Joan Baez recently said that her leftover resentment for Bob Dylan “just drained away” while she painted a portrait of Dylan.The two singer-songwriters were a couple back in the ’60s and also worked together on several projects before and after their romantic relationship ended. In a recent Variety interview, Baez talked about how Dylan held a strong presence in her new documentary, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise, where she admits that he broke her heart.
When Baez was asked if she stayed in contact with Dylan, she stated, “Not really. But it so much doesn’t matter. Whatever resentment I might have had hanging on there [inside myself] for all those years, you heard and saw that in the film. Well, I was doing his portrait one day in my art studio. And it was a portrait of him when he was very young. And I put on his music, and all of that resentment, all of that bullshit, just drained away, it drained away.”
Baez also added that she wrote to Dylan explaining her feelings, “I didn’t put a return address or an email or anything that was in any way trying to get something out of him,” she added. “I just wanted him to know how much he meant to me. How much his music had meant to me. And I may never see him again, and that’s OK too.”
Meanwhile, Baez was last on tour in 2018, and says that she doubts she ever will tour again, adding, “I was thinking about that the other day, because I have my lovely big guitar hanging on the wall, I haven’t touched it since the end of the last tour. In fact, I have two guitars, identical ones, that we used in concert. That I needed for the concerts. And I gave one away on the last concert. So that meant to me that I was serious. I came home, and I never played the guitar again. I hung it up on the wall, and I’ve sung under duress a few times, but not really, I just went into other things. I’m drawing and painting.”
Baez’ new documentary, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise already premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on Friday and is set to make its U.S. debut on March 10th.
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