Diamonds and Rust: Bob Dylan vs. Joan Baez

Nashville troubadour, there's the born again Christian. But we never really get to talk about Bob Dylan, the bad boyfriend. You know, it remains really tragically under disgust. And I'm kind of kidding, but this whole story really does kind of humanize them in a way that I think it's really rare, and you know, especially because Lord knows, Joan won't stand for, you know, any deifying which you know, God bless her. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be upfront in

this episode. Um, Bob Dylan is my favorite artist of any kind. He's my favorite musician, my favorite writer, my favorite persona or I guess set of personas he's my favorite everything. But I'll admit that whenever I watch a Bob Dylan documentary or read a Bob Dylan book, and trust me, I've like watched many documentaries about this man and read many books, I'm always excited to hear from Joan Baias because she knew him in a way that I feel like most people don't know him. Not that

she understands him exactly. I mean, she's set up front that she doesn't understand him, and I don't think anyone really understands Bob Dylan, but she's witnessed the less mythic version of Bob Dylan, shall we say. I mean she was there at a pivotal point in his career early on, she played a major role in making him a star, and she observed the changes in him as he became

this iconic figure in the mid nineties sixties. And it's true that she has some like pretty withering things to say about him, and like we're gonna go through that in this episode, but I feel like there's also genuine admireation and even affection that she still has for Dylan, and I feel like the reverse is true as well. I think Dylan still has a place in his heart for Joan Bias, and you mentioned the crappy boyfriend thing earlier. I feel like he's like expressed remorse for that, although

maybe not as much as he should have. Right it took him, i'd say, about a good half a century, which you know, I don't know what the statute of limitations is on apologizing and being a bad boyfriend, but that's pushing it. You mentioned understanding Dylan, which I think is such an interesting choice of words, because you know, any other artist where I own like more than two thirds of their discography on multiple formats, read half a dozen books on their lives, watched hours of documentary, I

would consider myself a pretty major fan. But for Bob Dylan, that's just like entry level dylanology. That's just like syllinology, the syllabus for like dyllannology, one on one. And it's just so interesting is the intensity of his fan base

is just so total. I mean, obviously that speaks to the depth and quality of his work, but it almost makes me fearful discussing him because there's just so many interpretations not only his lyrics, but even just like his inner views, like what did he mean when he when he said that? So I don't know. He's such a fascinating figure, and I feel like, uh. Joan, on the other hand, just doesn't sugarcoat it, doesn't code it in

any kind of imagery whatsoever. She's so much more direct, So I almost feel like in this story it kind of tends to skew more her way because she actually lays it all out there, whereas Bob has been much more opaque over the years. But even if it is skewing her way, I feel like she's been again pretty even handled in like the documentaries I've seen, and you know, again like she'll make it clear when he was a jerk.

But then she also is very sure to say that she thinks he's a genius and that she's very moved by what he's done. I remember one documentary she said, you know, no matter what Bob Dylan does, always forgiven as soon as he starts singing, which I think is an incredible thing. I think what draws me to the story is that it reminds me in a way of like a star is born, you know, that classic show biz love story, except the genders are reversed and no

one died fully Thankfully. It also reminds me a little of a previous Rivals episode that we did, our first one, which was on Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Although I wonder if in this scenario, if Bob Dylan is Stevie Nicks, I can see that I'm gonna vote that Joan is more Stevie, not only because I find it to be the more sympathetic character in this and I find Stevie to be the more sympathetic character in Fleetwood Mac, but also I think about how Stevie supported Lindsay back when

they were first making music together. She was taking waitressing jobs and made jobs and stuff while he stayed at home and wrote I feel like Joan kind of played a similar role to Bob, kind of giving him that platform to be the most Bob that he could be, and to really kind of he could sort of follow in her wake, so to speak. And and uh, I

mean because she literally gave him an audience. I guess I feel like Bob might be the Stevie because she he ended up being the bigger star and Lindsay was the stronger one at the beginning artistically, and then Stevie surpassed him. But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. We should get into the background of this story first before we start Perry Pop Dolan to Stevie Nicks. Perhaps, so without further ado, let's get into this mess. So Joan

came on the scene first. Her father had taken a faculty position at m I T. So Joan gotter start singing coffee shops and small clubs around Cambridge in a late fifties and she was still just a teenager. Was crazy how young she was. And she met a guy named Bob Gibson who was a big key figure in the folk music scene at the time. And you know the folk song All My Trials, kind of like an anthem at like early sixties protest marches and stuff. He

was the guy who popularized that great beautiful song. Uh. In many black and white documentries you'll hear that song. Yes, it's like in the way that um fortunate Son would be like late sixties All My Trials is like the early sixties standard stock, like early sixties documentary go to song.

So Bob Gibson, Big Deal invites Joan to sing at the Newport Folk Festival in nineteen fifty nine, the annual Folk Summit for for you know, Pete Seeger in the whole the whole Gang, and that's really what launched her career. And they sang two duets. They sang Virgin Mary had One Son and we were crossing the River Jordan or the Jordan River, and the response was absolutely overwhelming. It

basically led to her getting her first record contract. In nineteen sixty, when she was nineteen years old, she released her self titled debut and it became this really unlikely hit. It was just a bunch of traditional folk ballads and it made the Top twenty, and she very quickly became probably the most recognizable mainstream figure of the folk revival this side of like the Kingston Trio. She notched a

couple of gold albums in the early sixties. She's on the cover of Time magazine, was on TV all the time. And I think it was a mix of incredible talent. I mean, you know, her her piercing soprano, incredible intricate guitar work that I think Bob Dylan later said that she could play rings around him. So there was definitely that, and you know, I hate to say this, and I say this with all due respect to her musicality. Her looks in her image played a huge role. It's the

early sixties. This is the time when JF A h A lot of people think that the election that year went in his favor because of the televised debates with Richard Nixon. Media is becoming a lot more immediate, and she has a look that plays really well. Yeah, I'm gonna be a little more frank and say that Joan

Bayaz is a beautiful woman, Okay. And she sounded great, She looked amazing, She looked like a pop star while also having the credibility of like you said, she was a great guitar player, she could sing beautifully, and she was whipped smart and had a real political consciousness. So yeah, it was like the complete package with Joe Baida. Oh yeah, the color of the barefoot madonna in the press, which

