Why I think this Bob Dylan song is all about Joan Baez

One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)

Bob Dylan

I didn't mean
To treat you so bad
You shouldn't take it so personal
I didn't mean
To make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that's all

When I saw you say "goodbye" to your friend and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you'd be comin' back in a little while

I didn't know that you were sayin' "goodbye" for good

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn't see
What you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid
I couldn't see
How you could know me
But you said you knew me and I believed you did

When you whispered in my ear
And asked me if I was leavin' with you or her
I didn't realize just what I did hear
I didn't realize how young you were

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you're just doin' what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn't see
When it started snowin'
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn't see
Where we were goin'
But you said you knew an' I took your word

And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin' me, you weren't really from the farm
An' I told you, as you clawed out my eyes that I
Never really meant to do you any harm

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

This song appears on Dylan's second-to-best album, Blonde on Blonde (1966), the best (of course!) being Rough and Rowdy Ways, which he released only last year. My analysis of this song, line-by-line, attempts to prove my thesis:  though never recognized as such, it is a shockingly detailed, almost literal re-telling of his stormy, complicated and often sado-masochistic relationship with Joan Baez.

I didn't mean
To treat you so bad
You shouldn't take it so personal

The song starts off with this heartless and cynically dismissive assertion. In essence, he's saying to Joan, "Hey, I demolished you emotionally, but stop being so touchy about it. It didn't mean anything to me."

I didn't mean
To make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that's all

That glimmer of compassion ("I didn't mean to make you so sad") is then negated, if not stomped into the ground, by the cruelly casual "you just happened to be there, that's all". This is beyond dismissive - it borders on contempt, as if a figure as crucial to his career as Baez was just a bystander or a piece of furniture in his path (if not in his  way).

When I saw you say "goodbye" to your friend and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you'd be comin' back in a little while

I didn't know that you were sayin' "goodbye" for good

Now, this MAY be related to a scene from the infamous 1966 documentary Dont Look Back (apostrophe omitted on purpose, for reasons unknown). Cameras followed Dylan around on his London tour, and though the concert performances are outstanding, the really fascinating part  takes place in Dylan's hotel room, filled with hangers-on (including a then-unknown Donovan, soon to eclipse Dylan on the hit parade) and media people hanging about like vultures. But one of these hangers-on was Baez, who came along with Dylan on tour (inviting herself, I believe) as a tag-along. Though Baez generously gave Bob's fledgling career a boost in 1961 by bringing him up onstage with her (when he was "a complete unknown" - sorry!), Dylan even more famously did NOT return the favor. It's as if she wasn't even considered. Was she asking too much, or did she have a hidden agenda all along, boosting her OWN career by giving the meteoric "unwashed phenomenon" a leg-up which he didn't actually need? 

In any case, the dynamics here are tangled and complex. The thwarted Joan was left strumming a stray guitar in the hotel room and singing in an ear-splitting voice that is really meant to be heard from  a distance. I don't remember the song, but it sure wasn't anything original. She was still singing archaic, traditional folk ballads like Mary Hamilton and Silver Dagger, with Dylan having long passed and surpassed her several years before.

"When I saw you say goodbye to your friend and smile" - that whole verse actually, literally happened. A particularly obnoxious sycophant named Bobby Neuwirth, supposedly Joan's good friend, attacked her verbally on-camera for no reason, claiming she was nothing but a flat-chested has-been (!). Joan tried to laugh it off, but you could see how devastated she was as she slipped out the door to catch the nearest plane home. Goodbye for good. But Dylan attempts to yank the yo-yo string by assuming she'd be "coming back in a little while" - an arrogant assertion if ever there was one.

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

Again, this is so back-handed! "You just did what you're supposed to do" may be a reference to the way Baez proudly displayed the still-wet-behind-the-ears Dylan on stage during HER concert performances. After singing Masters of War or With God on Our Side, she'd get the audience all stirred up by asking the crowd, "Would you like to meet the young man who wrote  that song?", prompting screams of adulation.  And "I really did try to get close to you" can be taken at least two ways. It echoes the story of the disgusting sycophant Richard Farina, who, shockingly, married Joan's teenaged sister Mimi just to "get close to" Joan. For career reasons only.

I couldn't see
What you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid
I couldn't see
How you could know me
But you said you knew me and I believed you did

More enigmatic statements, but "your scarf it kept your mouth well hid" may be a shockingly direct detail (in the way Dylan can throw in shockingly direct details, even in the middle of the most surrealistic song). In Dont Look Back, Joan attempts to attract some attention by covering her mouth with a gauzy scarf and doing a sort of seductive harem dance in the hotel room. For no apparent reason, Neuwirth casually, mockingly rips into her. She dances around like Mata Hari, trying  desperately to look as if she's just goofing around and having a good time, as Dylan coldly ignores her and Neuwirth gores her in her most vulnerable places. "Look, there's Fang Baez, wearing one of those see-through blouses that you don't even wanna!" Ignoring all this, Dylan is as self-absorbed as always.  "But you said you knew me and I believed you did" seems to hint that HE felt (bizarrely) betrayed by HER. Today we'd call that "gaslighting".

