, taking a straight aim at his track. It goes even beyond that as Baez rages at Dylan’s treatment of everyone around him, singing, “You’ve done dirt to lifelong friends / With little or no excuses,” she sings.
But beyond that, ‘O Brother!’ feels like a breaking point for Baez again. Laying her cards on the table, she’s calling for a bold move to be made as she declares, “If I had the nerve / To either risk it or to break it / I’d put our friendship on the line / And show you how to take it.” Seemingly sick of being treated like a second option, she calls for the song’s subject to decide, or realise, who he wants, singing, “When are you going to realize / That you just can’t live without her?”
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