I always thought was a great, great name. But but you're right, she's not only talented and beautiful, absolutely brilliant. And it's a showcase in her political activism. She goes down to Mississippi to help integrate schools. So many examples of her just in public taking these great moral stands, and she really kind of becomes like sort of the social conscious of the folk scene, and many of her

songs are embraced by all the protest movements of the time. Uh. She influenced the whole generation of rising singers Judy Collins, Emmy Lou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Rate all ciders and inspiration, as does a young Robert Zimmerman who's watching her on TV in Minnesota. UH. In his two thousand four autobiography Chronicles, he talks about seeing her on TV for the first time. He wrote, I couldn't stop looking at her and didn't

want to blink. The sight of her made me sigh all that, and then there was the voice, a voice that drove out bad spirits. She's sang in a voice straight to God. Nothing she did didn't work. Beautiful thing to say about someone. Yeah, he's very effusive. Although there's another quote that he had, um I think it's in the Direction Home documentary where he said he saw her on TV and he said, oh, I think she needs

a singing partner. So yeah, definitely very Dylanesque type balance there of like genuine reverence and he was also having some bravado there. In the documentary, Joan and Bob end up meeting in and this is I think a little

bit after Bob had arrived in New York. He rives in January sixty one, and her reaction to him, I think is similar to like how a lot of people reacted when they first saw Bob Dylan, that he was this sort of dirty street urchin looking character and he had a lot of like baby fat on his face. There wasn't really anything exceptional about him really, like when

you first looked at him. Um. But of course, Bob Dylan ends up going through an incredible artistic and personal evolution during this time that even now it's hard to comprehend, like how quickly he became Bob Dylan, the guy that was going to be writing these incredible songs that uh, we still love today. With Jone, it seems like because she wrote in her memoir about again like not being

terribly impressed by him. But on the other hand, she did have enough foresight to recognize the quality of one of his earliest songs, which is Sung to Woody, which is I think the only song that he wrote for his first record. Otherwise that first record is like all rs and the types of covers that, like other folk

singers in New York we're playing at that time. Of course, his second record, which comes out in sixty two, Free Will and Bob Dylan is the one that has Masses of War and Heart Reign is Gonna Fall and Blown in the Wind and Girl from the North Country. And he's already becoming Bob Dylan at that point. But Joan meets Bob, isn't terribly impressed, but wants to play one of his songs. Bob, of course meets Joan, he's already

seen her on TV. I imagine him having like the wildly coyote eyes, you know, that like bug out of his skull, you know, because not only is this a celebrity essentially, but she's again, like as we said, she's this beautiful, charismatic woman. And it seems like the attraction

soon became mutual. And I wondered to what degree Joan was just sort of drawn in by the exploding talent that Bob Dylan was starting to display at this time, But at any rate, she ended up inviting him to her family's home in northern California, and she really starts taking him under her wing. Like you know, he didn't have a lot of money at this time, but she provided a space for him where he could start writing

these songs. And it's interesting because I think about there was that Martin Scorsese documentary that came out in the Rolling Thunder review, and there's a famous scene in that movie that we're gonna talk about later in this episode.

But in that scene, Bob Dylan makes reference to being at this house near the Pacific Ocean and writing songs very quickly, and I assume that that's a reference to this time, you know, like when they were first kind of getting together and again having this dynamic of him being this unusual guy with a squeaky voice and her being this big star that is gonna like show him to the world. I mean, it seems like what they

were at the beginning, absolutely. I mean, she would invite him to perform with her on many cases, most famously at the New Fork Folk Festival in uh in sixty three. She was kind of repaying the favor from Bob Gibson, and that is sort of like similar for her the moment that he really just goes stratospheric. I mean, you couldn't craft a moment that is more perfect for his sort of ascension. You know, he where he's sort of

part of the continuum of wood. He got three to Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan's He closes I think the first night of the festival with everybody's joined on stage by Joan, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and the s NCCS Freedom Singers, and they all join hands and sing blown in the Wind and we Shall Overcome. It's

a beautiful moment. And that really is kind of when he arrives um and Joan is still bringing him out on her tours and there are people booing him, and she, I think she wrote in her memoir she had to get all schoolmarm and kind of wag her finger at them and say, no, look, I know this guy sounds a little weird. I know you're sort of used to my pitch perfect voice and he sounds like Bob Dylan. But listen to the words. This guy is a genius.

Oh it's so good. I mean. And she tells this great story too, when she's trying to get him a hotel room, and I guess he's turned away because he's still like in Full Wood, he gut three attire with like you know, rope for suspenders and stuff like that. He looks like he just came off the back of a box car and they wouldn't give him a room and she had to pull her you know, do you know who I am? Card? Basically and uh and and she goes over to him later and he'd written when

the Ship Comes In based on this whole exchange. But she always thought was such a true mark of his talent of just of feeling just so rejected and responding

with this absolutely incredible song. Yeah. You know, like when you were talking about that Newport moment, it just made me think of, like, that's the moment if we're going to compare this to a Star is Born, because I'm gonna I'm gonna be bringing the Stars Born analogy into this episode in the scenario, like Joan Baiaz is essentially like the Jackson Maine figure bringing in Bob Dylan, who is the Lady Gaga if you will, and they're gonna say shallow together and this is the moment that it

turns Bob Dylan slash Lady Gaga into a star. Is that a fair submission? Of like what the scenario is. I think it's absolutely a fair as summation. I think also there's the added element of Joan being sort of the honey for Bob's songs. I mean a lot of people at that time, in the early years of Bob's career aren't listening to him because they're so turned off

by his voice. But Joan sings his songs for him, and kind of it's what's able to put his songs across to a mass medium early in the career when they're not really used to. So she's providing the honey. But she's also pushing Dylan in a more political direction. Of course, he's already writing these great anthems that people will be singing at marches for the next fifty plus years. Again, Blown in the Wind Times, they are changing masters of war,

with God on our side, all these wonderful songs. But it seems like one of the first cracks in their relationship is that Joan wants to go even farther in that direction at the moment where Bob wants to pull back right right. I mean, she's like literally on the front lines down in Mississippi. I mean, Bob goes down there too, and he sings only upon in their game and when the ship comes in later that fall to vote voter registration and rally. But he really is trying

to back off. He doesn't want to be the guy. He doesn't want that responsibility. And she later expressed remorse for trying to push him further and further into sort of engaging in acts of civil disobedience. And I think Joan got arrested untold number of times in the sixties for being at them on the front lines of when the troops were being shipped off to Paris Island in different uh, different places where boot camps and things like that. He didn't want to do that. He really didn't want

to be that guy. And she was expressed remorse in later years for not recognizing that his acts were the songs that was his gift to the movement, not being I wonder, you know, and this is gonna be me psychoanalyzing Bob and Joan here. I wonder if on some level Bob Dylan started to look at Joan Bias as like a symbol of like what he was starting to resent about the folk world, you know, the strident politics,

the musical conservatism, like the rigidity of that scene. It's you know, obviously we all know that Dylan goes electric story and him writing songs like Positively Fourth Street where he is really lashing out at those people. And I just wonder if he came to look at Joan Bayaz, who again was this beautiful symbol of that music scene really was like the figurehead in a lot of ways, at least like in the pop music end of folk music.