When you whispered in my ear
And asked me if I was leavin' with you or her
I didn't realize just what I did hear
I didn't realize how young you were

Oh, now THIS one! This is very direct. At the time of the London tour, Dylan  was secretly married to Sara Lownds, a figure who is  to this day mysterious because she has never spoken to the media about Dylan or anyone/anything else. Baez knew nothing of her or of his secret marriage, but was to find out in a shocking, hurtful way. She came to his hotel room after hearing a rumor that he was sick, bringing him a shirt she had picked out for him. Sara answered the door, took the shirt, thanked her nicely, and closed the door again. "You or her" is sung with such vitriol that it can only be for real. "I didn't realize just what I did hear/I didn't realize how young you were" is a bit mysterious, since Baez is half a year older. And why is he playing so innocent with that "I didn't realize" business? "How young you were" is a bit of a puzzle, but it's known that Dylan was attracted to the 17-year-old Mimi Baez (then still in high school) before he took up with Joan.

I couldn't see
When it started snowin'
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn't see
Where we were goin'
But you said you knew an' I took your word

Am I reaching here? Not by much. In the lyrics of Baez' melancholy anthem to Dylan, Diamonds and Rust, there appear these lines: 

Now I see you standing

With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel over Washington Square

Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me

We both could have died then and there

Yes, SNOW. But the snow falling all around them and lighting on his famous nimbus of hair was blinding his view. Can't see in front of me, Joanie, it's SNOWING outside. And "your voice was all that I heard" - well, that's a bit obvious. What else does he care about 'cept what she (meaning her voice) can do for his career? "Couldn't see where we were goin'" might be literal (Dylan is blind as a bat without his glasses, and too vain to wear them in public), but it can also mean where the relationship was going. It was inseparable from the complicated dynamics of their briefly-intertwining careers. It seems to me he  (at least initially) liked and admired her, but SHE was madly, passionately in love with him. "But you said you knew an' I took your word" seems to suggest  Baez wanted to retain sort of share in Dylan for "discovering" him, and the direction she was taking him in (a sort of creative partnership) wasn't what he wanted at all. He was too proud to receive help from anyone, and by that time he was already more famous than Baez would ever be. So, once again, the line has a flavour of accusation, as if he trusted HER and she somehow betrayed him.

And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin' me, you weren't really from the farm
An' I told you, as you clawed out my eyes that I
Never really meant to do you any harm

This may just be a Dylanesque detail thrown in for drama. Hmmmm, did he really apologize to her, how sincerely, and exactly for what? For shooting down her floating hopes with a poisoned arrow? "Clawed out my eyes" and "never meant to do you  any harm" both seem like fiction to me. But years later, in answer to a sappy song Dylan recorded called Oh, Sister (which most felt was a sort of backhanded, even chastising love song for Baez - he  wasn't quite through with her yet), Baez wrote a song right back at him, called Oh, Brother! In it she clearly refers to the nasty triangle of Dylan, Baez and Sara Lowndes. But all this came much later. Could Dylan see (even with his blind eyes)  "where we were going", after all?

The line about "from the farm" makes no sense to me at all, unless it's a reference to Maggie's Farm. Upon which Dylan ain't going to work no more. Oh, or it could be this - on the same album, there's a line in Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands (known to be a paean to Sara): "They wish you'd accepted the blame for the farm." I can't make this one out either, except her "streetcar visions" may be a reference to A Streetcar Named Desire and Blanche Dubois losing the family plantation, Belle Rive. OK, I know, it's far-fetched, but so is Dylan, sometimes.

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
That you just did what you're supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

Sooner or later, and he  doesn't seem to care too much if it IS sooner or later, "one of  us" must know (and in Diamonds and Rust, Baez talks about Dylan's talent for "keeping things vague") that she served her purpose - what she was "supposed to do", which is to make him famous. But did he really try to get close to her, and what exactly does that mean? In the Richard Farina sense? Though Dylan's famous, probably fictional "motorcycle accident" in 1966 gave him  the massive time-out he needed to survive, ironically, Farina died at the same time in an actual motorcycle accident. Richard Farina, who was married to Joan Baez's 17-year-old sister. Oh, what a tangled web, and how skillfully and ruthlessly Dylan weaves fiction and fact together! But this is one nasty song, and I can't  see how to read it any other way.

In subsequent years - MUCH later - Dylan praised Baez to the  skies, even rhapsodizing about her in a bizarre 30-minute award acceptance speech in the early 2000s. Too little, too late? Though  Baez generously and publicly congratulated Dylan for his 2020 masterpiece, Rough and Rowdy Ways, she has also said she has no desire to meet up with him again. Sooner or later, one of them (meaning HIM) must know just what he did to her, and how wounds that deep and devastating can never heal.