Boots of Spanish Leather: One song, two voices.
A glimpse at Bob Dylan and Joan Baez’s relationship through the analysis of a The Times They Are A-Changin’ hit.
photo by WBUR, Flickr.
Like many other bored winter-breakers, I found myself at the movies this December watching “A Complete Unknown.” Did I think it was a good biopic? Not really. Did I think it was an entertaining movie with sick music? For sure. I’ll leave these things up for debate, but one way that “A Complete Unknown” undoubtedly succeeded was by reinvigorating my love for Bob Dylan. That was to be expected. More surprisingly, though, is the fact that the movie sparked an absolute infatuation with someone new: Joan Baez. How this activist with haunting vocals, wicked style, and a whole lot of wit and charisma flew under my radar is beyond me. As the film recounts, Baez was a driving factor in Dylan’s rise to fame, lending her timeless vocals to many of his songs and touring with him at music festivals across the world. But their relationship transcended that of musical partnership.
After meeting in 1961, the two young musicians became infatuated with one another. Of Baez, Dylan said, “She had that heart-stopping soprano voice, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind” (Far Out Magazine). Baez invited Dylan to open for her on her first tour, and in the following years, the pair began singing duets. Thanks to Dylan’s knack for songwriting, Baez started cranking out covers, elevating both of their careers. A deep musical bond formed between the pair. Despite Dylan’s romantic involvement with Suze Rotolo, Baez and Dylan delved into the romantic as well. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that this love was not without its trials. As Dylan’s career catapulted to success, Baez says she got “lost in the shuffle” (Far Out Magazine). By the time 1965 rolled around, their relationship, allegedly ravaged by cheating and secrecy (...on Dylan’s end), had come to a bitter end. In 1975, Baez famously released “Diamonds & Rust,” detailing her painful yet beautiful relationship with the folk legend.
After watching “A Complete Unknown” and having my eyes opened to the incredible talent and inspiring woman that is Joan Baez, I took to listening to her music. A lot. Almost exclusively, actually. “Baez Sings Dylan,” a compilation album of some of Baez’s best Bob Dylan covers, had me in a chokehold for months. Hearing her incredibly controlled, self-assured, lilting voice give life to melodies written by her famously flippant partner-slash-lover was tantalizing. How did Joan feel when she sang these words which she knew were his? Where was she in the course of their relationship when she sang them? Were they written for her? Or about her? Or about another woman? These thoughts consumed my mind, and one song in particular gripped me most: “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
A story of lovers parting ways and attempting, with varying degrees of commitment, to stay connected as one sails away from the other, “Boots of Spanish Leather” was released by Dylan as part of his 1964 album, The Times They Are A-Changin’. But, it wasn’t Dylan’s own performance of the song that first caught my attention. For weeks after discovering “Baez Sings Dylan,” I was captivated by Baez’s absolute resolve and clarity in her rendition of the song. As she sang of parting ways with her lover and charting a path for herself abroad, it struck me as an anthem of commitment to oneself despite one’s love for another. One verse goes,
Oh, I got a letter on a lonesome day
It was from her ship a-sailin’
Sayin’, “I don't know when I'll be comin' back again
It depends on how I'm feelin’”
With utter conviction, Baez declares her independence. It’s not that she doesn’t love her partner. I believe the confidence in her voice is meant to comfort her and her lover alike. But she knows the path she’s taking is her own, and it must come before her relationship. There is a shadow of sadness in her voice, yet this sentiment shines through regardless. When asked when she will return from overseas, Baez gives a simple answer: “It depends on how I’m feelin’.”
As I said, Baez’s cover occupied me for quite some time. But Dylan, an artist I’ve loved since long before watching his biopic, still got a fair bit of airtime in my daily listening. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling through some of his albums and decided to listen to The Times They Are A-Changin’ all the way through. Evidently, it was the first time I had done this. Because when I heard that opening refrain, “Oh I’m sailing away/my own true love,” I was absolutely shocked. I had never once heard Dylan’s version of this song.
So profoundly different from Baez’s version, the song struck me with a deep, wistful feeling. The story Dylan tells, although using the exact same words, is profoundly dissimilar to Baez’s. Slow and somber, Dylan’s version emphasized lines I had never paid much attention to.
No, there's nothin' you can send me, my own true love
There's nothin' I'm a-wishing to be ownin'
Just a-carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean
While I heard Baez as the one who sailed away, it was impossible to hear Dylan’s interpretation as anything other than the one left behind. Without resolve or confidence, I heard Dylan clinging to the loss within it all. He wasn’t looking at the lover’s journey as one of independence or individuality. He looked at it completely with respect to their union and the fact that it was inevitably breaking.
But if I had the stars of the darkest night
And the diamonds from the deepest ocean
I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss
For that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'
To my ear, when Baez mentions the boots, the false totem of her commitment to love, she does so with a sense of finality. She knows that the boots her lover requests are not what he truly wants from her. But perhaps they are beyond the point of reconciliation. Dylan, on the other hand, accepts the boots with a sense of regret. If he cannot have her, he supposed he’ll take the boots. Not with confidence, nor assurance, nor an acceptance of his new independence. And certainly not acceptance of his lover’s choice. But with regret. Where Baez sings of practicality and commitment to her path, Dylan sounds displeased and wistful. Baez accepts the departure, while Dylan appears more directly to be mourning.
The difference in sentiments brought out through “Boots of Spanish Leather” seems to echo the ways that Baez and Dylan speak of their relationship and its eventual demise. Baez has said of Dylan, “I may never see him again, and that’s okay too” (Variety). That seems to sum things up for her in the way that “Boots of Spanish Leather” does. It’s as if to say the choice has been made, and whether or not it is a comfortable choice, it is Baez’s choice. Of course, one must keep in mind that we do not know what specifically has led Baez, the lover, away on her journey. In connection to Baez and Dylans’ actual relationship, one can speculate that Baez gained her sense of resolve and independence not automatically but by being confronted with the fact that their union was star-crossed. Dylan says, “Joan Baez is as tough-minded as they come. A truly independent spirit, nobody can tell her what to do if she doesn’t want to do it. I learnt a lot of things from her. For her kind of love and devotion I could never repay that back” (Far Out Magazine). In this quote, as in his rendition, I see appreciative mourning and, as he cannot repay her, a bit of regret for how things have ended up.
Thank you for following me on this speculative journey. Ultimately, “Boots of Spanish Leather” is one song with one set of lyrics. But, two distinct voices have given it two distinct lives, and maybe these lives give some insight into the way these voices shared one life, if only for a short time.
edited by Madison Esrey.
photo by WBUR, Flickr.