I just wonder if maybe that fueled how he came to look at her and how he starts to treat her as their relationship starts to crumble a little bit um like I think about. I don't know if you remember this scene in No Direction Home, there's a there's an interview clip where Joan Bayaz is talking about how at one point Bob Dylan said to her, hey, let's go headline Carnegie Hall or or some other big music venue, and Joan Baias says, well, what are you gonna do

with it? You know? The implication being that if we're going to become big stars, that it ought to be to further some sort of politic the end, and it's clear that like Bob Dylan like by nineteen sixty four was not thinking in those terms in his career or in his art, Like he's looking at the beats. He's looking at like the French modernist writers, and he doesn't want to be hemmed in. He doesn't want to be

a politician. He wants to be an artist, and it seems like that really becomes something that is beginning to drive them apart. Yeah. Absolutely. You can see that on his next release, Another Side of Bob Dylan in August nineteen sixty four, and it's really a political and the reaction from folk purists were it was sort of like a mini Dylon goes Electric moment, and they thought he was abandoning the cause and wasn't living up to his responsibilities.

That was I think the underlying things that he has responsibilities and Bob didn't want them. And you know, I always think of that scene in the Life of Brian with the you know, the the Judean People's Front. Have you ever seen the Monty Python movie when it's just all these little cliques that all hate each other and

then just the infighting and everything. I always got the impression that he sort of viewed the the prous movement by like late sixty four, like that as sort of this seconcestuous group that really that was forced him to be something he didn't want to be. I think the other thing that's starting to happen to around this time and again this is bringing back the stars born analogy

here where Bob Dylan is Lady Gaga. I just want to put that thought into the minds of listeners Bob Bob Dylan and the star is born, where he is becoming a bigger star, and not only a bigger star, but like a hipper star, Like he's moving into a realm of music, where like he is the point person for the culture. Like the Beatles are looking to Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones are looking to Bob Dylan, like whatever

this guy is doing, we want to follow him. And Joan Baya is as great as she is at being that barefoot Madonna figure, you know that that archetypical sixties folk singer, It really starts to become really like a pass a idea, like that kind of folk music is not going to be very cool as we move into the mid sixties. And I feel like that tension, that career tension, was also something that was really starting to

hurt the relationship. Yeah, there was a great story where they were having dinner, Bob and Joan up in uh in Woodstock, and there was a woman across the restaurant just sort of making eyes at him all night and and Bob meanwhile, was just pounding the veno. And by the end of the night, this woman comes over and basically just throws herself at him. And Joan is furious for two reasons. I mean, one, you know, another woman

is now in her man's lap. And also she she wrote, I think in her memoir, you know I was used to getting that adoration, you know that that was had been reserved for me and not this drunken sot sitting next to me. Uh So that had to hurt. But you know, I mean I think, I mean it sounds obvious to state now, but his writing, he was a

writer than a Joan I don't think really was. And there was a great American Masters Um documentary PBS did probably about ten years ago, and Steve Earles interviewed and he said, you know, folk music became more important when Dylan songs were written. They set the stage that made rock and roll literature and therefore made rock and roll

on art form. You know, if you're gonna progress the art form of folk music, Joan at that point was really doing, you know, eighty year old songs, hadn't year old songs, and and wasn't moving it forward, and and Bob wasn't She She definitely knew that. I mean it was she her admiration for his songwriting has been so total through the years. But yeah, it had to be painful for her as a fellow artist, and also he

wasn't being very nice about it. In in the spring of nine five they did a co headlining tour and it was very right down the middle. There's that beautiful poster that looks like some kind of turn of the century French impression is painting of the two of them. I think Jon's name is first, but Bob's head is a little higher. They went and really really made sure to have it be fifty fifty. But he that was

really I think when the relationship started to disintegrate. He was very hard to just do songs with because, as you know, people who go see his endless tour, now, no, he doesn't do a song the same way night after night. And so she was trying to duet with him, and he would just put in a different time signature just to mess her up and specifically to mess her up. But that's just what he felt like doing that night.

And if you've got to play a song with somebody that's in a waltz, and then the next night you do it in two four, that's difficult. And she would later say, you know, he's very unique. It's it's admirable to want to change it up every night, but it's a pain in the ass when you're working with him and expecting something from him. And again, it gets back to that notion of expecting something from Bob, and Bob hates when there are expectations made of him, so he

was hard to actually perform with. And then also they had a huge blow up fight. I guess his favorite jacket got stolen and he unleashed all this rage, probably pill related rage at the security guard, and Jon was just like, what are you doing. Don't talk. You can't talk to people like that. That's awful, And then of course he completely rounded on her. They go out on

stage and have an amazing concert. You know, they walk off stage together applauses dying down she turns him and says, Wow, you should get Piste off more often before show that was and then she completely rounded on her again. And I think that's probably around when they begin the emotionally distance themselves, which sets the stage four. Yeah, well, because

you're talking about the Spring tour. But I think when people think about sixty five and Bob Dylan and Joan baia As, they're thinking about the tour that came after that, which was in England and the tour that is documented in the legendary documentary Don't Look Back. And when we think about Bob Dylan and Joan Baias in that movie, we essentially think about Bob Dylan being it looks like either really stoned on weed or like just like wired to the gills on pills. Why can't it be both.

You smoke the weed to come down from the pills and then you take the pills to get up from the weed. And it seems like that was definitely, uh the system that Bob Dylan was on at that time.

