{"id":2358,"date":"2024-10-29T07:15:06","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T07:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=2358"},"modified":"2024-10-29T07:15:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T07:15:06","slug":"2358-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=2358","title":{"rendered":"SHOCKING: Joan Baez haunted by heartbreak Recently due to.."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joan<\/p>\n

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All this talk about Taylor Swift has got me thinking about Joan Baez. I spent last weekend listening to\u00a0The Tortured Poets Department<\/em>, and \u2013 even more fun \u2013 reading long online threads stating confidently who each song was about. I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t admit to enjoying every minute of this. But the fixation on Swift\u2019s muses reminded me of the film I\u2019d seen just the week before, a new documentary about Baez, called\u00a0I Am a Noise<\/em>.<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The title is taken from a line in her teenage diary, \u201cI am not a saint, I am a noise,\u201d and the film is enriched by some great early footage \u2013 of Joan becoming an overnight folk sensation, playing Carnegie Hall and appearing on the cover of\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0magazine; and then of Joan meeting\u00a0Bob Dylan. The photos and film clips of the two of them together are just wonderful: joyous and heartbreaking in equal measure.<\/p>\n

Back in 1963, she was more famous and successful than Dylan, and onstage at the Newport Folk Festival she introduced him to the world. He\u2019s still a chubby-faced vagabond, sweet and wickedly funny, and the two of them are at that stage where everything \u2013 love, music, the whole shebang \u2013 is just playful fun. They\u2019re both beautiful, they\u2019re both talented, everything is bathed in a golden glow of youth.<\/p>\n

Until suddenly it isn\u2019t. Joan talks about how she went to visit Dylan in London in 1965, when he was playing those gigs featured in DA Pennebaker\u2019s\u00a0Don\u2019t Look Back<\/em>\u00a0documentary. When I saw that film decades ago, it contributed to my feelings about Baez: that I didn\u2019t particularly like her voice, that she seemed a bit pious and goody-goody, and, worst of all, that she was clingy and needy, hanging around Dylan when he didn\u2019t want her there. He\u2019s cruel to her in the film, and perhaps I was too young to note that fully, or understand the context.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here, in this new documentary she admits that he broke her heart. They had been so close that his coldness to her was devastating. He had moved into a new phase, and had a new crowd, and she knew she couldn\u2019t and didn\u2019t want to keep up \u2013 with the drugs and the fame and the new hint of darkness around him. She made her escape, but took a deep wound with her, and in 1975 released\u00a0Diamonds & Rust<\/em>, which I find myself listening to on repeat after seeing\u00a0I Am a Noise<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The lyrics are so heart-on-the-sleeve, so shattering in their admissions. \u201cAs I remember your eyes\/Were bluer than robins\u2019 eggs\/My poetry was lousy you said\u2026 Ten years ago\/I bought you some cufflinks\/You brought me something\u2026 Speaking strictly for me\/We both could have died then and there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubting the song is about Dylan \u2013 she paints a clear portrait of him \u2013 but here\u2019s the thing: she has also described, in her memoir, the moment when she blankly denied this fact to Dylan\u2019s face, saying instead that the song had been written for her husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor your husband?\u201d Bob said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah. Who did you think it was about?\u201d I stonewalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, hey, what the f**k do I know?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNever mind. Yeah, I\u2019ll sing it, if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n

I find this scene so poignant; its noting of the fact that it can be humiliating to admit to the person who broke your heart that your feelings went deep enough for you to write a song. Along with the film, it all made me warm to Baez more than I ever had before.<\/p>\n

And it made me think again of the way we speculate about song lyrics, and what that feels like for the writer. I\u2019ve had my own small experiences of this. A very long time ago I wrote a song with the opening line \u201cHello Mark, long time no see\u201d, and all my friends spent years trying to work out which Mark it was about. No one ever guessed right.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t matter much anyway. The song wasn\u2019t about him, but his friend. And no, even after all this time I\u2019m not telling you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All this talk about Taylor Swift has got me thinking about Joan Baez. I spent last weekend listening to\u00a0The Tortured Poets Department, and \u2013 even more fun \u2013 reading long online threads stating confidently who each song was about. I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t admit to enjoying every minute of this. But the fixation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200.webp",2560,1920,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-300x225.webp",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-768x576.webp",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-1024x768.webp",1024,768,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-1536x1152.webp",1536,1152,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-2048x1536.webp",2048,1536,true],"jnews-360x180":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-360x180.webp",360,180,true],"jnews-750x375":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-750x375.webp",750,375,true],"jnews-1140x570":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-1140x570.webp",1140,570,true],"jnews-120x86":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-120x86.webp",120,86,true],"jnews-350x250":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-350x250.webp",350,250,true],"jnews-750x536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-750x536.webp",750,536,true],"jnews-1140x815":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-1140x815.webp",1140,815,true],"jnews-360x504":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-360x504.webp",360,504,true],"jnews-75x75":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-75x75.webp",75,75,true],"jnews-350x350":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-350x350.webp",350,350,true],"jnews-featured-750":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-750x563.webp",750,563,true],"jnews-featured-1140":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200-1140x855.webp",1140,855,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Newssoccer","author_link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Blog<\/a>","tag_info":"Blog","comment_count":"0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Joan205600x3200.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2360,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2358\/revisions\/2360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}