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"The Bootleg Series Vol. 5 - Live 1975", Track #21

BILL COHEN: In some of the material concerning Dylan and his various relationships it seems to me that this one " Just like a Woman" was his good bye song to his love affair with Joan Baez. When Dylan was ending his relationship with Suzie Rotolo he watched Joan Baez perform. He was awed by her. Her strength, her dignity and her grace. She was slready a major name on the folk scene, and as he notes in his book, he wanted to know her better, really know her. She fell hard for him, but he stayed very vague in his relationship with her. He found her to be very upper class. Her father was a college professor and her family had the polish that his did not. They were different.. In some of the early pictures she looked so beautiful, with her long hair, lovely virginal face, and slim figure. They were from different worlds. They became inseperable. When she was on the road she "wrote me letters and sent me checks" She introduced him to Pete Seeger and all the big names in folk music. She brought him up on the stage at the Newport Folk Festival. They sang-- " with God on our side". and "You playboys and playgirls, you ain't gonna run my world" She made him. She gave him the break and exposure that he needed. She loved him. She was the girl with the falls ( Long hair wigs), Amphetamines ( psychostimulant drugs eg. Dexadrine which were not too big an issue in those days) and her pearls. She makes love ike a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl. She wasn't a Village free love chick. She fell in love and broke down and cried like a little girl when it became apparent that he was not there for the long haul He gave her songs which made her fabulously famous, but really nothing of himself. Complicating the situation, she was bisexual which Dylan would not deal with. They gave each other the best they had, but it could never work for him, and most probably not for her. She ultimately married a young man who did whatever she told him ( David), they had a son (Gabriel) and she divorced him. Little was heard of either her husband or her son after that. She took several lovers (female) and discusses her love affairs in her book " And a voice to sing with" Dylan went on to marry a Jewish girl (Sara) with whom he felt tremendous love and a good deal of common in their backgrounds. She was his Isis, the Egypt Goddess of love and mystery. His Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands. His love songs to her are some of the most intense that I have ever heard. Baez penned an angry sarcastic farewell song to Dylan called " Diamonds and Rust where she talks of her love and her hurt, to be returned only by his vagueness, and distance. In the end shis asking what was it " give me a word for it, you who are so good with words". He never did (02/08/07)