And look, like I said, I am a Bob Dylan fanboy, I'm not going to make excuses for like how he treats Joan Baias and don't look back, because he is like pretty cruel to her, and it looks like she's like having as rubal time the entire tour, and you just are just like, why don't you just leave the tour, which is something that she has said in subsequent years

that she should have just left. But she was there, I think out of a combination of like feeling lovesick for Bob and also having this wounded ego of knowing that she was in the process of being usurped by Bob Dylan, you know, this person that had once been her opening act essentially, but I think with Bob Dylan at this time, and again this isn't an excuse, but I think it is worth noting that he was about

four years old. He was in the process of becoming the Bob Dylan, which entailed a level of adulation that I guess you could compare it to the Beatles. I think that's the only person that you could compare it to. Even though the Beatles were much more commercially successful than Bob Dylan, they didn't have the level of importance spread

spread on the floor. And also they didn't, at least at that time, they weren't looked at with the same kind of reverence that Bob Dylan was like, because Bob Dylan wasn't just a pop star, he was like the voice of a generation. Like that archetype in rock music was affixed to Bob Dylan. I don't know if it was first, but to me, he's like the most obvious example of that archetype. Yeah, he was at the March on Washington, you know. I mean he is there alongside

Martin Luther King. I mean you view him in a certain way, especially in the early six he's at the March. He's also writing like the greatest songs ever, you know, and he's moving the art form forward in a way. Going back to what Steve Ril said in that documentary, that people looked at him as like transforming something that had existed in one form and now he's elevating it to something else. And that is the kind of reference

that Bob Dylan is having foisted upon him. In again, not excusing him for being a bad boyfriend, but I feel like those types of circumstances would probably affect anyone's mood or anyone's relationships with other people. It must have been in credibly difficult and and it's all there on film, seeing how he's basically being twisted into this very sort

of like mean spirited, gamesmanship driven. He's sort of like the prince of the Kingdom, you know, like he knows that anyone will do anything that he wants, and you can see it going to his head. But you also see him being a brilliant artist at the same time.

And Joan is basically caught up in this like like it's a meat grinder, and and you feel terrible for her as this is going on, because not only is you know, she's showing up at these concerts and expecting to be invited to go on stage because she wasn't actually performing on this to her, right, I mean, she was just there to hang out with Bob, and I think her feeling was that, well, she'll like, he'll invite me up there to sing, but he never really did,

so she's just sort of hanging out there for no reason ultimately, right, I mean, I think she laiced up. She had her own sold out show at the Royal Albert Hall while she was over there, but it meant nothing to her. She was just so demoralized by you know, her her her lover first of all. And also this person that she respects so much artistically just wasn't paying

her any mind at all. And there's that great scene and don't look back where she's tinkering with love is just a four letter word that that Bob has just written and I don't think he even finished yet, and she's playing it to him and doing a beautiful version of it, which is such a you know, the nicest thing one artist can do for another is to play their song. And he's just like looking daggers at her. He's like disgusted by it and he just rolls his eyes.

I don't think that's necessarily true. See again, I am, I think more empathetic to Dylan maybe than you are in the situation, because when I look at that scene, I see a guy who is at his typewriter writing

and I don't know what he was writing. He was probably writing like an amazing song because it's Bob Dylan in nine and he is in the process of like basically channeling an incredible amount of music, you know at this time, Like again, this is Bob Dylan in X five, Like there's really no one else you compare him to the songwriting output that he was going through at this period in his career, and he's trying to type, and there's this woman there that he maybe doesn't want to

be there, but he can't tell her that he doesn't want her to be there. And I don't know it. I'm not excusing again the behavior, but I understand his perspective of like I am trying to move forward and maybe this person belongs in my past and not in my present. You know. To me, that's the tension of that scene. And I don't necessarily feel like he's looking daggers at her. I feel he's more like maybe conflicted where he wants her to go, but he can't tell her to go. You know, there's a part of him

that can't allow him to do that. There's something he says later in UM. I think it's a no direction home, and it reminds me of a lyric that he would have written for, like Blood on the Tracks or something. He says like it's hard to be wise and in love at the same time. And I actually think that's a pretty apt description of that UM. Even if you watch it as an outsider and you feel like, oh,

poor Joan Bias, because that's my feeling when I watch it. Um, but I also feel like maybe he was pursuing something greater and bigger and he didn't have time for that. You know, I don't know. Am I being too kind to Bob Dylan? No? I mean I think in that scene, I completely see what you're saying. I feel as though because we haven't mentioned Sarah, his future wife, Sarah, who he also brought on the tour, which is, you know, if if you're gonna bring two girlfriends on one tour,

that's a bold move. I feel like uh and and Joan they did a really good job of trying to keep Joan away from Sarah until Joan bought Bob a present. I think he bought him a blue shirt and went to his hotel room to to try to give it to him, and Sarah answered the door and sort of quizzically was like, well, I took the gift for Joan. Uh. Joan didn't know she existed, and I think that was the moment that she kind of knew that that things were over. There was another woman in his life in

a major way. All right, Hey, we'll be right back with more rivals. So what's interesting to me is to look at this period of Bob Dylan songwriting, because again, he was very prolific at this time. And you know, I think even casual Bob Dylan fans could name like a dozen classic songs like from the mid sixties that

Bob Dylan wrote. But I know, like you and I were trying to figure out, like what songs did Bob Dylan write about Joan Bias because I feel like there's like a lot of conversation, you know, speculating on what songs are about her or what songs are about Sarah. And of course Bob Dylan is never all that helpful

like in these situations. He's never just like, yeah, that's about Joan And you know that's my Bob Dylan impression that you know, it's pretty it's pretty stock, you know, it's pretty rich little but you know, what can I say? But like, what, like what are the songs that people have like focused it on the most as maybe being about Joan Bias? Well, the one I always really thought was at least a line and just like a woman

when we meet again, introduced those friends. Please don't let on that you knew me when I was hungry and it was your world, because I just thought that really obviously references, you know when when he came on the scene and Joan was the queen of folk, you know, the cover of Time magazine and everything, and he was this hungry, scruffy little street urchin kind of guy. Uh. I was thought that song was eaty sedgwick. Uh. Yeah, I mean there are the references to amphetamines and pearls

and stuff, so that and that's very eaty. So you're right, But that's it's interesting. I never thought of that line, but that does make sense that that could be a Joan bias not and uh and this is way in the weeds, but and she belongs to me. Uh. He paints his picture of a powerful, independent creative artist that he apparently gave Joan a Egyptian ring once, and there's the line she wears an Egyptian ring sparkles before she sleeps, and which again that's a little too that's some that's

some fans fiction right there, maybe. But I that that was always very fascinating to me. And I always like the line she never stumbles, she's got no place to fall, and I always thought how that might sort of point to Joan being this sort of icon of the politically minded folk movement and she could never break from that

role without sort of losing face and losing her audience. Uh, which I don't know that again, that might just be me projecting a little too much there, but I thought that was an interesting line that could also be like a dig to oh totally you know that, yeah, that she's like too pious to like ever you know, fall from her perch of righteousness. I think of the song

