For a Certain Someone: The Star Bob Dylan Wrote “Lay Lady Lay” For

None of Bob Dylan‘s songs are seemingly empty. Now, some might be simpler than others, but even the most simple of his songs still obtain a sense of sophistication and story. Furthermore, like many artists, a good deal of Dylan’s songs are written about or for someone. He just very rarely divulges who that person is. However, he once did, and that was when he revealed that he wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for Barbra Streisand.

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In terms of celebrity, Bob Dylan and Barbra Streisand are two of the biggest to come out of the 20th century. They both came up together in the Greenwich Village music scene. However, once they both achieved success, their careers could not have gone in more different directions. Regardless, Dylan, for some reason, needed to say or do something for Streisand, and he did so with “Lay Lady Lay”.

Bob Dylan Wrote It for Streisand, but Never Revealed Why

In typical Bob Dylan fashion, he kept his cards close to his chest and never revealed why he wrote the song for the singer. As a matter of fact, Dylan himself never even revealed this fact to the public. Rather, the public discovered his motive after an unreleased transcribed conversation from 1971 between Dylan and blues legend Tony Glover went to auction in 2020.

That being said, it seems Dylan never desired for this information to go public. Nevertheless, in the transcripts, Glover asked Dylan if he wrote the single for the film Midnight Cowboy. According to the transcript, Dylan replied, “Actually, it was written for Barbra Streisand,” per NBC. That comment alone has a multiplicity of meanings. However, per the context of the conversation, it seems Bob Dylan wrote the song for Barbra Streisand to sing. So, it was seemingly not a romantic gesture.

Regarding the discovery of this information, Streisand told NBC, “I’m very flattered to find out that Bob Dylan wrote ‘Lay Lady Lay’ for me. […] What I remember is getting flowers from him with a handwritten note asking me to sing a duet with him, but I just couldn’t imagine it then. Guess what, Bob, I can imagine doing it now.”

Every time you think you’ve heard every Bob Dylan story, something else just pops out of the woodwork. Like his stories, the behind-the-scenes of Bob Dylan’s life and career continue to unfold right before our eyes.

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