“I Took a Walk On The Wild Side”: How Joan Baez Came To Have a Change of Heart About Bob Dylan

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were once the folk music “it” couple of the 1960s. The Queen of Folk and the moody vagabond with a penchant for wordsmithing enjoyed their reign together in the early part of the decade before Dylan’s growing celebrity and Baez’s dedication to the protest aspect of folk music would eventually split the paths of these star-crossed lovers. Dylan went on to become one of the biggest folk rockers of all time. Baez’s star power, though undeniable, stayed further underground. 

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For a while, there was bitterness, as is often the case when two lovers (let alone artists) part ways. Other times, there was wistful grief, like the kind expressed in Baez’s 1975 track “Diamonds and Rust.” Despite these more challenging waves of negativity, the two artists have remained kindred spirits, speaking highly of one another in their older years. But each musician and ex-partner had to find a way to make peace with that on their own terms.

How The Dynamic Duo Came To Dissolve

In the first half of the 1960s, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan seemed to be an unstoppable duo on and off stage. Although it’s hard to imagine Dylan as a newcomer to the scene now, that’s precisely who he was when a young Baez first started inviting him on stage to perform alongside her and on his own. Eventually, that spotlight swallowed Dylan whole and left Baez in the dark. Dylan’s first U.K. tour in 1965 put a fatal strain on their relationship, killing the unique blend of artistic respect and personal affection that defined their bond.

Baez’s heartbreak came in waves. There was the initial shock of rejection from a man she had not only admired but also helped get in the door of the folk music scene. As Dylan moved away from the political and social boots-on-the-ground aspect of folk music, Baez’s feelings shifted to betrayal. More simply, there was the grief of losing someone you love because they had moved on to something different. The loss of Dylan was almost as complex as the man himself, which was certainly an impressive feat.

Baez and Dylan’s relationship oscillated between tense and cordial in the years that followed, eventually reaching a distance that allowed both musicians to heal from and process their highly influential time together. For Baez, it took a lot of time and revisiting Dylan’s old records for her to achieve the peace she had been seeking since the mid-1960s.

How Joan Baez Had A Change Of Heart About Bob Dylan

Since her days as the Queen of Folk Music, Joan Baez has pursued visual artistic endeavors, one of which includes a series of portraits of notable figures. Unsurprisingly, this led to Baez painting two portraits of her former colleague, Bob Dylan. In the documentary I Am Noise, Baez recalled watching Dylan’s face appear on the canvas. “He was that young face with baby fat. We both had baby fat then. And I put on his music, and I started to cry. All that resentment completely washed away.”

In an interview with Dan Rather, she described it as taking a “walk on the wild side with that music. I thought, ‘That’s too great. That talent is too great to have any resentment about it. Anything except a wholehearted feeling of caring and great gratefulness. It is such an honor to have been a part of his life and to share that music and to have, you know, loved him and even liked him. That’s a recent change for me. I was still hanging onto old stuff.”

“I might still make wisecracks about him,” Baez said in I Am Noise. “But all the unhappy, gritty bulls*** is done” (via USA Today).

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