Visions of Johanna being a Joan Bias song. I feel like Joan Bias herself has talked about how she feels like that songs about her, And you know, it's interesting in light of what we were just saying about that tour of England and sixty five where you had this weird love triangle going on between Bob, Sarah and Joan, Because if you want to say that Visions of Johanna is about Joan Bias, there is a love triangle in that song, and essentially the ideas the protagonist of that

song is with one Himan, but he keeps thinking about another woman. And you know, you can look at that literally, if you want to say us about Joan Bias is that about Bob Dylan saying that he still pines for Joan Bias, or does Joan want to believe that's true? I mean, I tend to take a broader interpretation that it's really a song about feeling perpetually dissatisfied, that like whenever you get what you want, that it doesn't sort of quench the feeling of yearning that you always have

inside of yourself, which isn't extremely Bob Dylan sentiment. I mean, obviously that is sort of the modus operandi of his career, you know, like he's always kept moving, he always changes his songs. There's never a point where he feels like he's nailed it down perfectly, and um, it's what makes him such a brilliant artist. I think it may also make him an impossible person to have in your life,

you know, someone who's perpetually dissatisfied. It's interesting to looking at what Joan Bias wrote in response to Bob Dylan, because I mean, Bias, she's that really a prolific songwriter. I think she's known more as an interpreter of other people's songs. That's certainly how she got her start in her career. But She has written some songs about Bob Dylan, like do you know the song to Bobby from seventy two. I just love how that really just encapsulates the differences there.

You've got these incredibly visions of Johanna and then you've got to Bobby. There's no no way to misinterpret that whatsoever. And I love that song. She didn't say Bob Dylan, that's true. It could it could just be any other Bobby, you know, but yeah, exactly Bobby, Bob Barker, could be could be a song about the prices, right, but yeah, it does seem pretty clear that it's about Bob Dylan. And this is like kind of her angriest song about Bob Dylan because she's basically going at him for his

lack of political activism. Like the idea of that song, she has this line in there she says you left this marching on the road and said how heavy was the load? The years were young, the struggle barely had its start, So the implication being that, like, you bailed

dude right where we needed you. We had the civil rights movement going on in the early sixties, and then you just like took off, like by sixty four and Bob, I know, like you wrote this in the outline and I never really thought about this, but you feel like the song wedding Song from Planet Waves is like an answer record to to the Bias song. Yeah, I mean I always thought, I mean, his songs could be about

twenty different things all at once. But I always thought the line it's never been my duty to remake the world at large, nor is it my intention the sound of Battle Charge, I always thought that was sort of his response to Bobby. It was like, you know, it was not that was not what I set out to do. That's fine if that's what you wanted to do, great, But that wasn't That wasn't who I was. That's not

why I got into doing what I do. So then Joan Baias puts her record Diamonds and Rust nineteen seventy five, which is the Joe Baias record I know, the like the best because I'm just gonna say that, Like I love Joan bayaz As like a figure, I love her as an interview subject. I'm not a huge fan of from music. Like, I don't know how you feel about

her music. I feel similarly. I definitely appreciate her more as a political figure and as absolutely the most entertaining part of any Bob Dylan documentary, uh and the most insightful. But this album I like the most because it comes from her. I feel like her interpretations of some of the older folk songs are in d gorgeous, but you know I I do. I'm more fascinated by when it comes from inside of her, And so this whole album is. And she's later said that this album was really her

her peak as a writer. In Diamonds and Rust in particularly, the song was one of the best she ever wrote. And you know, it's really sparked from Bob. Yeah, that song. And there's another song called Winds of the Old Days, which seems like, you know, a pretty direct song to Bob Dylan. And both of those songs are much more melancholy than to Bobby is it's reflecting on their relationship, looking back on it with some affection and as well

as some regret. And I feel like Diamonds in Rust in particular is this song where I think she's trying to get the upper hand in a way with her in a relationship with Bob Dylan, because essentially, at the end of that song, she implies that the man in the song, and again, I guess we'll just say that there's a protagonist and an antagonist in this song, and we won't necessarily say that they're Bob Dylan and Joan Bayaz, but they like probably are, They're based on some version

of who they are. The implication in that song is that, like, the man wants to get back together, and Joan is the one deciding that it's not going to happen, so it turns into this sort of victory for Joan. At the end of Diamonds and Rust, is that a fair

interpretation of that song? She tells the story where she was in the middle of writing a song and she got a phone call in nine four and I guess Bob called her out of the blue from a phone booth in the Midwest, which is amazing, and read her all the lyrics to a song and he'd just written Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, which I I interpret as a very sort of Dylanesque booty call. I suppose,

I yeah, he's flexing. He's like, I wrote this, I wrote this bomb song and you're gonna love it and you're gonna want to hook up man, because like I'm I'm Bob Dylan, I'm throwing straight heat. At this time, his marriage to Sarah was on the rocks, blowing the tracks. Was not far on the distance and not far in

the future. Um So Joan turns back to the song that she was writing before he called, and now it's become about Bob, and it's this I always took it as this really bitter sweet tribute to their love affair, written, you know, in her words, a couple of light years afterwards. And she's talking about this unwashed phenomenon. I love how whenevery she refers to like nine Arab Bob is always

like unwashed, unclean, sweet urchin street urchin. Just a filth just a filthy man, a filthy little man, dwarfed by his guitar. Yeah and so, and the best part was she she throws in a dig over there about how she says that that Bob, or should we say the antagonist says that she writes lousy poetry, which I enjoy that being in there too, she I, I just it's such a gorgeous song. It's one of the best kiss off song as I think of all time. You know,

it's classy, it's witty, and it's ruthless, you know. And and Bob, for whatever it's worth, was not shy about saying that. You know, I think this is about me and uh, oh man to be I think he said this direct quote to be included in something Joni had written. I mean, to this day, it's still impresses me. It's it's a nice If you're gonna be the recipient of a song like that, you might as well be gracious about it. I and I buy that. I feel like Bob Dylan, he's uh, you know, he's a player in

