The two “fruity” folk singers John Lennon never liked: “Does it sound like Dylan to you?”
John Lennon didn’t shy away from expressing his true feelings on any subject matter. He said precisely what was on his mind, even if it could get him into trouble.
For a musician, earning an insult from Lennon could be viewed as a badge of honour and a sign of truly making it. If he was speaking about you, even if his comments were of a derogatory nature, it was typically evidence that an artist was doing something right and encouragement that they were on the right path.
He was also his own harshest critic, too. Therefore, considering how critical he’d been of his own output, there was a context to his comments that this was simply Lennon. Despite his immense reputation, his words were taken with a grain of salt rather than as career-ruining.
In a comprehensive 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, shortly after The Beatles had split, Jann S Wenner got inside the mind of Lennon. During their conversation, Lennon gave his two cents on a number of different talking points relating to contemporary music at the time, which was as fascinating as one would expect.
When ‘Working Class Hero‘ cropped up in conversation, Wenner made the mistake of likening it to something Bob Dylan could have mustered up. Considering Lennon styled himself on Dylan for a period in the mid-1960s, changing his approach to songwriting, this shouldn’t have been a controversial statement.
However, Lennon took it as an insult, replying: “Anybody that sings with a guitar and sings about something heavy would tend to sound like this. I’m bound to be influenced by those because that is the only kind of real folk music I really listen to.”
It was clearly a touchy point for Lennon, who wanted to be viewed as his own artist and found the comparison to be lazy, but it did lead to him disclosing the two folk musicians that he can’t bear listening to. “I never liked the fruity Judy Collins and [Joan] Baez and all of that stuff,” he said.
Lennon added of his own limited knowledge of folk, “So the only folk music I know is about miners up in Newcastle or Dylan. In that way, I would be influenced, but it doesn’t sound like Dylan to me. Does it sound like Dylan to you?”
The interviewer then backs down and says it’s only the instrumentation that reminds him of Dylan, which elicits this response, “That’s the only way to play. I never listen that hard to him.”
Considering he claimed not to listen to folk music, it appeared that wasn’t totally true, if he felt compelled enough to give Baez and Collins a bashing in the music press.
Seemingly, neither Baez nor Collins was fazed by his offhand comment, as both artists have paid tribute to Lennon publicly since he made his uncomplimentary remark.
In 2007, Collins released a tribute album titled Judy Collins Sings Lennon & McCartney. The album includes covers of Beatles classics such as ‘The Long and Winding Road’ and ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’.
Meanwhile, Baez was asked by Rolling Stone about her favourite protest songs, reeling off ‘Imagine’, and saying of the classic creation, “I sing this on my current tour and people love it and they sing along. I love the song because it’s beautiful; It has a beautiful lilt and it’s easy to sing…People love it and clap in the middle of it every night.”
It’s fair to assume that Lennon bore no long-lasting grudge against the two folk singers; they were just the first folk singers in a half-similar mould to Dylan that came to his mind. He poured his heart and soul into creating ‘Working Class Hero’, which is why he reacted cantankerously to being accused of ripping off another artist.
However, Lennon, being Lennon, had to go a step further and throw the entire folk scene under the bus.
