How Joan Baez Got Over Her Resentment for Bob Dylan

Joan Baez said her lingering resentment for Bob Dylan ”just drained away” as she painted a portrait of him.

The two singer-songwriters became a couple in the ’60s and worked together on a wide range of projects before and after their romantic relationship. In a new interview with Variety, Baez spoke about how Dylan retained a strong presence in her new documentary, Joan Baez: I Am a Noise, in which she admits he broke her heart.

Asked if she remained in contact with Dylan, Baez said, “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.”

She said she then wrote to Dylan to explain 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.”

Baez last toured in 2018, and she said she doubts she’ll ever return to the road. “I was thinking about that the other day, because I have my lovely big guitar hanging on the wall,” she told Variety. “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.”

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on Friday and will make its U.S. debut at SXSW on March 10.