the game, man like game respects game. A good song, he's gonna respect it, even if it's about him. And if on some level, you know, I don't know if that song embarrassed him, or if it hurt him or anything, but it didn't seem to, you know, spark any animus

in him towards Joan at all. One thing I really like about Demons and rust Like, even more than the tail track, is that Joan Baiaz covers simple twist of fate from Blood on the tracks on that record, and on one of the verses she slips into like this, weird Bob Dylan impression. It's like impression, it's it's like

the arrangement of that song. It's really weird anyway, because you think of the original simple twist of Fate and it's this downtrodden romantic acoustic song where Dylan's is porn his heart out, and like the Joan Bias version is this like upbeat, like very mid seventies l a rock like redo, Like it sounds like an Eagle song when she does it, and and but then she slips into this like kind of perverse Dylan impression in the middle, and I'm like, I kind of wish he did the

whole song like that because it would have like registered more as like a dig on him maybe, or like, Yeah, you wrote this song about the woman that you left me for, and now I'm going to play it on my record and kind of make fun of it by doing this voice, you know exactly, I'm gonna kind of suck the soul out of it. I'm gonna make it

sound like life in the fast Lane. Uh. But again, like it doesn't see my Bob doing't minded that either, because he ended up inviting Joan Bias to be on the Rolling Thunder tour, which I think it's like my favorite Bob Dylan tour, Like I love this era and Joan Baiaz was like a huge part of that tour.

Oh yeah, my favorite part of this entire tour is apparently Bob asked her if are you gonna play that song, you know, the song about the blue eyes and diamonds obviously diamonds and rust, and she played dumb was like, oh yeah, that old thing I wrote for my ex husband. Sure, And you can just imagine Bob's face kind of falling and be like, well, ex ex husband, that was for your that was for your husband. And Joe was just very sweetly was like, yeah, yeah, who do you think

it was about? I really I like that a lot. Yeah. I mean, look again, it's Bob Dylan. He must have appreciated on some level, like someone throwing his own bullshit back in his face, like she's not gonna admit it, like you would never admit it if it was the

other way around. I mean, like Bob Dylan wrote a song called Sarah about his wife, and like he kind of backed off from that, like really kind of explaining the meaning behind that song whenever people would press him about it years later, so I mean he's done the same thing obviously in his own songs. You saw that one Scorsese documentary, right the Rolling Thunder review I was on Netflix went up in twenty nineteen. I'm a big

fan of that movie. One of the great things about that movie is that it uses a lot of footage from a movie that Bob Dylan directed called Ronaldo and Clara that came out in eight and like you can't find it anywhere because I don't know if like Bob Dylan's embarrassed by this movie. I mean, it was really panned. It was like a four hour movie. There were like

concert clips in that. But there's also like like an improvised story in it, and like it's basically about Dylan, Sarah and Joan or like the three main characters in it. Like I own a bootle copy of Ronaldo and Clara and I've never gotten through it because it's like really slow and impenetrable. I mean my copy also looks pretty bad. Like have you seen Ronaldo and Clara at all? I I tried to watch some of it, and I I

it was unwatchable for me. I just couldn't like I found like a really scratchy maybe it was the same copy of yours on online, and yeah, it just was too I mean, and he directed that, right, Yeah, he directed it, and like it's pretty pretentious, it's pretty hard to watch, but like there's a lot of great footage that was shot during that time, and Scorsese was able to take a lot of that footage and turn it into like his own sort of wacky meta movie that

came out in And for me, like the most riveting scene in that movie is between Bob Dylan and Joan Bias. And I don't know if you remember this scene, but like they're talking about their relationship in the past, and it's not clear. I mean, for one thing, I'm sure that this scene is staged, because there's no way that the camera just happened to come upon Dylan and Joan

having this intimate conversation. I think there's like actually two cameras like shooting both of them, so it's obviously staged, but it seems like it's also based on some truth when you watch it, Like, I don't know if you have a read on this at all. I mean, there's the dialogue in the scene is incredible like he says, you got married without telling me, and then she says you got married without telling me? And then Dylan says, I married the woman I love, and then Jones says

I married the man I thought I loved. And then there's like a really long pause and I'm like and then he goes full Dylan. That's when he does it like you thought, you see the thought that's why I'll mess you up. Yeah, he says that thought will mess you up. But like and he kind of like digs into a little bit. But like when I watched that scene, I was like, are they going to start boning here? Like it is like electric when you watch it and they're giving each other these like sort of like googly

I you know, come hither looks. It's like pretty steamy in the in the Steedy and Lindsay analogy, this is silver Springs on the on the dance, This is the but like with more affection. I feel like silver Springs is like hatred. I don't feel hatred here. I feel like, are we getting it on here? Do we want to get it on? It's like should we get these camera crew rut of here so we can have sex like

on this bar right now. I mean, that's the vibe I get from that scene, and it feels like that electricity really bounced through like a lot of the performances that they had together on that tour, like their duets are like really sexy and like really playful and fun. Oh there's that great one in I think it was in Boston in November seventy when Joan and Bob are up there the mic they're about to do I Shall Be Released, and someone in the crowd screams, what a

lovely couple, and Bob just wants wants to die. He wants to disappear into the floorboards. He doesn't respond to the fan, he can't look at Joan or the crowd. He just wants to disappear. Jones saves the day by just laughing, don't make myths, couple a couple of what, and she puts her hand on Don's neck and they start to do this incredible version I Shall Be Released.

It's beautiful. But then there's this weird thing that happens where there's the song oh Sister that Bob Dylan writes for the album Desire, And I mean, isn't there like a thing like where Joan Bias thought that that was about her, Like there's a line in there where he says, oh sister, when I come to line in your arms, you should not treat me like a stranger or sister? Am I not a brother to you? In one deserving

of affection? This idea that like he maybe turned to her at a time of need, and she like turned him away, and she kind of took it like did she take it that way? And then she wrote her own song in response to that, well, she wrote in response to his song, oh Sister, she wrote, oh brother again, Yeah, oh sister, I always I always took to be at least about how she kind of rebuffed him when he called that nine in nine seventy four, and she she turned around and wrote with domes and rust, Oh brother,

um is very to the point. This is on is golf wins and it's not oh brother in the biblical sense like oh Sister was very biblical. This is like in the Peanuts gang, like, oh brother, this guy again, Uh great lines You've done dirt to lifelong friends with little or no excuses. Who endowed you with the crown to hand out these abuses? Your lady knows about these things, but they don't put her under me. I know about them too, and I react like thunder, I don't know.

There you go, there you go. And then there's that line like where she says, uh, because when you hurl that bowie knife, it's going to be when my back turned doing some little deed for you and baby while I get burned. So again this idea that like, oh, Bobby, you're like a shitty friend essentially, And it seems like that was the state of the relationship for like a long time, that they were had this sort of icy

standoffice thing. And again, if we want to speculate on like you know, was this driven in a way by like a second breakup in the mid seventies, It seems like that's never been fully spelled out, like if they actually hooked up again, or if there was just this weird sexual tension that was never acted upon. But because she only had good memories of the of the Rolling Thundertour, right she said, at least for like the first year, she said it was great, So yeah, yeah, it seems

it was positive. But then like in the aftermath, like there was a long chilly period between both of them and one story I love and it's a very creepy story, but it's from because there was this tour that Bob Dylan was doing in Europe with Santana, and Joan Bias joined this tour, and I think her belief at the time was that this was going to be essentially like a three bill co headlining tour, where in reality she

was being brought on as an opening act essentially. So once Joan Bayaz realized that she was very unhappy, and she writes about this in her memoir in a Voice to Sing, and she tells the story about how I hate the story so much. There was it was kind of a repeat of what happened like twenty years earlier, like when you know, she was hoping that like Bob would bring her up to sing together, and like I think he did a couple of times, but for the

most part not really. You know, he was doing his own thing and they're playing these stadiums and it's not really a great situation for Joan baias, so like she finally decides that she's going to quit and she goes backstage to say goodbye to Bob, and Bob, I guess he's just like looking disheveled and sweaty and not in good shape. And I'm you know, I think it's pretty well documented that at this time Bob Dylan, you know,

was I think drinking a lot. I think he's probably taking a lot of drugs at this time, Like he was not in good shape. This is like about four years before he went on the Never Ending Tour and like really started to kind of clean himself up and pull himself together and and become the artist that he's been like in the last thirty years. I mean, this was like a low point for Bob Dylan. And Joan

is like, I'm I'm taking off Bob. And she's wearing a skirt and Bob Dylan like puts his hand up her skirt like and rub it, just like brings his hand up her leg, up her thigh, and he says, like, hey, you you have great legs, Like how why are your

legs so good? She's like, because I rehearse, Bob, I stand up a lot when I rehearse, and like she takes his hand and puts it on his chest and I think kisses him on his like sweaty bloated forehead and leaves the oh Man it seems like for like the next like say, maybe even like twenty five years after that, it's like it's pretty cold between them. Oh yeah, I mean she she tells the story in her memoir in n and Uh. I guess someone asked her about, like,

you know, did Bob respond to this story in your book? Because, I mean the book it paints a sort of warts and all portrait of Bob. I mean, it's not very flattering, but obviously she she pays tribute to his incredible artistry, but it's not the most flattering thing in the world. And she told the interviewer, Yeah, no, I never heard from about that, but you know what, what that's to be expected. I put out two full covers albums of his songs and he never responded to those either, so

you know, go figure. Um. My favorite part of the book is when she says that he wrote Masters of War as a cash grab. According to her, Bob said, you know, when I dropped dead, people are going to interpret the ship out of my songs. They're gonna interpret every comma. They don't know what the songs mean. Ship, I don't know what they mean. So very looks the veil on the whole Dylan mythology, I think in her memoir, Yeah,

I don't doubt that he said that. I feel like he has said as much in interviews over the years that he is very a verse to like analyzing his own work, and he'll let other people do that. But I think he's very reluctant to like say what his song is mean, or to like put any kind of importance on them, although at the same time, he's not a humble person either, like he will talk about how great of a songwriter he is and how there's no

one better than him. So it is this combination of like not wanting to help out anyone who wants to understand his songs, but also feeling like that like, yeah, I'm the ship. I'm the ship, but you don't understand it and I don't understand it and it doesn't matter. Um. I do think that, Like one of the things that has come out of all the documentaries that have been made about Bob Dylan has been like Bob and Jon

being able to communicate to each other, like through those movies. Um. Like I think about In No Direction Home, where I feel like there's a lot of of affection that they express for each other. You know, they're never on screen at the same time. But um, there's that thing I said before about how Bob Dylan's trying to plane way why he acted the way he did, like on that tour, and he doesn't say like I'm sorry in that movie, but I think it's it's heavily suggested that he feels

bad for what happened. And he has that line that I mentioned before about how he says, you know, it's hard to be wise and in love at the same time. And then Joan for her, you know, on on her side, I feel like she speaks more eloquently than anyone about like why Bob Dylan is a great artist, and she has a great line about how, you know, there's people in the world who don't care about Bob Dylan at all,

and they hear are songs and they don't care. And she says, but if you are interested, you know, no one reaches down deeper than Bob Dylan. And I always think about that because I think that's so true, and I think it's spoken by someone who did have this personal relationship with Bob Dylan, but also at the end of the day, is like one of his biggest fans, you know, like she can articulate that point of view

because she's like the rest of us who love his work. Um, and as close as she got to him and got to know him, you know, he's as much of a mystery to her in many ways as he is to the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, I always liked the thought that until she stopped touring in and she sang something like half a dozen dealon songs and concert and she would introduce Diamonds and Russ by describing Bob as by far the most talented and crazy person I've

ever worked with, which is it's beautiful. You know, there was an interview she gave recently where she said she was she was painting one day and put Bob's at one of Bob's albums on and just started crying and just said, you know, good lord, I know this guy. I got to sing with this guy. And so at that moment, any of like the bullshit between the two just sort of evaporated. And you know, as you said earlier, there was really the end of the day, everything is forgiven.

When I see Bobby sing, I think that's probably the most perfect absolption that she could give for him. See and again, like, it's so nice to me that with all the ups and downs that in this version of the Stars Born story, uh none like hanging themselves, you know, it's like spoiler, it seems like they came to some moment of reconciliation, which is really great. We're gonna take a quick break and get a word from our sponsor

before we get to more rivals. So this is the part of the episode where we talk about the pro sides for each part of the rivalry and with Joan Bayaz, I think you and I have both said this before now, but like on a personal level, it seems like she was a very decent person to Bob. She genuinely loved him, genuinely admired his his talent, and at a moment in her career where she was a huge star, she worked

really hard to give this guy a platform. And I mean, I think maybe Bob Dylan want to become a star anyway even without her, But I don't think there's any question that like she expedited his his rise to start them and like he wouldn't have the rear that he did in the sixties without her. Oh yeah, I mean

It's really fascinating. I think what would have happened if he would would have been just like, you know, another Dave van Ronk or something like that, if it hadn't been for her, who was such a major start to to give him this massive audience. I do feel very sad, and I understand why it happens that any profile of Joane will inevitably include a reference to Dylan. But I don't think the inverse is ever true, even though she had a much bigger impact on his career than he

did on hers. And I mean chalk it up to just he's gargantean role in popular culture, sexism, her own frankness on the subject of lyrics and interviews. Whenever she was singing about him, she kind of let you know it all the above. I don't know, but that always that always kind of stuck in my crawl a little bit. Yeah,

I mean, I think it's Bob Dylan, you know. I think that there are so many people that are in his orbit that just gets sucked in, you know, even like you know, we talked about the band in a

previous episode. I don't think the band would have the statue that they have if they hadn't been associated with Bob Dylan, you know, like they put out great records on their own, but like their legend before Music from Big Pink was created in launch part because they were the backing band for Bob Dylan on that historic nineteen sixty six tour, and that they were the band that made the basement tapes with him, like which I guess at that time would have been known as the Great

White Wonder the bootleg recordings. But like just being in his orbit, especially at that time in the sixties, it just is going to overwhelm anyone who's next to it.

I will say that I think that Joan Baia's ultimately does benefit from her association with Bob Dylan, you know, as much as we talked about how she helped him at a pivotal point in his career, I think it's also fair to say that, like a lot of the interest that people have today in Joan Baias is due to the fact that she did have this association with Bob Dylan at a very momentous time in music history

and cultural history. I think without that, you know, we might think of Joan Baias more like Judy Collins or like a Buffy St. Marie, like other female folk singers of the sixties who are really great, but they don't have the same I think name recognition that Joan Bias has not just because she was associated with Dylan, but

also because she was so strong. She's such a strong foil and gave it back to him, like especially after the fact in her songs and in documentaries and again, like she's like my favorite person to see talk about Bob Dylan. I mean, she's so articulate about it. She's also like really candid, like she she doesn't just blindly revere him, like she will take him down to peg in a very sort of smart and I think justified way. So yeah, I think that association has definitely helped her

over the years. When we go to the pro Bob Dylan side, I mean, is this like I mean, look, I think we both have made clear that like he was a jerk in n and like you can watch Don't Look Back, and it's pretty clear that he's acting like a jerk in that movie. But then you as you're that against just the weight of everything he's created.

If he had retired after Blonde on Blonde, you know that the mythical motorcycle accident that he had that forced him to go into hiding because essentially his life had gotten too crazy at that point he had to find a way to save himself. If he had just retired, then he would he would be a legend, like if it was just about like those first seven or so albums, and yet he has gone on to create music for

like fifty years after that. Can you imagine I mean, having that musical legacy plus the Sid Barrett level mystique. Oh my god. Right, And I kind of go back to that like with him and Joan Bias, where again I feel like I'm carrying water for Bob Dylan being a bad boyfriends here. I don't mean to do that again. I feel like he was in the wrong, and I

feel bad for Joan Bias at that time. But I will say that it's unimaginable to me what it was like to be Bob Dylan in you know, what would have out have been like like what does that do to your health? I mean, And it's kind of amazing that he lived at all. Yeah, you know, because I think that the kind of attention that he had it just goes beyond normal pop stardom. It was like he was a pop star, but he was also like a messiah figure at the same time, like people thought that

he was actually going to save the world. You know, that he had to write political songs because like we needed them, Like people felt like they needed Bob Dylan to do certain things, uh, you know, to make the world a better place. I guess that's what people look at for Taylor Swift now, like we expect Taylor Swift to save the world by endorsing the right candidate. I guess she's like maybe she's the closest thing to that kind of level of like Bob Dylan mystique. Um, but

I don't know. I mean, you really can't compare anyone to Bob Dylan, I think at that time. And you see how infuriating it must for Jon who you know, literally is out there getting arrested and on the front lines down to Mississippi trying to make a difference. And you can see, you know, you can understand a frustration for like, you know, why is everyone looking to him. I'm the one who actually knows what's happening, and he's

out there, she was saying interviews. You know, I don't think Bob ever want to him march by himself in his life. You know, that wasn't that wasn't who he was. So you can totally understand not only just why should be piste off of him for all the personal stuff, but just you know, what does this guy know I'm the one who's actually out there talking about this stuff

on the front line. So yeah, well there's there's that great line that she has in No Direction home, where she's like, whenever I go to a be in or a sit in or a loan or a jail in, people always ask me, is Bob coming? And She's like, no, you ever gonna come. He's never gonna come. Why would he come to this random event, like he's never you know, Yeah, he was there with Martin Luther King in nine three because I dragged him and he's like, all right, I did it. You know. It's like, if you're I was

with MLK, nothing's going to top that. So you know, I'm gonna go instead, you know, totally reinvent rock music and changed the course of human history. That that's women to do. You guys can go to your protest. I'm gonna change an art form for the better. So when we look at these two together, I feel like, again for me, what I love about it is I still look at as a great love story. You know, even though they didn't end up together, and even though they

weren't really together that long. I go back to the Stars Born analogy, you know, like there's something really attractive to I think all of us about a story where you have a really famous person and a less famous person and they fall in love, but then there's this weird career dynamic that ends up getting in the way, you know, and that movie has been remade four times, you know, so people obviously are attracted to it. And there's that sort of classic quality to the Bob Dylan

and Joan Baia's story too. I hope they do one final do it, because I don't think they've sang together since that eighty four tour. I hope they do one more time, something, something huge, maybe the next inauguration. Who knows, well, love is just a four little word, as they say Jordan's and Bob, I feel like we'd have other four little words in response to that, But who knows? Who knows? Never say never, and it would be amazing to see. But maybe it's also more fun to think about it

than it would be to actually see it. You never know, but if that happens, we'll record an emergency Rivals follow up episode and break it down for all of you. Until then, thank you all all of you for listening to this episode of Rivals, and we will be back with more beefs and feuds and long simmering resentments next week. Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Tytone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers

are Taylor Chi Cooin and Tristan McNeil. The producers Joel Hatstat, I'm Jordan's run Talk. I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.